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On Saturday, Guant谩namo prisoner Adnan Latif was found unresponsive in his cell in Guant谩namo鈥檚 Camp 5, the disciplinary wing of the camp, and pronounced dead. His identity was only yesterday. Mr. Latif鈥檚 case, in life and now in death, represents the repercussions of our government鈥檚 failed Guant谩namo policy and demonstrates the responsibility each branch has played in that failure.

Mr. Latif was seized by Pakistani authorities near the Afghan border in late 2001, handed over to the U.S. Government, then transferred to Guant谩namo in January 2002. He maintained his innocence of any affiliation with terrorism, explaining that he had traveled to the region in August 2001 to receive medical treatment from a charity for a head injury he received in a car accident 鈥� treatment he was unable to afford at home. The U.S. government claimed Mr. Latif had been recruited in Yemen to attend a training camp in Afghanistan.

After reviewing his case, the Department of Defense in 2004 recommended that Mr. Latif be returned to his native Yemen. For reasons unknown, he remained incarcerated. Again, in 2007, the Defense Department determined Mr. Latif should be transferred from Guant谩namo 鈥渟ubject to the process for making appropriate diplomatic arrangements for his departure.鈥� But he remained incarcerated. In 2009, President Obama鈥檚 Guant谩namo Bay Task Force, comprised of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military agencies, unanimously approved Mr. Latif once more for transfer. Then came the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt, apparently orchestrated by a group based in Yemen, and President Obama ordered a moratorium on transfers there. Mr. Latif remained incarcerated. Congress subsequently imposed such onerous conditions on transfers from Guant谩namo to any country that moratorium or not, Mr. Latif had little chance to be set free 鈥� absent a court order. And so, years after the government first told Mr. Latif he could go home, he remained incarcerated.

Then in 2010, after an exhaustive review of all of the government鈥檚 evidence against Mr. Latif, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy his release, finding the government had not shown Mr. Latif was part of Al Qaeda or an associated force. The ruling gave force to the Supreme Court鈥檚 historic 2008 decision that Guant谩namo prisoners had the their imprisonment in federal court, and the courts would subject the government鈥檚 case for detention to meaningful review.

Judge Kennedy found that the Obama administration鈥檚 case for Mr. Latif鈥檚 continued incarceration turned on one raw hearsay intelligence report, unvetted by expert government analysts. Not a single eyewitness placed Mr. Latif at any training camp, guesthouse or battlefield in Afghanistan. Mr. Latif鈥檚 lawyers demonstrated that the intelligence report was riddled with errors and inconsistencies. But President Obama鈥檚 Justice Department chose to appeal Judge Kennedy鈥檚 decision. In a , the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, that the government鈥檚 single raw intelligence report should be presumed correct, despite its myriad flaws. Two judges of a three-judge panel overturned long-standing judicial principles and substituted their own judgment for the trial court鈥檚 seasoned view of the evidence. In the words of the dissenting justice: 鈥淣ot content with moving the goal posts, the court calls the game in the government's favor.鈥�

This past June, the Supreme Court to hear Mr. Latif鈥檚 appeal of the D.C. Circuit鈥檚 decision. Without comment, Supreme Court turned its back on Mr. Latif and others like him, letting stand the appellate court鈥檚 now overly deferential standard for courts to test the government鈥檚 evidence.

During his time in Guant谩namo, Mr. Latif repeatedly went on hunger strike to peacefully protest his brutal treatment and imprisonment without charge or trial. When the mental pain became too much, his lawyers said, he tried to take his own life, more than once slitting his wrists, other times eating shards of metal and glass.

Each time Mr. Latif was cleared to go home by the executive branch 鈥� and a single time by a court 鈥� a military officer would have come to his cell to tell him he was leaving Guant谩namo. Imagine hearing that repeated possibility of freedom, only for hopes to be dashed every single time. Now Adnan Latif is dead.

Dozens of other men still in Guant谩namo have received similar repeated news, only to find it changed nothing in their daily lives and they remained in prison. How many of those other men who have never even been charged with a crime will our government allow to languish until death?

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