| Lawyers for 13 detainees at guantamo bay challenge detentions { July 3 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/politics/03detain.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/politics/03detain.html
July 3, 2004 U.S. Allows Lawyers to Meet Detainees By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON, July 2 - Lawyers for the 13 detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, whose victory at the Supreme Court gave them the right to challenge the detentions in federal court said on Friday that the Bush administration had agreed to let them travel within days to meet their clients at the naval base there.
The visits, the first by civilian lawyers to Guantánamo to visit detainees who have not been charged with any crime, would be a preliminary step to early court hearings in which the lawyers could exercise their new authority to challenge the detentions. The agreement on the visits was reached on Friday in a conference call among the detainees' lawyers, Justice Department lawyers and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington, who is supervising the case, said Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer here.
Mr. Wilner, who represents the 12 Kuwaitis who won the right to federal court review, said, "I'm pleased that at long last the government is beginning to act reasonably."
He added that the government had also agreed to an early visit by a lawyer for the 13th prisoner, an Australian who was involved in successfully challenging the administration's contention that Guantánamo was outside the reach of United States law.
Also on Friday, a civil liberties group in New York filed a separate set of petitions with the federal court seeking early hearings on whether eight prisoners at Guantánamo have been lawfully detained. The petitions, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents more than 50 of the estimated 595 detainees at Guantánamo, are widely expected to be just the beginning of a flood of new legal challenges to the detentions. They are classic habeas corpus petitions, in which federal judges are asked to examine the lawfulness of holding a person in custody.
It was the right to a habeas corpus hearing, a right dating back centuries in law, that the Supreme Court ruled could not be denied the detainees.
Administration officials have said they are exploring ways to modify a planned annual review of the detentions to see whether that could satisfy the court's ruling. But the filings on Friday and the agreement on early visits for the 13 prisoners demonstrated how the fate of the prisoners has in large measure passed from a unilateral province of the administration to the federal courts and the defense lawyers who suddenly have a forum to argue their cases.
Jeffrey E. Fogel, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that in addition to seeking quick access to his group's clients, he also wanted the court to inquire into the interrogation conditions.
"We hope to move ahead as quickly as possible," Mr. Fogel said.
Also on Friday, a lawyer representing Jose Padilla, an American being held as an unlawful enemy combatant in a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., filed a new habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court there. Mr. Padilla's lawyers had to start over with his court actions after the Supreme Court ruled this week that the lawyers had erred in filing his case in New York.
Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York for this article.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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