http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleid=711
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
Swede Freed from Guantanamo Wants to Sue U.S. Govt
Fri Jul 16, 2004 02:30 PM ET
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - A Swede released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay last week wants to sue the U.S. government for being held captive without charges for 2 1/2 years, the 25-year-old man said Friday.
Asked if he would sue the United States government, Mehdi Ghezali told Reuters Television: "Yes, I will."
Ghezali's lawyer Peter Althin said his client had not yet decided on the amount of damages he would seek. The preparation of the case would take some time, he said.
"He has been held without any grounds and that is why we will seek damages," Althin said.
"We have to decide if we will do it alone, or together with other prisoners who had been released. It would be a better case for us if we could be joined by citizens from other countries who also had been held in Guantanamo."
Althin said they would bring the case in the United States, taking advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that men held in Guantanamo, whom the U.S. government suspects of terrorism, could challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
Most of them have been held for more than two years without charges or access to lawyers. The Pentagon said Ghezli was the 135th prisoner to be released from the base. Some 594 others remain incarcerated.
The son of an Algerian-born immigrant, Ghezali was released from the Cuban base on July 8 after pressure from Sweden including a meeting in Washington between Prime Minister Goran Persson and President Bush.
Ghezali has said he was subjected to interrogations almost every day and tortured by exposure to freezing cold, noise and bright lights, deprived of sleep and chained in painful positions. Washington dismissed the complaints of mistreatment.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
Swede Freed from Guantanamo Wants to Sue U.S. Govt
Fri Jul 16, 2004 02:30 PM ET
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - A Swede released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay last week wants to sue the U.S. government for being held captive without charges for 2 1/2 years, the 25-year-old man said Friday.
Asked if he would sue the United States government, Mehdi Ghezali told Reuters Television: "Yes, I will."
Ghezali's lawyer Peter Althin said his client had not yet decided on the amount of damages he would seek. The preparation of the case would take some time, he said.
"He has been held without any grounds and that is why we will seek damages," Althin said.
"We have to decide if we will do it alone, or together with other prisoners who had been released. It would be a better case for us if we could be joined by citizens from other countries who also had been held in Guantanamo."
Althin said they would bring the case in the United States, taking advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that men held in Guantanamo, whom the U.S. government suspects of terrorism, could challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
Most of them have been held for more than two years without charges or access to lawyers. The Pentagon said Ghezli was the 135th prisoner to be released from the base. Some 594 others remain incarcerated.
The son of an Algerian-born immigrant, Ghezali was released from the Cuban base on July 8 after pressure from Sweden including a meeting in Washington between Prime Minister Goran Persson and President Bush.
Ghezali has said he was subjected to interrogations almost every day and tortured by exposure to freezing cold, noise and bright lights, deprived of sleep and chained in painful positions. Washington dismissed the complaints of mistreatment.
