[JURIST] A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday denied a Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee’s habeas corpus petition on its merits, allowing the US government to prolong the detention indefinitely. Detainee Makhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi was captured during the 2001-2002 American intervention campaign in Afghanistan and maintains that he was only a medical clinic worker at the time. The US government alleges that Pentagon intelligence demonstrates Warafi was a trained jihadist. The order by judge Royce Lamberth cites a classified memorandum containing details of the reasoning, which was filed with the court security officer. Also Wednesday, Judge Gladys Kessler of the DC District Court dismissed without prejudice the habeas corpus petition of Guantanamo detainee Zahar Bin Hamdoun, who was captured in 2002 in Pakistan. Hamdoun’s lawyers had requested that the court delay proceedings in order to confer with him over new developments pertaining to evidence in the case.
Earlier this week, Judge James Robertson of the DC District Court ordered the release of Mauritanian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who had been accused of planning the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Slahi has been in US custody for over seven years and brought a habeas corpus petition, claiming that he had been tortured in prison and had made confessions under duress. In late February, Kessler ruled that the government can continue to hold indefinitely two Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainees, even though Fahmi Salem Al-Assani and Suleiman Awadh Bin Agil Al-Nahdi had been cleared for release by the Bush administration two years ago. The US government has prevailed in 12 of the 46 habeas corpus cases decided in the DC District Court.