Originally published by Times Online, 3 March 2010

Despite being cleared for release and officially declared no threat to the US, five Uighurs held at Guantánamo Bay for eight years had their bid for freedom blocked by the Obama Administration yesterday.

The move came after the Supreme Court agreed with arguments by US government lawyers that the five should not have their appeal to be released into the US heard by the court. It had been due to hear the Uighurs’ appeal on March 23.

America’s highest court, which had been due to hear the Uighurs’ appeal on March 23, reversed course, siding with the White House and refusing to take the case.

The case had been on course to be one of the most important of the Supreme Court’s current term because it would have forced it to decide whether US judges had the right to order foreign prisoners to be released onto US soil, against the wishes of the Government.

Despite President Obama’s troubled effort to shut Guantánamo the Justice Department, like the Bush-era Justice Department before it, argued that Congress and the executive — not the judiciary — had ultimate control over immigration policy and over which foreigners can be released onto US soil.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7047564.ece