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.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS