Judge Rules U.S. May Continue to Hold Guantanamo Detainee

A federal judge has ruled that the government may continue to detain a 40-year-old Tunisian at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a nine-page decision issued yesterday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon found that the government had produced enough evidence to show that Hedi Hammamy had supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or their associated forces. Hammamy was challenging his detention in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court under the centuries-old legal doctrine of habeas corpus.

The government alleged that Hammamy fought with Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. And, they alleged, he was a member of an Italy-based terror cell that provided support to Islamic fundamentalists. Hammamy was arrested by authorities in Pakistan in April 2002 and turned over to the United States.

The government produced reports that showed Hammamy's identification papers were found at Tora Bora after a battle with U.S. and allied forces, Leon wrote. The government also produced reports that described an "extensive" Italian law enforcement investigation of Hammamy's membership in the terror cell, Leon wrote.

Leon said that evidence was enough to justify Hammamy's detention. The detainee's attorneys had argued that he was not a member of the terror cell. They also said that the detainee lost his identity papers shortly after his arrival in Pakistan. But Leon wrote that those arguments "ring hollow at best."

Hammamy "provides no basis to account for how his identity papers somehow mysteriously traveled the hundreds of miles from the point of their theft in Pakistan to the highly secluded mountain hideaway of Tora Bora," Leon wrote in denying his challenge to his confinement.

Two federal judges have ordered the release of seven detainees and ruled the government may continue to detain five others. A third federal judge ordered the release of 17 Chinese Muslims at Guantanamo Bay after the government did not present any evidence to justify their confinement.