US Judge Rejects Legal Challenge From Guantanamo Detainee

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a legal challenge from a Guantanamo Bay detainee who said his imprisonment was unlawful now that President Barack Obama has declared an end to hostilities in Afghanistan. Muktar Yahya Najee al-Warafi, a Yemeni who was captured in Afghanistan, has been held since 2002 at the prison in Cuba for terror detainees. Judges have upheld his detention on grounds that he likely aided Taliban forces, though his lawyers have said he was simply a medic. His latest challenge centered on Obama administration statements in the last year indicating that the war in Afghanistan had come to an end. His lawyers said that those assertions made his detention unlawful under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which provided the legal justification for the imprisonment of foreign fighters captured on overseas battlefields.