The three judge panel sided with obama administration

May 21st, 2010|Editor
State

The three-judge panel sided with the Obama administration, ruling that U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction over the legal petitions by the prisoners at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and ordered that their cases be dismissed.

The Obama administration, taking the same legal position as the previous Bush administration despite protests by civil liberties groups, had argued that the detainees at the Bagram base have no right to have their cases heard in federal court in Washington.

U.S. District Judge John Bates last year rejected that argument and ruled three detainees at Bagram who sued the U.S. government can proceed with their bid to win their freedom.

But the appeals court in a unanimous decision reversed his ruling.

It drew a distinction between the situation at Bagram and at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, which now holds about 180 foreign terrorism suspects. The Obama administration has pledged to close the Guantanamo prison.

While it is true that the United States holds a leasehold interest in Bagram, and held a leasehold interest in Guantanamo, the surrounding circumstances are hardly the same, the appeals court said in a 26-page opinion written by Chief Judge David Sentelle.

AFGHANISTAN IS SOVEREIGN

The United States has maintained total control over the Guantanamo base for more than 100 years, but there is no indication the United States intends to permanently occupy the Bagram base, he said.

Sentelle also said Bagram remains in a theater of war, unlike Guantanamo, and is not under U.S. sovereignty.

The United States holds the detainees pursuant to a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan on territory as to which Afghanistan is sovereign, he wrote.

There are more than 800 prisoners held inside the Bagram base.

In New York, Melissa Goodman of the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the ruling.

It ratifies the dangerous principle that the U.S. government has unchecked power to capture people anywhere in the world, unilaterally declare them enemy combatants and subject them to indefinite military detention with no judicial review, she said.

Republicans in Congress, such as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, praised the decision.

There is a reason we have never allowed enemy prisoners detained overseas in an active war zone to sue in federal court for their release. It simply makes no sense and would be the ultimate act of turning the war into a crime, he said.

The ruling involved three detainees from countries other than AfghanistanFadi al Maqaleh and Amin al Bakri from Yemen and Redha al-Najar from Tunisia. They say they were taken into custody in 2002 or 2003.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Guantanamo prisoners can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts, but it has refused to allow similar lawsuits by those who were held by the U.S. military in Iraq.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined comment on the ruling.

Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky Editing by Will Dunham and Eric Walsh source