Enemy Combatant Policy Ruled Illegal

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Associated Press | June 12, 2007

RICHMOND, Virginia - The Bush administration cannot legally detain an immigrant it deems an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charge and must allow him to be released from military detention, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday.

In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled that the federal Military Commissions Act does not strip Qatari national Ali al-Marri of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court. He is the only person being held as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil.

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the constitution - and the country," the court said in its opinion.

Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy jail in Charleston, South Carolina, since June 2003. He has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Illinois, where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master's degree.

His lawyers argued that the Military Commissions Act, passed last fall, does not repeal the writ of habeas corpus - defendants' traditional right to challenge their detention.

Federal investigators first charged him with credit card fraud, but the U.S. government says agents later found evidence al-Marri had links to al-Qaida terrorists and he posed a threat to national security.

They claimed he trained at an al-Qaida camp and met with Osama bin Laden and suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

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