No Lawyers in US Plan Allowing Afghan Detainees to Challenge Detentions
Detainees at the American-run Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan will be allowed to challenge their detention under new Pentagon guidelines, but they won’t be represented by assigned lawyers.
Instead, each detainee will be assigned a U.S. military official who can gather evidence and challenge the detention before a military-appointed review board, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post. About 600 detainees are held at the prison, which is being replaced by a new, more spacious facility.
Today is the deadline for the administration to file a brief in an appeal by three Bagram detainees pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, SCOTUSblog reports.
A federal judge ruled last April that Bagram detainees captured outside Afghanistan had a right to challenge their detentions under the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the rights of Guantanamo detainees, Boumediene v. Bush, according to the blog. The United States has maintained that Boumediene doesn’t apply to the prisoners in Afghanistan.
