US to request the dismissal of about 200 detainees' suits

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department will seek to dismiss more than 180 cases involving inmates at Guantanamo Bay who have challenged their detention, court documents showed yesterday.

The department filed a notice to judges presiding over the cases at the US District Court in Washington to advise them that by the end of next week the Justice Department would file official motions to dismiss the cases.

The notice was filed a week after President Bush signed legislation banning cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The antitorture law also curbs the ability of prisoners being held at the US Naval Base in Cuba to challenge their detention in federal court.

The legislation requiring the humane treatment of detainees was originally opposed by the White House.

But Bush backed off on his original veto threats after Congress voted overwhelmingly to support the amendment, pushed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

In a concession to the White House, the bill limits prisoners from going to lower-level civilian courts for relief from confinement. They can go only to an appeals court once they have gone through a military court process.

The United States has faced criticism at home and abroad for its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and for holding them indefinitely. Only nine of about 500 prisoners being held at the base have been charged. .

Hundreds of prisoners have filed lawsuits in civilian courts to protest their confinement or conditions of confinement.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the detainees, has criticized the antitorture law, saying it eliminates prisoners' access to the US judicial system.