The US decision to repatriate five British detainees from Guantanamo Bay was motivated, at least in part, by the threat of a potentially embarrassing supreme court judgment on the legality of their detention, lawyers and human rights activists said.
Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, two of the detainees due to be sent back to Britain, were plaintiffs in a case due before the supreme court in the next few months challenging the Bush administration’s right to deny detainees hearings in a US court. Washington has also made concessions in the conditions of two Australian plaintiffs in the case, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, and is believed to have invited Kuwaiti officials to discuss the remaining 12 detainees, all Kuwaitis, named on the supreme court case. Full Story
