U.S. ADMITS GITMO NUMBERS PUZZLE
August 12, 2003 -- SAN FRANCISCO - The United States said yesterday it had neither an exact count nor all the names of hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan and now detained at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Federal lawyers made the disclosure during a court hearing in a case on behalf of Falen Gherebi, a Libyan national believed to be in custody in Cuba.
At the appeals court hearing yesterday, a scheduled discussion over the government's right to hold Gherebi became a debate on whether the government even kept complete records on those held.
"They won't let him out and they won't tell us if he's there," said Stephen Yagman, a lawyer for Gherebi's brother. "This is crazy."
The panel of judges expressed shock about the apparent lack of record-keeping on people who have been in custody for 577 days.
Government lawyers contested that while they had attempted to keep records, they were incomplete because some of those who were arrested had not cooperated, and said that translating the names from Arabic had created problems with spelling.
The White House has argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the legal rights of the captives, since they are being held on foreign soil, in Cuba, on land that is leased to, not owned by, the United States.