A US judge refused to release two Guantanamo terrorism suspects on Tuesday and upheld the government's authority to keep them, after ordering freedom last month for five prisoners whose case led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling. Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon said in two separate rulings the government had shown enough evidence to justify holding Yemeni citizen Moath Hamza Amhed Al Alwi and Tunisian Hisham Sliti as "enemy combatants" linked to al Qaeda or Taliban forces. The Bush administration welcomed the rulings, but the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern over potential precedents. "This decision raises serious concerns given the reliance on classified evidence and the very broad definition of detention authority that it contains," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jonathan Hafetz said.
Alwi and Sliti said the US government has illegally held them for seven years at the US Naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. About 250 terrorism suspects remain at the Guantanamo prison, and most are contesting their confinement after the Supreme Court in June ruled that they have a constitutional right to do so.