Gitmo ruling clouds attorney access

Attorneys for Guantanamo Bay detainees will ask a judge to rescind a ruling that created a new hurdle for some lawyers seeking to visit their clients at the prison in Cuba.

In Thursday's ruling, District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington dismissed 16 lawsuits challenging the indefinite confinement of dozens of men.

In an e-mail to lawyers, the Justice Department said Friday that the ruling invalidated an order that establishes rules for contact with detainees. It warned attorneys that they will be cut off from their clients unless they file new suits under a 2005 law and agree to tighter restrictions on visits and letters to detainees.

Attorney visits provide one of the few sources of information about detainees at Guantanamo, an isolated Navy base in Cuba where the U.S. holds about 340 men under extremely tight security on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Most of the prisoners are held without charge and have filed petitions of habeas corpus, a legal challenge to their confinement.

Last year, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which stripped all detainees of the right to file habeas petitions _ a fundamental legal right under the Constitution. The Supreme Court has said it will consider the law in its next term.

In the meantime, lower court judges have either stayed pending challenges or dismissed them, as Urbina did on Thursday.

A Justice Department spokesman, Erik Ablin, said Saturday the e-mail reflects the government's standing interpretation of the law and the rules for the "protective orders" that authorize attorney visits to Guantanamo.

"If a habeas case has been dismissed, it has long been our view that there is no protective order under which visits can be permitted," Ablin said.

Attorneys are free to file new challenges under the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act and to seek permission under another order that would grant them access to their clients, Ablin said.

David Remes, a Washington attorney whose firm is handling two of the dismissed cases, said he will file an appeal Monday arguing that the judge should not have dismissed the petitions because a higher court was still considering appeals to Urbina's decisions in other aspects of the cases. An immediate decision was not expected.

He also said a number of attorneys have already filed the new lawsuits and agreed to the restrictions.

But Wells Dixon, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, complained he would most likely not be able to complete the required steps in time for a scheduled visit with a Libyan client in October.

"This is just the latest example of the government's efforts to frustrate counsel access to detainees," Dixon said.

U.S. officials deny that lawyers have faced undue roadblocks to assisting their clients.

"We have afforded detainees at Guantanamo with greater access to attorneys than any other combatants in the history of warfare," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.