Appeals Court Orders Enemy Combatant Free (Ali al-Marri)

posted on June 12, 2007 | in Category U.S.A. | PermaLink

Original author: Adam Liptak
Source: The New York Times
URL: [link]
Date: June 11, 2007


In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central
assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a
federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held
as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize
and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even
if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous
consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would
so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”

The ruling was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., in the
case of Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar and the only person on the
American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant.

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