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Court rejects lawsuit by former British Guantanamo inmates

Other News Materials 12 January 2008 02:44 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa )- A US federal court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought by four British citizens once jailed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba against former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for allegedly ordering torture and abuse of religious rights.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 3-0 that the law did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo because it was outside US jurisdiction.

The court also determined that Rumsfeld and the other defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that the detainees were being tortured.

The case was brought by Shafiq Rasul , Asif Iqbal , Rhehel Ahmed and Jamal al- Harith , who spent more than two years in Guantanamo before being sent back to Britain n 2004.

A lawyer for the four men, Eric Lewis, said he will appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.

"It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency when a court finds that torture is all in a days' work for the secretary of defence and senior general," Lewis said.

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