Supreme Court Ends Terror Suspect's Detention Challenge

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(03-06) 09:33 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Supreme Court dismissed a challenge Friday by suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent Ali Al-Marri to the president's authority to detain people without charges, granting an Obama administration request to end the high court case.

The Supreme Court also threw out, as moot, the federal appeals court ruling al-Marri was challenging that affirmed the president's power to detain people in the United States without trial.

Last week, President Barack Obama ordered al-Marri transferred from military to civilian custody to face federal charges of conspiracy and providing support to terrorists.

But Obama has not renounced the use of preventive detention, which was pursued and defended aggressively by the Bush administration after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The administration's silence on this issue was the main reason al-Marri's lawyers pushed the court to hear the case even after their client got what he was seeking — if not his release, a trial at which he could answer criminal charges.

The new administration also made clear, however, that it had no desire to take a position on the Bush policies in what would have been a major Supreme Court battle.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/06/national/w091508S02.DTL

[kpete]

1. Supreme Court Vacates Decision Giving President Indefinite Detention Power In Al-Marri Case

Source: ACLU

Supreme Court Vacates Decision Giving President Indefinite Detention Power In Al-Marri Case (3/6/2009)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [phone]; [e-mail]

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated a lower court decision giving the president the extraordinary power to seize and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens or residents without charge or trial. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who, after being held for almost six years in military detention, was indicted last week in federal court and charged with two counts of material support for terrorism.

In July 2008, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in a fractured decision that the president had legal authority to imprison al-Marri indefinitely without charge. As one judge noted in dissent, however, to accept the government's claim of extraordinary detention power would have "disastrous consequences for the Constitution—and the country." The Supreme Court vacated that decision and dismissed the case as moot.

The following can be attributed to Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead counsel in al-Marri's case:

"While we would have preferred a Supreme Court ruling that U.S. citizens and lawful residents detained in the U.S. cannot be held in military custody as 'enemy combatants' without charges or trial, the Supreme Court nonetheless took an important step today by vacating a lower court decision that had upheld the Bush administration's authority to designate al-Marri as an 'enemy combatant.' Congress never granted the president that authority and the Constitution does not permit it. We trust that the Obama administration will not repeat the abuses of the Bush administration having now chosen to prosecute Mr. al-Marri in federal court rather than defend the Bush administration's actions in this case."

Read more: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/38952prs20090306.html

[orwell]

2. Translation...

...only Republican presidents can be dictators.

[EFerrari]

3. Yep. n/t

[acmavm]

4. Dammit! Beat me.

[struggle4progress]

5. US court rejects detainee appeal (BBC)

... The government has said Mr al-Marri met Osama Bin Laden and volunteered for a suicide mission.

It is claimed that he arrived in the US the day before the attacks on New York and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.

Court documents allege Mr al-Marri was a computer expert and was ordered to wreak havoc on the US banking system and serve as a liaison for other al-Qaeda operatives entering the US ...

Mr al-Marri now faces trial in Peoria, Illinois.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7929306.stm