A panel from a conservative federal appeals court harshly rebuked the anti-terrorism strategy of US President George W. Bush on Monday, ruling that US residents cannot be locked up indefinitely as "enemy combatants" without being charged.
The three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government should charge Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident and the only suspected enemy combatant on US soil or release him from military custody.
The federal Military Commissions Act (MCA) does not strip al-Marri of his constitutional right to challenge his accusers in court, the judges found in Monday's 2-1 decision.
"Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the president to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them `enemy combatants,"' the court said.
Such detention "would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution -- and the country," Judge Diana Motz wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Roger Gregory.
Judge Henry Hudson, a federal judge in Richmond, dissented.
"This is a landmark victory for the rule of law and a defeat for unchecked executive power," al-Marri's lawyer, Jonathan Hafetz, said in a statement. "It affirms the basic constitutional rights of all individuals -- citizens and immigrants -- in the United States."
The government intends to ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the case, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.
"The president has made clear that he intends to use all available tools at his disposal to protect Americans from further al-Qaeda attack, including the capture and detention of al-Qaeda agents who enter our borders," Boyd said in a statement.
The court said its ruling doesn't mean al-Marri should be set free. Instead, he can be returned to the civilian court system and tried on criminal charges.
In his dissent, Hudson said the government properly detained al-Marri as an enemy combatant.
"Although al-Marri was not personally engaged in armed conflict with US forces, he is the type of stealth warrior used by al-Qaeda to perpetrate terrorist acts against the United States," wrote Hudson, who was appointed to the federal bench by Bush.
The other two judges were appointed by former US president Bill Clinton.
The decision is the latest in a series of court rulings against Bush's anti-terrorism program.
Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Illinois, where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11 attacks to study for a master's degree at Bradley University.
Investigators found credit card numbers on al-Marri's laptop computer and charged him with credit card fraud. The government said, agents later found evidence that al-Marri had links to al-Qaeda terrorists and was a national security threat. Al-Marri has denied the government's allegations.
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
RSS