A U.S. appeals court has ruled the military must provide nearly all information it has gathered on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to their attorneys.
The three-judge appeals court based in Washington issued the unanimous ruling Friday. The court said the detainees have a right to look at classified material in order to challenge their designation as enemy combatants.
The court ruled that "certain highly sensitive information" could be withheld from detainees' lawyers, but not from the court, which must be allowed to see all information.
The Bush administration has argued that detainees and the court should only see the information the military wants to provide.
Lawyers for the detainees filed an appeal under the Detainee Treatment Act, which Congress passed in 2005, giving detainees the right to challenge the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that would restore habeus corpus, which gives defendants the right to challenge their detention by the government. It was stripped from the Detainee Treatment Act.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
