Guantanamo inmates win right to see evidence
By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:28am BST 22/07/2007
A court in Washington has ordered the United States government to hand over nearly all the information it holds on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, marking a new blow to its controversial detention of alleged terror suspects.
The ruling by a federal appeals court paves the way for a fresh round of legal challenges to the detentions at the US naval base in Cuba.
The government must now provide defence lawyers with classified evidence gathered against the detainees, making it easier to challenge their designation as "unlawful enemy combatants".
The White House had fought unsuccessfully to limits how much information it must share with the courts and lawyers of the 360 remaining detainees.
Defence lawyers have complained that with only limited access to information about the accusations against their clients, it has been hard to represent them properly.
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The appeals court ruling was "a resounding rejection of the government's effort to hide the truth", said P Sabin Willett, a lawyer who put the detainees' case before the Washington court.
The latest legal setback came just hours after President George W Bush signed an executive order requiring the CIA's interrogators to comply with Geneva Conventions against torture.
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