Al-Marri

Depending on who you ask, the sentencing yesterday of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri to eight years in prison is either evidence that the civilian federal judicial system can successfully handle terror cases, or evidence that it’s a dismal failure.
Yesterday, Jonathan Hafetz, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented Al-Marri in his challenge to military [...]

It wasn’t until late Friday afternoon that the Obama Justice Department, after years of wrangling over the fate of Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan boy arrested for allegedly lobbing a hand grenade at U.S. soldiers in 2002, admitted that it does not have enough evidence to continue to hold him indefinitely without trial under the laws [...]

Asked in careful, direct questioning by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) whether Attorney General Eric Holder believes the government has the right to hold a detainee indefinitely without charge or trial on U.S. soil — as Ali al-Marri was, before the administration charged him in federal court and thereby avoiding Supreme Court review — Holder characteristically [...]

I guess we should have seen it coming. First, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate on Thursday that the government might want to continue to detain indefinitely up to 100 of the 241 prisoners currently at Guantanamo Bay, so he needs $50 million to build a new prison for them here on U.S. soil.
Then, [...]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ statements yesterday that he expects the United States will have to transfer up to 100 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the United States, where they’d be held indefinitely without trial, was an odd juxtaposition with yesterday’s guilty plea of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri.
On the one hand, Attorney General Eric Holder said [...]

When the news broke last week that the United States had tried to prevent Binyam Mohamed from suing the U.S. government — or even talking about his treatment at the hands of U.S. authorities before they would allow him to return to the United Kingdom — I wondered how many more former detainees deemed “enemy [...]

Now it’s really in President Obama’s court: This afternoon, the Supreme Court, as predicted, dismissed the appeal of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the last U.S. resident held as an “enemy combatant” in the United States without charge.
As I wrote yesterday, Al-Marri’s appeal isn’t really about the Supreme Court at all. It’s about this fundamental [...]

When the Supreme Court tomorrow considers the government’s motion to dismiss the habeas corpus petition of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, it will find itself in tough position.

Well, he doesn’t get to go free, but Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri — the last remaining “enemy combatant” who was picked up and held for the past six years without charge on U.S. soil — will finally have the privilege of being transferred to a real federal prison (from a South Carolina Navy brig) and [...]

Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only designated “enemy combatant” held on U.S. soil, in a U.S. federal court, according to The Washington Post. He is expected to be charged with providing material support to Al Qaeda.
That would likely put an end to al-Marri’s Supreme Court case, as we had [...]