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France court postpones ruling on former Guantanamo detainees

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A French court on Tuesday postponed a ruling on whether to overturn the sentences of five French citizens who were released from US custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in July 2004 and March 2005. The five, identified as Brahim Yadel, 37, Mourad Benchellali, 26, Nizar Sassi, 27, Khaled Ben Mustapha, 35, and Redouane Khalid, 39, were convicted in December 2007 of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," and sentenced to one year in prison each. The five men had served provisional sentences in France and were released before the conclusion of the 2007 trial. The postponement of the French ruling comes in response to US President Barack Obama's order to close the Guantanamo detention center within one year. France formally charged the defendants in April 2006. During their original September 2006 trial, the judge refused to deliver a verdict, instead saying that he wanted to know more about a French intelligence-gathering mission in which French agents had interviewed the men while still at Guantanamo. The French government at first failed to disclose the meetings, a fact that could have rendered the case invalid. During the retrial, a French diplomatic telegram published in the Liberation daily referred to intelligence agents who conducted interviews with the suspects at least twice while at Guantanamo.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).