angus
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« on: December 08, 2008, 03:23:10 PM » |
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« edited: December 08, 2008, 03:45:34 PM by angus »
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This magnificently-mulleted Qatari man has been held without formal charges in a Navy brig for more than five years.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is his name, and he was a grad student at Bradley University in Peoria when he was arrested in December 2001. He was charged later with lying to the FBI and using a false name and a stolen Social Security number to apply for some bank accounts for a fictitious business. Just before his trial in June 2003, President Bush ordered the attorney general to hand him over to the military, and he has been held in isolation in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., ever since. Basically, the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism wrote that Al-Marri plans to hack into the US banking system and wipe out balances and "otherwise wreak havoc with banking records in order to damage the U.S. economy." And a few other nasty things were written as well. Suffice it to say that the government felt like he was a threat.
Note that on June 11, 2007, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Military Commissions Act does not deny al-Marri his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers, but that al-Marri must be released from military detention to either be freed or to be placed in US civil detention where the federal government would be compelled to charge him with crimes, or release him. In fact, the court stated that "Al-Marri can be returned to civilian prosecutors, tried on criminal charges, and, if convicted, punished severely." The court held a rehearing of the ruling on October 31, 2007. Its 5-4 decision was that if the Government's allegations are true, al-Marri can be held in military detention indefinitely as an enemy combatant, but he has not received sufficient due process to determine whether the allegations are true. That's really the conundrum I think.
The supreme court will rule on the legality of "the seizure and indefinite military detention of a person lawfully residing in the United States," without criminal charge or trial based solely on government assertions of al-Qaeda contacts. The court will probably take this up in March.
The case is Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli.
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