Federal Appeals Court Declares Civilians Cannot Be Enemy Combatants

Ali al-Marri, a Qatar citizen, is the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant. The ruling in his case came in a federal appeals court yesterday in Richmond, VA, according to the New York Times, where the court stated that the president may not declare civilians in this country to be enemy combatants and have the military hold them indefinitely. This came as a blow to the assertion of executive authority in the Bush administration.

"Military detention of al-Marri must cease," stated Judge Diana Gribbon Motz. The administration needs to either charge him with a crime, deport him, or hold him as a material witness. Military detention of someone who is lawfully in the U.S. violates the constitution. The Justice Department asked for the case to be reheard, saying that Ali al-Marri represented a danger to the United States. This case may eventually make it to the Supreme Court.

In its statement, the Justice Department reminded that al-Marri trained at Osama bin Laden's training camp in Afghanistan. In 2001 he entered the country just before September 11 to serve as an Al Qaeda sleeper agent and investigate methods of disrupting our financial system. He was arrested in December 2001, charged with credit card fraud and lying to federal agents.

At the time, according to The New York Times, he was studying computer science at Bradley University. In 2003, before his trial for those charges, he was moved into military detention with no specific reason, where he has been held for the last four years. According to a lawsuit filed in 2005, he was allowed no contact with his family or lawyer for sixteen months, and denied basic necessities.

Unlike those held in Guantanamo, al-Marri has not received a review of his designation as enemy combatant, performed by a military panel called the combatant status review tribunal. Since he was not alleged to have fought with any enemy nation or group, or to have engaged in combat with the United States, president Bush was powerless to have the military detain him.

While he may very well be guilty of serious crimes, said Judge Motz, that does not allow the government to circumvent the criminal justice system through military detention. "The president cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention," stated Motz. This ruling comes as a serious setback for the administration.

Source:

Liptak, Adam. "Judges Say U.S. Can'T Hold Man as 'Combatant'." New York Times. 12 June 2007. 12 June 2007
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