Judge Orders Release for 5 Gitmo Detainees

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the release of five Algerian terror suspects who have been held without charge for almost seven years at the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said Thursday that the five men could not be held indefinitely as enemy combatants.

The judge said the military can continue to detain a sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, who was captured with the other five.

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One of the men to be released is Lakhdar Boumediene, whose landmark Supreme Court case last summer gave the Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment.

The government had accused all six of the men of planning to travel to Afghanistan to join al-Qaida.

Their lawyers say there is no evidence the men ever would have ended up on a battlefield or posed any threat to the United States.

The government initially detained Boumediene and the other five men on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in October 2001. They were transferred to Guantanamo in January 2002.

The Justice Department has since backed off embassy bombing accusations but maintains the six men were caught and detained before they could join an international terrorist fight against the United States and its allies.

The Bush administration says it was right to be proactive against threats like those allegedly posed by the Algerians, especially in the months immediately after the terror attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.