Court: U.S must release torture papers

NEW YORK, D.C., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A federal judge in New York has given the U.S. government one week to turn over documents about its treatment of detainees abroad.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and campaign groups to force the Bush administration to comply with a year-old Freedom of Information Act request.

The groups had demanded all unclassified records and other documents concerning the alleged torture and abuse of prisoners held by the United States at detention facilities overseas. Those facilities include Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstien gave the government just one week to provide the documents, or an explanation of why they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

"We're pleased that the court has ordered the government to produce these critical records that we and others have been demanding for so many months," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney in a statement. "If the administration has endorsed policies that violate domestic and international law, as appears to have been the case, the public surely has a right to know more about what those policies were and who was responsible for them."

No one at the defense department could be reached for immediate comment.