U.S. still holds detainee Pentagon wanted freed in 2004

[IndianaGreen]

Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010

U.S. still holds detainee Pentagon wanted freed in 2004

By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald

An emotionally ill detainee still being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was first recommended for release by the Pentagon in 2004, according to a federal judge whose ruling ordering that the man be freed was made public this week.

Despite the Pentagon's recommendation, it wasn't until 2007 that the Bush administration adopted the military assessment and put Adnan Abdul Latif, now about 34, on an approved transfer list. By then, however, the issue of transferring prisoners to Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, was mired in a diplomatic standoff over whether the Arabian Peninsula nation could provide security assurances and rehabilitate suspected radicalized Guantanamo detainees.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy disclosed the timeline in a heavily censored 28-page ruling made public on Monday night that ordered Latif set free. Latif is the 38th Guantanamo captive to be found by a federal judge to be illegally detained at the remote U.S. Navy base.

Kennedy first ordered the Obama administration to arrange for Latif's release "forthwith'' on July 21. But a Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said government lawyers were still deciding Tuesday night whether to appeal to a higher court.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/17/99314/us-still-holds-detainee-pentagon.html#ixzz0wvMV7AdM