A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the families of two detainees who died at the controversial American prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a case seeking compensation from US officials. The men, one from Saudi Arabia and the other from Yemen, were found dead in June 2006 in apparent suicides. Their families filed a lawsuit accusing the officials of subjecting the men to torture and abuse before they died at the prison. The US military had accused the Saudi, Yasser Al-Zahrani, of going to Afghanistan to fight in a “jihad” with the Taliban and carrying a radio. Al-Zahrani had worked as a cook and denied ever fighting, the military has said. The Yemeni, Salah Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al-Salami, was accused by the US military of having links to Al-Qaeda and was captured in a safe house in early 2002 where a notebook with information about nuclear bomb-making was found. He had denied knowledge about past or future attacks on the United States. At the times of their deaths, the families questioned why they would commit suicide because it violated their Muslim faith. US military investigators in 2008 ruled their deaths suicides by hanging. The families had filed the lawsuit in a Washington federal court seeking unspecified damages. The Obama administration countered that it should be dismissed because the court had lacked jurisdiction over the prison for such claims. US District Judge Ellen Huvelle in a decision late on Tuesday granted the Obama administration's request. Pardiss Kebriaei, the lead lawyer for the families, described the ruling as “very disappointing and very troubling” and said they were weighing their options, including an appeal. “They were detained arbitrarily and tortured for four years and their families should have the right to have their claims heard in a court,” said Kebriaei, who is also an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented several Guantanamo detainees. President Barack Obama pledged in January 2009 to close the controversial prison within a year, arguing it has served as a recruiting symbol for anti-American militants. His efforts to shutter the facility have been hampered by legal and political hurdles.
