kids at gitmo

US acknowledges it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo

By MIKE MELIA – 29 minutes ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The U.S. has revised its count of juveniles ever held at Guantanamo Bay to 12, up from the eight it reported in May to the United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday.

The government has provided a corrected report to the U.N. committee on child rights, according to Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. He said the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees taken to the isolated Navy base in southeast Cuba before turning 18.

"As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born," he said.

A study released last week by the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas concluded the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006.

"The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn't have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out," said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis.

Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws recognized by the United States.

Eight of the 12 juvenile detainees identified by the human rights center have been released, according to the study.

Two of the remaining detainees are scheduled to face war-crimes trials in January. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is about 24, faces attempted murder charges for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers.

The study identified the only other remaining juvenile as Muhammed Hamid al Qarani of Chad.

The Saudi who hanged himself with two other detainees in 2006, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, was 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo within days of the military prison opening in January 2002, according to the study.

About 250 prisoners remain at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

still strugglin...

Former Guantanamo prisoners still strugglin

By Jane Sutton – Wed Nov 12, 5:57 pm ET

MIAMI (Reuters) – Former Guantanamo prisoners released after years of
detention without charge went home to find themselves stigmatized and
shunned, viewed either as terrorists or U.S. spies, according to a
report released on Wednesday.
The report by human rights advocates urged U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama to form an independent, nonpartisan commission with
subpoena powers to investigate the treatment of U.S. detainees in
Afghanistan, Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Navy base in Cuba.
"We cannot sweep this dark chapter in our nation's history under
the rug by simply closing the Guantanamo prison camp," said study co-
author Eric Stover, director of the University of California at
Berkeley's Human Rights Center. "The new administration must
investigate what went wrong and who should be held accountable."
The authors at the center and at the Center for Constitutional
Rights interviewed 50 U.S. government officials, military experts and
former guards and interrogators, as well as 62 former Guantanamo
prisoners in nine nations.
Two-thirds of the former captives said they had psychological and
emotional problems, which the authors called consistent with being
held in extreme isolation for extended periods.
Only six had regular jobs, with many saying employers would not hire
anyone who had been held at Guantanamo.
"It doesn't matter that they cleared my name by releasing me. We
still have this big hat on our heads that we were terrorists," said a
Chinese Muslim former prisoner, one of eight who were settled in
Albania in 2006.
That group was still struggling to learn Albanian and had
abandoned hope of ever being reunited with their families, said the
report titled "Guantanamo and Its Aftermath."
NO MISTAKES
The United States has released 520 men from Guantanamo since it
opened the detention camp for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives
after the September 11 attacks. Currently about 250 are being held.
It has not publicly acknowledged that any were there by mistake,
although intelligence reports and a former camp commander had said as
early as September 2002 that one-third to one-half of the 600
captives there at the time had no connection to terrorism, the report
noted.
The most notorious prisoners who are accused of plotting the
September 11 attacks, the Bali nightclub bombings and attacks on U.S.
embassies in Africa were not taken to Guantanamo until 2006, when
they were transferred from secret CIA prisons.
Many of the former prisoners said they had lost their homes and
businesses or that their families had piled up debts in their absence
because there was no one to support them.
One returned to find his wife had divorced him and remarried, another
to learn his father had been murdered and his estranged wife had
taken their children and moved away.
"Two Afghan respondents said that rumors of sexual abuse at
Guantanamo had stigmatized them and made it difficult to find a
marriage partner. One of these was also accused of being an American
spy and as a result was fearful of becoming a Taliban target," the
report said.
'I AM NOT A BEAST'
Others said they had received death threats.
Those who fared best seemed to be Afghans from tightly knit
villages, where several said they were greeted when they came home
with celebrations that even some local police attended.
"When I'm walking on the streets and I meet some people, they usually
say to me, 'We're sorry for you...' Everyone knows that I'm innocent,
that I'm not involved in any political activities," the report quoted
an Afghan shepherd as saying.
Among the 55 freed captives who discussed their interrogations, 31
said they were abusive and 24 said they had no problems. The majority
held "distinctly negative views of the United States" but many said
that was directed at the U.S. government, not the American people.
One-third said they ended up in U.S. custody after being sold for
bounties. Many viewed their time at Guantanamo as a test of their
Muslim faith.
Others said they only wanted the American public to recognize that
they were innocent.
"I just want to tell them that I am not this savage beast, what they
were told I am," one said.
(Editing by Michael Christie and David Storey)

PEGC Update

2008.08.09 - PEGC Update
==========================

1) OBAMA WINS

CNN --

November 4, 2008
OBAMA'S VICTORY SPEECH

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/


2) THE DETAINEE CASES

There's quite a bit going on these days; for the details, see the outstanding reports by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog linked below.

But now the election has created a very interesting situation. In two months, the government's view of the law in these cases is going to change, and change a lot. The question is how much and how soon, and it's clear that DOJ is a mess that will require major house cleaning of both personnel and legal policy. It will be very interesting to see how the new administration deals with it.

Then there's DoD, and all I'm going to say about that is that I think it would be a VERY bad idea to keep Gates as Secretary of Defense -- DoD is almost as rotten as DOJ is.


SCOTUSBlog --

November 7, 2008
US DEFENDS INDEFINITE DETENTION POWER
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/us-defends-indefinite-detention-power/

November 6, 2008
RULES SET FOR 113 DETAINEE CASES
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/rules-set-for-113-detainee-cases/

November 5, 2008
SHOWDOWN OVER DTA'S FUTURE
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/showdown-over-dtas-future/

November 4, 2008
CIRCUIT COURT: DTA PROCESS IS PROBABLY DEAD
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/circuit-court-dta-process-is-probably-dead/


D.C. CIrcuit --

November 4, 2008

BASARDH (ISN 252) v. GATES, No. 07-1192

On Motion to Hold Case in Abeyance or,
in the alternative, Dismiss Without Prejudice

Before: HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200811/07-1192-1147407.pdf




3) THE ELECTION RESULTS

From various sources...

* PRESIDENT / POPULAR VOTE (Associated Press)

Barack Obama (Democratic) - 65,431,955 (52.6%)

John McCain (Republican) - 57,434,084 (46.1%)

Ralph Nader (none) - 679,149 (00.5%)

Bob Barr (Libertarian) - 499,912 (00.4%)

Chuck Baldwin (Constitution) - 180,780 (00.1%)

Cynthia McKinney (Green) - 146,539 (00.1%)

[ 2004 - Bush 62,040,610 (50.7%), Kerry 59,028,444 (48.3%) ]

[ 2000 - Gore 50,999,897 (48.4%), Bush 50,456,002 (47.9%) ]


* PRESIDENT / ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Obama 365 (67.8%), McCain 173 (32.2%)

Those numbers assume that McCain's lead in Missouri holds up and Obama wins the
electoral vote for the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska.


* US SENATE

Democrats 55, Republicans 40, Independents 2, PENDING 3


* US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Democrats 255, Republicans 174, PENDING 6


* STATE GOVERNORS

Democrats 29, Republicans 21


* STATE LEGISLATURES

Democratic Control - 27

Republican Control - 15 (includes Nebraska, which is formally non-partisan)

Split Control - 8


Congressional Quarterly --

November 7, 2008
SOME HOUSE AND SENATE SEATS MAY TAKE WEEKS TO RESOLVE

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=2&docID=news-000002983927


Politico --

November 8, 2008
THAT HUGE VOTER TURNOUT? DIDN'T HAPPEN
By David Paul Kuhn

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15422.html


FiveThirtyEight.com --

November 9, 2008
2010 SENATE RANKINGS, PART I: RACES #21-#35
by Nate Silver

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/2010-senate-rankings-part-i-races-21-35.html



X) OP ED

Harper's --

November 9, 2008
SCHILLER - FREEDOM'S HYMN
by Scott Horton

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/11/hbc-90003825


San Francisco Chronicle --

November 7, 2008
ELECTION DAY REPORT
by Jon Carroll

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/07/DDLS13UPS0.DTL


JURIST --

October 23, 2008
THE CASE AGAINST A NATIONAL SECURITY COURT
by Jordan Paust

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/10/case-against-national-security-court.php


Mark R. Shulman, THE FOUR FREEDOMS: GOOD NEIGHBORS MAKE GOOD LAW AND GOOD POLICY IN A TIME OF INSECURITY, Pace University School of Law.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1287160

* * *


PROJECT TO ENFORCE THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS (PEGC)
http://www.pegc.us

PEGC Blog
http://pegc.blogspot.com/


Charles B. Gittings Jr.
Fort Bragg, California

cbgittingsyahoo.com

+1-707-964-2151

boycott at trial

2nd prisoner and lawyer boycott Guantanamo trial
October 27, 2008 2:02 PM EDT
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A military judge struggled to begin Guantanamo's second war crimes trial on Monday after a former aide to Osama bin Laden refused to participate, and his Pentagon-appointed lawyer said he would remain silent in solidarity.

Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, facing a possible life sentence, sat mutely at the defense table. His lawyer announced the prisoner was boycotting the trial because he did not want a military attorney and because the judge had denied his repeated requests to represent himself.

The appointed defense attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, asked to be relieved in deference to his client's wishes, but the judge refused. Frakt then said he could not participate either.

"I will be joining Mr. Al-Bahlul's boycott, sitting silently at the table," said Frakt, who then refused to respond to several questions from the judge.

The judge, Air Force Col. Ronald Gregory, said Frakt was obligated to participate and that both the lawyer and defendant, despite their wishes, would be required to attend the hearings - even if they stay silent.

"The commission will not proceed with an empty defense table," Gregory said.

He was scheduled to begin picking a jury of U.S. military officers later Monday.

Al-Bahlul, who is charged with conspiracy, supporting terrorism and solicitation to commit murder, is the second test of the military commission system. The first trial - for former bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan - ended in August with a conviction and a 5 1/2-year sentence. A third detainee, Australian David Hicks, was convicted in a plea bargain before a trial.

Al-Bahlul said at a previous pretrial hearing that he wanted nothing to do with his trial and would attend only for the announcement of the verdict and sentence. He called the proceedings at this isolated U.S. Navy base a "legal farce."

The 39-year-old from Yemen allegedly created a recruiting video for al-Qaida glorifying its attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 American sailors in October 2000. He is also accused of arranging for lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta to swear a loyalty oath to bin Laden.

Al-Bahlul, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2002, has acknowledged working for bin Laden but said he does not agree his actions constitute crimes.

The U.S. military says it plans trials for 80 of the roughly 255 men held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. Eighteen prisoners are currently facing charges.

From New York Times

Release of 17 Guantánamo Detainees Sputters as Officials Debate the Risk

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: October 15, 2008

An urgent effort by the Bush administration to find a country willing to accept 17 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has stalled because of a bitter dispute inside the government about whether the men are dangerous.

The administration stepped up its search for a new home for the detainees, members of the Uighur Muslim minority in western China, after a federal judge ordered them to be released inside the United States a week ago.

But because of the dispute within the administration, an American ambassador canceled a trip for international negotiations about the fate of the 17 men that had been scheduled to begin Monday.

People briefed on the issue said that the State Department, which is charged with trying to resettle Guantánamo detainees by coaxing other countries to accept them, argued that the Justice Department compromised diplomatic efforts with a court filing Friday that asserted that the Uighurs should not be released inside the United States. The filing described them as “a danger to the public” and as men who had been trained in insurrection.

“Based on what they were saying in the brief, it made it impossible to conduct negotiations,” said an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to discuss the dispute.

The State Department has often been at odds with the Justice Department and the Pentagon over detainee issues, at times arguing that those agencies do not take sufficient account of Guantánamo’s impact on international relations.

The Uighur detainees have been at the center of a contentious legal confrontation that drew wide attention with a ruling from Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, on Oct. 7, directing that they be freed in Washington, D.C. The ruling that the men were not a danger to the United States was a defeat for the White House and was the first to order the freeing of Guantánamo detainees.

After an emergency filing by the Justice Department the next day, an appeals court temporarily stayed the ruling while it considered whether to grant a longer stay.

Clint Williamson, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues who conducts Guantánamo resettlement talks with other countries, confirmed that he had changed his plans.

“I was scheduled to depart on another round of negotiations early this week,” Mr. Williamson said. “It was impossible to resolve some concerns we had about going forward at the time. As a result I canceled the trip.” He declined to say where he had planned to travel.

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, declined to discuss the dispute, saying, “We don’t comment on internal deliberations.”

The temporary stay of Judge Urbina’s ruling had given provided time for renewed diplomatic efforts to resettle the men and to avoid a potential conflict between the judge and the administration.

The appeals court could rule as soon as Friday about whether it will extend the stay on Judge Urbina’s ruling or return the case to him. The State Department had been under great pressure inside the administration to find a country willing to accept the Uighurs.

Lawyers for the Uighurs, who were in Afghanistan in 2001, said the men would be persecuted if they were returned to China. The administration agreed that it would not send them there. But it said that since transferring 5 Uighur detainees to Albania in 2006, it had been unable to persuade governments to accept the other 17.

Diplomats say that many governments fear reprisal by China, which considers Uighur separatist groups terrorists.

Lawyers for the men have said that the Justice Department exaggerated its claims against the men in its legal arguments.

The people who have been briefed on the dispute said that the State Department also regarded the language describing the men as inflammatory and impossible to prove.

They said the department viewed efforts to find a country willing to accept the detainees as futile as long as the Justice Department argued that the men were too dangerous to be admitted into the United States.

The Uighur case has become a focus of many critics of the Guantánamo detention center. Jennifer Daskal, a counterterrorism specialist at Human Rights Watch, said that some administration officials appeared determined to block their release.

“The true fear,” Ms. Daskal said, “is not that they will pose a security threat, but that they will serve as living reminders of the administration’s mistakes in setting up Guantánamo.”

FROM ROGER FITCH AND OUR FRIENDS DOWN UNDER

Roger Fitch Esq • October 8, 2008

Our Man in Washington

Not only is the economy unravelling at a rapid rate, but so too the well laid extraordinary legal regime of the Bush administration. All that remains are a few well worn Republican dirty tricks to rort the ballot

In a manoeuvre emblematic of George Bush’s lawless approach to law enforcement, military commission charges have been referred against a Tanzanian, Ahmed Ghailani, for civil offences.

As the Miami Herald noted, there’s a valid indictment against Ghailani in US District Court in New York for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Tanzania (see my post of June 2), but the Bush administration prefers a military commission.

No doubt, it’s because the Pentagon intends to use evidence tortured from Ghailani or others.

Commissions, with their triple hearsay, suspension of due process, and jurors from a panel picked by the Convening Authority – Dick Cheney’s mate Susan Crawford – have much to commend them.

The alternative? The Federal Rules of Evidence and the US Constitution.

Diverting civil crimes to special military courts of doubtful legality and jurisdiction was also a favourite tactic of Adolf Hitler. Unlike Herr Hitler, Mr Bush enjoys an independent media that never questions the Leader’s good faith or credits him with ill motives.

However, there has been one important breakthrough. Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina has just released 17 Chinese Muslim detainees, or Uighurs, who have been held at Guantánamo in a state of limbo for seven years.

Not only that, the judge has ordered their release into the USA.

Needless to say, the administration is seeking a stay pending an appeal.

* * *

Even with military commissions, there could be problems for the US.

For instance, the professional association of the American psychologists has just sent a letter to the White House explaining why its members can no longer assist with detentions and interrogations.

It seems as though procuring raw material for Bush show trials could be more difficult in future.

A new legal opinion concluded that UK soldiers might face prosecution for handing over Iraqi prisoners to the Americans, where the detainees face mistreatment.

The Guardian has more.

The Canadians are also getting restless.

The Canadian Bar Association is seeking the release of the military commission defendant Omar Khadr, and Canada’s Governor General, Michaëlle Jean (pic), is said to have also intervened.

There’s a new piece on Khadr in the Canadian online magazine Briarpatch.

All the while, extrajudicial trials for unknown war crimes continue to be set in motion at Guantánamo.

Former Chief Prosecutor Col. Morris Davis puts them in perspective in a new law review article on the history of military commissions.

Significantly, another Pentagon prosecutor has quit. He’s Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, lead prosecutor in the military commission of Mohammad Jawad.

Jawad, like Khadr, was captured when a juvenile and charged with throwing a grenade at US soldiers.

As in Khadr’s case, there’s conflicting evidence that the grenade was thrown by the defendant, with the Pentagon busily blocking defence counsel’s access to possibly exculpatory evidence.

When Col. Vandeveld made known his qualms about failing to provide such evidence to the defence, he was accused by the Chief Prosecutor of, well, fraternising with the enemy, namely Jawad’s military counsel Major David Frakt.

Col. Vandeveld reports that he was compelled to have a psychiatric assessment after his ethics outburst.

There are worse things, however, than a lawyer being sent to a shrink. Joanne Mariner worries about mentally incompetent detainees being tried, while the government conceals evidence of their mental state.

And how would one prove incompetence?

According to government pleadings in the Washington DC habeas cases, defence counsel are not entitled to see medical records of detainees.

Sadly, Chief Judge Thomas Hogan (pic) agreed.

In another DC dirty trick, the government wants to file amended habeas returns to bolster evidence it had called watertight – when it was unreviewable.

* * *

Meanwhile in Miami, a US Attorney is trying the first case ever brought under the Torture Convention Implementation Act, a 1994 law that makes it a crime for US citizens to commit torture overseas.

The defendant is Charles (“Chuckie”) Taylor Jr, son of the Liberian dictator who is facing trial in the Hague.

Time Magazine has more.

Quite sensibly, defence lawyers asked the court to use the more liberal Bush Gang definition of torture.

The activation of the Torture Act by the Bush administration would seem to be an act of pure chutzpah and dangerous hypocrisy.

Think about the precedent! Joanne Mariner has more at FindLaw’s Writ_.

* * *

The Wall Street bailout has been passed by Congress and signed by our putative president.

Apparently, members of Congress who received the most money from Wall Street were the most likely to support the bailout, and McClatchy News noted that the sum contributed by the eight most troubled companies was $64 million.

Money talks – at least it buys access. That’s what the big investment banks got on April 28, 2004 when they won SEC exemptions from the net capital rule – with dire consequences.

* * *

While the talk in Washington is all about the financial crash and the Bush Regime having brought it on, the journalism watchdog at Harvard wonders why so few media have commented on those other crashes, i.e. John McCain’s frequent involuntary conversions of US military hardware when he was a Navy pilot.

The LA Times has obliged with a report on McCain’s mishaps.

Writing off states, if not planes, has been reported: the McCain (seen here) election campaign has abandoned Michigan.

That seems a waste, as Michigan Republicans had discovered an ingenious new way to stop potential Democrats from voting – lists of foreclosed homes. The New York Times has more.

It’s all a part of “caging voters, according to a former head of the Justice Department’s moribund Voting Section.

NYU Law School’s Brennan Center has a new study on the practice of purging voter rolls for political purposes.

Naturally, voter registration organisations are targeted when it is thought they might be registering Democrats.

Federal law requires the Social Security Administration to verify new voter registrations. Accordingly, the Bush administration has helpfully arranged for the Social Security computers to go offline for three days in October during the peak voter registration period.

Meanwhile, the House of Reps is considering a Bill that would stop the disenfranchisement of students, an old favourite of the Republicans.

At the finish line, three states will be using partisan Republican-connected contractors to count the votes, an idea that must astound Australians.

* * *

The American Civil Liberties Union has just released a report on the special difficulties ex-convicts face in getting the right to vote.

The Republicans reckon most prisoners are Democrats, so they actively discourage restoration of voting rights to ex-convicts.

Maybe the Bush administration should back the ACLU on this. In future, many of the felons completing their debt to society could be Republicans.

No Movement

Despite Ruling, Detainee Cases Facing Delays

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: October 4, 2008
When the Supreme Court ruled in June that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the justices said that after more than six years of legal wrangling the prisoners should have their cases heard quickly because “the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody.”

But nearly four months later, as the Bush administration has opened a new defense of its detention policies in federal court, none of the scores of cases brought by detainees has been resolved by any judge.

Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling, lawyers for most of the 255 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have pressed ahead with habeas corpus lawsuits, yet most of those cases have been delayed by battles over issues like whether some court sessions will be held in secret, whether detainees can attend and what level of proof will justify detention.

Some of the arguments made by the Justice Department appear to challenge the Supreme Court’s conclusion that the federal courts have a role in deciding the fate of the detainees. One Bush administration argument asserts that only military officials — not federal judges — have the power to decide how to conclude wartime detentions.

Officials and lawyers inside and outside of the government say the new legal confrontation suggests that the Bush administration will most likely continue its defense of the detention camp until the end of President Bush’s term and is not likely to close the camp, as administration officials have said they would like to do.

“The legal issues that are being raised by the administration are going to take longer than the remaining time of the administration” to resolve, said Vijay Padmanabhan, an assistant professor at Cardozo Law School who was until July a State Department lawyer with responsibility for detainee issues.

“It is part of a broader strategy,” Mr. Padmanabhan added, “which is not to make difficult decisions about Guantánamo and leave it to the next president.”

Detainees’ advocates say that the administration is using the legal battle to delay judicial review of its evidence, while government lawyers argue that the cases are moving rapidly considering that they are unprecedented.

A Justice Department spokesman, Erik Ablin, said the government was working toward quick hearings for detainees, but was determined to take every precaution to avoid having dangerous people released. He added that “it is certainly the government’s goal to detain enemy combatants who are deemed a threat to the United States.”

Habeas corpus suits, which have their root in centuries-old English law, are generally streamlined proceedings for prisoners to force officials to explain why they are being held. The Guantánamo cases permitted by the Supreme Court’s ruling, Boumediene v. Bush, are to review the government’s reasons for holding the men as enemy combatants.

The military’s enemy combatant hearings, which the administration says permit indefinite detention, are separate from the Pentagon’s effort to prosecute some detainees in military commission trials.

A first test of a judge’s power in a federal habeas case may come on Tuesday during arguments in a case involving 17 detainees who claim a right to immediate release. The path to court has been slow for the habeas cases, and most seem unlikely to reach resolution until well into the next president’s administration, lawyers say. In some cases, government lawyers are adding new grounds for holding the men, supplementing or replacing the accusations made during Guantánamo hearings four years ago.

Lawyers say some of the government’s arguments could create grounds for years of new appeals by the Justice Department.

Many of the hurdles to moving the cases to court have been practical ones, including an initial shortage of Justice Department lawyers and the need to develop procedures for intelligence agencies to review classified evidence.

In August, Justice Department lawyers told the United States District Court in Washington that they could not meet their own deadline for providing initial responses to the cases. “The task has proven even more difficult than originally envisioned,” said a Justice Department filing.

The new schedule called for initial responses to 50 cases a month beginning in September. As a result, challenges by some detainees would not begin to move in the courts until January, the Bush administration’s last month in office.

Mr. Ablin, the Justice Department spokesman, said accusations against detainees might need to be updated because of the “changed legal landscape” and because intelligence collection might have changed what is known about detainees.

“It would be irresponsible,” he said, “not to update the courts with additional information gained over the past several years” that proved links to terrorism.

The government is relying extensively on classified information. That is quite likely to raise defense questions about how detainees can defend themselves since they are not permitted to see much of the evidence against them — long a contentious issue in the military’s hearings at Guantánamo Bay.

“Time is on their side,” Matthew J. MacLean, a Washington lawyer for four Kuwaiti detainees, said of the government. “Every day of delay is one more day our clients are in prison without a hearing.”

The habeas case scheduled for a federal court hearing on Tuesday involves 17 Guantánamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, a restive Muslim minority in western China.

In a separate case that was under way before the Supreme Court ruling in June, federal appeals judges issued a decision this summer that ridiculed as inadequate the Pentagon’s secret evidence for holding one of the Uighurs, Huzaifa Parhat, a former fruit peddler who said he had gone to Afghanistan to escape China.

Since then, the Pentagon has conceded that it would “serve no useful purpose” to continue to try to prove that any of the 17 Uighurs were ever enemy combatants.

The Uighurs say they have never been enemies of the United States, though they were in Afghanistan in 2002, where they were detained. They say they would be persecuted or killed if they were returned to China. The Bush administration says it has failed to find another country willing to accept them.

On Tuesday, a federal district judge, Ricardo M. Urbina, is to hear an urgent claim by lawyers for the Uighurs, that they should be released immediately into the United States since they are no longer considered enemy combatants.

The government argues that they should be held at Guantánamo until another country can be found to accept them. In filings, the Justice Department lawyers make expansive arguments that, while Judge Urbina can hear the Uighurs’ case, he cannot order their release. The judiciary “simply has no authority” to release the Uighurs into the United States, one filing said.

The Justice Department said the government’s executive branch, not the judicial branch, has the authority to conclude military detentions, as it has in prior wars. It noted that in World War II “no court ever questioned that it was solely for the political branches — not the courts” to decide how Italian prisoners of war were handled.

P. Sabin Willett, one of the Uighurs’ lawyers, said such claims appeared to be laying the groundwork for government appeals in the event that a judge orders a detainee freed.

The first full court hearing examining the evidence in a habeas case — this one involving six detainees at the center of the Supreme Court’s June decision — is scheduled for Oct. 27. Still, hearings for the vast majority of the detainees are unscheduled.

The Supreme Court justices said in their June decision that the detainees were “entitled to a prompt” hearing, but did not specify how prompt.

Mr. Willett said that while “prompt” might be open to interpretation, “I think they meant more quickly than this.”