Guantanamo detainee wins chance to be released in first civilian court decision

[motivez]

In the first civilian court ruling giving a Guantanamo Bay detainee a chance to win his release, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled on Friday that Huzaifa Parhat was wrongly designated an enemy combatant by a military panel. Because the Court’s opinion contains classified material, the Circuit Court on Monday released only a one-page notice of its decision. It can be read here. The Court said it would release later a redacted version of its ruling, now being prepared.

Parhat, the Circuit Court said, must either be released, transferred out of Guantanamo, or given a speedy new Pentagon review of the question of whether he is an enemy. But, it added, relying on the Supreme Court’s ruling June 12 on detainees’ rights, Parhat’s counsel may pursue immediate release by filing a habeas challenge in District Court. There is little doubt his lawyers would go for the habeas option, since the Pentagon would very likely prefer to try again with a review by one of its Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

The Court’s opinion, when released, might be a broad discussion of presidential power to order detention of war-on-terrorism captives, or it might be a narrow ruling solely on flaws it found in the evidence the Pentagon assembled for Parhat’s CSRT review. The notice released Monday said only that the three-judge panel had “held invalid a decision of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that petitioner Huzaifa Parhat is an enemy combatant.”

Parhat was a member of a persecuted Chinese Muslim minority, the Uighurs. His lawyers have insisted that he is not a member of the terrorist groups Al Qaida or of the Taliban. He was captured by Pakistani bounty hunters, and turned over to the U.S. military, his lawyers have said. The Pentagon has contended that he was trained by an organization named the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, and argues that this group was linked with the Al Qaida terrorist network. His lawyers have disputed that claim, saying there is no evidence the ETIM is a terrorist group or that Parhat ever joined it.

A key issue in his case, explored closely by the Circuit Court at a hearing April 4, is whether Parhat was involved in any kind of activity that would justify designating him an “enemy combatant” — the only status that justifies holding him prisoner at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere.

Parhat’s case was the first detainee case to go forward in the D.C. Circuit Court under laws passed by Congress in 2005 and 2006 in an attempt to bypass traditional habeas review of detainees’ challenges to their captivity. It did so based solely on the evidence the Pentagon had chosen to submit to a CSRT.

Since that case, the Circuit Court has ordered the Pentagon to supply a good deal more evidence to the Circuit Court as it reviewed detainees’ claims that their CSRT enemy designations were flawed. That order came in the Circuit Court’s ruling last July 20 in a case that is now know by its lead appeal, Bismullah v. Gates (Circuit docket 06-1197).

The Bismullah ruling deeply upset the government, claiming that it would interfere with military functioning and potentially exposes secret information. The Justice Department sought to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, among a series of orders on pending Guantanamo cases, the Supreme Court ordered the D.C. Circuit to revisit its Bismullah ruling in the wake of the Justices’ detainee rights ruling earlier this month (Boumediene v. Bush, Supreme Court docket 06-1195). The Court already has put its Boumediene decision into effect, so the Circuit Court is expected to react promptly, perhaps to sort out the relationship between scores of other pending detainee appeals there, and the new chances for detainees to pursue relief by habeas petition.

SCOTUSblog » Victory for detainee in first case

Here's the order from the court: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-cont...er-6-20-08.pdf

This is exactly why we need some sort of process for determine the validity of the detention of these individuals. When our methods for capturing them are so suspect to begin with, we owe everyone we detain the ability to challenge their detention as wrong and the ability to refute whatever information we claim to have on them

There's no excuse to hold someone for more than half a decade with no legal review of the detention, and this case is one in what I suspect is a flood of similar cases that will end up with us releasing people who we've held without just case.

I'll say though, if these people didn't hate the US or want to kill us before.. after being detained in conditions like those at Guantanamo, subject to torture techniques and other things for half a decade.. I certainly would after being released

I'm glad to see the rule of law prevail here.

[Kytro]

It good see some checks against the self-declared government power.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Kytro

It good see some checks against the self-declared government power.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how a habeas challenge plays out.

[motivez]

Wow, no one else has anything to say about this?

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by motivez

Wow, no one else has anything to say about this?

This guy needs a way to challenge his detainment, so good for him. Since he's been held so long, I really hope the government has some strong evidence that this guy was a serious threat.

[Scrum]

If the government has enough evidence to "detain" someone, they should have no problem with presenting it in a court of law.

[thewise1]

My biggest worry is that we do let a terrorist go, who participates in a horrible attack on our people, thus giving people a reason to scrap the justice system.

Nonetheless I hope that justice is done here.

[motivez]

Do you think that person would be justified in attacking the government once released?

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by motivez

Do you think that person would be justified in attacking the government once released?

Difficult to answer. I think they would have a claim against our country, but any attacks against the people they could get to would only harm people who never hurt them...

[motivez]

What about the mentality that we elected the people who put the policy in place, so we're fair game?

I dunno, I agree it's difficult to answer. They'd certainly have some sort of claim against us, but like I said.. if I had been subjected to those conditions and wasn't radical beforehand, I probably would be afterward.

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by motivez

What about the mentality that we elected the people who put the policy in place, so we're fair game?

I dunno, I agree it's difficult to answer. They'd certainly have some sort of claim against us, but like I said.. if I had been subjected to those conditions and wasn't radical beforehand, I probably would be afterward.

Yeah. But the people they attack may or may not have elected the people who put the policy in place.