The US Supreme Court agreed on Friday to review the case of the only “enemy combatant” detained on US soil, Qatari national Ali al-Marri, who has been held without charge in a military jail since 2003.
The court said it would hear and take a decision by next summer on the case, which calls into question the right of the president to hold indefinitely and without charge a person declared an enemy combatant.
“We are confident that upon review, the Court will strike down this radical and unnecessary departure from our nation’s most basic values,” said Jonathan Hafetz, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) counsel.
“Our position is not that the government has no power to hold him, but if they’re going to deprive him of his liberty, as they’ve done now for years, they’re going to need to charge him and try him like this country has done since its founding to every other person accused of wrongdoing,” Hafetz said.
Briefs will not be filed in the case until after US president-elect Barack Obama takes office, Hafetz said.
Al-Marri was detained by FBI agents in late 2001, three months after coming to the US in September of that year with his family to study at a university in Illinois.
A trial date was set for July 2003, but less than a month before was to begin, al-Marri was transferred to a military prison in South Carolina after Bush signed an order declaring him an enemy combatant.
Under current US law, al-Marri could be held in the military prison without charge “for the rest of his natural life,” Hafetz said.
A federal appeals court in July ruled that the US president has the power to keep a suspect jailed indefinitely, but that the detainee has the right to challenge his detention as an “enemy combatant.”
“This sweeping claim of executive authority violates America’s best traditions and defies fundamental principles of due process that have governed the nation since its founding,” ACLU executive director Steven Shapiro said.
“We are hopeful that the court will reverse the appeals court decision and ensure that people in this country cannot be seized from their homes and imprisoned indefinitely simply because the president says so,” he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was