Bush Administration Loses Major Terror Detention CaseThink ProgressJun. 13, 2007 |
Alan Dershowitz Pushing for Trump to Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell
Pew Research Poll Finds Most Countries Have Negative View of Israel
Elon Musk: 'Trump is in the Epstein Files. That is the Real Reason They Have Not Been Made Public'
Rep. Thomas Massie: 'We Should End All U.S. Military Aid to Israel Now'
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt Demands 'Anti-Zionists' Be Banned Off Social Media 'Once And For All'
![]() In a “major setback” to President Bush’s terrorism detention policies, a federal appeals court ruled today that the administration “cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him.” In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn’t strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court.UPDATE: Read the full decision HERE. Human Rights First has an overview of the case. UPDATE II: Via ACSBlog, SCOTUSBlog explains what comes next: [T]he panel concluded, it would grant al-Marri habeas relief, though not immediate release. It said the government had accused him — though not with formal charges — of “grave crimes.” The case was returned to a federal judge in South Carolina with instructions to order the Pentagon to release al-Marri from military custody “within a reasonable period of time to be set by the District Court. The Government can transfer al-Marri to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings against him, hold him as a material witness in connection with grand jury proceedings, or detain him for a limited time pursuant to the Patriot Act. But military detention of al-Marri must cease.”UPDATE III: The New York Times calls the decision a “stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism.” |