Update April 25, 2011: On Sunday night, a number of news outlets and WikiLeaks published a trove of classified documents <1> on detainees at Guantanamo Bay. ProPublica has been reporting on Gitmo <2> and the issues surrounding indefinite detention for more than two years. In October 2010,
Dafna Linzer revealed how the Obama administration censored one federal judge's Gitmo decision <3> that had questioned the government's evidence against a detainee.When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases.
Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman
But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman <5>, a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees <6> the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but "not feasible for prosecution."
A day after his March 16 order <7> was filed on the court's electronic docket, Kennedy's opinion vanished. Weeks later, a new ruling <8> appeared in its place. While it reached the same conclusion, eight pages of material had been removed, including key passages in which Kennedy dismantled the government's case against Uthman.http://www.propublica.org/article/in-gitmo-opinion-two-versions-of-realityIs anyone else scared by the precedent this sets?