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PRESS RELEASE |
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PRESS RELEASE |
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Release Date: March 24, 2006
Contact: Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345 |
TERRORIST CLAIMS MILITARY TRIAL VIOLATES HIS RIGHTSSupreme Court hears oral argument in Hamdan
v. Rumsfeld on March 28
The United States Supreme Court will hear argument Tuesday, March 28, on the federal habeas corpus petition of a captured terrorist who claims that he is being unlawfully subjected to trial by a military tribunal at the U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The petitioner in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, has been identified as Osama bin Laden's chauffeur and personal bodyguard. He was captured by Afghani militia forces in late November 2001. Hamdan's status as an enemy combatant has been affirmed by a review board in accordance with the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. He was awaiting trial for acts of terrorism by a military commission when a federal district judge, responding to his habeas corpus petition, ruled that he could not be tried by the commission until it was determined that he was not a prisoner of war under the 1949 Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners. The ruling did not order that Hamdan be released from custody, but did require that he be moved from an isolation section of the base to the general population of detainees. Last year, after the federal Court of Appeals overturned this ruling, the Supreme Court agreed to consider Hamdan's appeal. The Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined the case to argue that the federal courts do not have jurisdiction to rule on a habeas corpus petition raised by an alien enemy captured and held by the military at Guantanamo. The Foundation's amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief cites the Detainee Treatment Act, adopted by Congress in December 2005, which specifies in part that "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by an . . . alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay . . . ." "Congress has the constitutional authority to repeal habeas corpus review for the Guantanamo detainees, and it has clearly done so," said CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger, who authored the Foundation's brief. The CJLF brief also points out that the cases cited by Hamdan's attorney and other amici do not support his claim that foreign enemies, detained by the military during time of war, were historically entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus review, and such review is therefore not guaranteed by the Constitution. Finally, CJLF argues that the historical purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to petition for release from custody by a person who has been illegally detained. Hamdan does not seek this remedy, but rather seeks to prevent his trial by the commission. "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, as adopted in our Constitution, was the right to have a judge review the legality of custody and nothing more," said Scheidegger. "This is the limitation the American people placed upon their government, and this is the limitation that the courts have the power and the duty to enforce," he added. A decision favoring the Foundation's position will leave the fate
of terrorists like Hamdan to our armed forces, subject to the judicial
review of the final judgment as provided by Congress. CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger is available
for comment at (916) 446-0345. |