Appeals Court Grants Alleged Terrorist New Hearing on Combatant Status
A splintered federal appeals court, ruling in an en banc opinion, has upheld President Bush’s power to detain a Qatar man arrested here as an enemy combatant, but granted the suspect a new hearing to challenge his detention.
The Washington Post and the New York Times differed on the implications of the decision. The Times called it a victory for the Bush administration while the Post called it a setback.
The fractured 5-4 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gives Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, held in a military brig without charges since 2003, a chance to refute evidence from an intelligence officer in a 2004 hearing. The officer’s sworn statement said Marri had met with Osama bin Laden and trained for a martyr mission here to commit mass murder and disrupt the banking system.
Marri was living in Peoria, Ill., and studying computer science when he was arrested.
The ruling effectively reversed a three-judge 4th Circuit panel. It ruled last year that Bush could not indefinitely detain people as enemy combatants when they had been living legally in the United States. Yesterday’s en banc decision (PDF) included seven opinions. Judge William Traxler Jr. was the swing vote, the Times story says.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the U.S. military may indefinitely detain enemy combatants apprehended on the battlefield. Wake Forest law professor Robert Chesney told the Times that the fact Marri was living legally here, instead of being captured overseas, made the case a close call. “This consideration makes his case more difficult even in the eyes of relatively conservative jurists,” he said.
