Topic: Appeals Court Rejects Suit Of Ex-Detainees Against Officials

Washington Post
January 12, 2008
Pg. 5

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that four British men have no right to sue top Pentagon officials and military officers over torture, abuse and violations of their religious rights that they allege to have sustained while detained for two years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously that simply alleging criminal conduct by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and individual U.S. military officials does not give the four men a claim under the Alien Tort Statute.
The four men do not allege that the defendants "acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence," the court said in an opinion written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson.
"Therefore, the alleged tortious conduct was incidental to the defendants' legitimate employment duties," the ruling said.
The appeals court also rejected claims under the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The latter provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."
"Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged RFRA claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person,' " the court ruled.
Joining LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, in the opinion were Judges Janice Rogers Brown, appointed by President Bush, and A. Raymond Randolph, appointed by George H.W. Bush.