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WPU.S. appeals court wary of habeas corpus challenge by detainees in Afghanistan
By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 8, 2010
An appeals court expressed uneasiness Thursday with the ramifications of allowing some detainees at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan to challenge their imprisonment in federal court.
The three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voiced their apprehension during oral arguments in the government's appeal of a lower court ruling that granted three detainees at Bagram Air Base the right to contest their confinement under habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal doctrine. The judges seemed concerned that upholding the decision might extend such rights to other detainees abroad.
The Justice Department has argued that U.S. District Judge John D. Bates erred in granting the three detainees, two Yemenis and a Tunisian, the right to contest their confinements in federal court. The detainees claim that they were captured outside Afghanistan and brought to the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base, northeast of the capital of Kabul. They have been held for at least six years, their attorneys say.
Bates relied heavily on the Supreme Court's landmark 2008 opinion that granted Guantanamo Bay prisoners habeas corpus rights. In his April opinion, Bates interpreted the Supreme Court decision to mean that some detainees in other prisons also could challenge their confinements before judges.
Bates wrote that the Bagram detainees are "virtually identical" to those at the prison in Cuba because they were captured overseas and brought to Afghanistan. The judge did not apply the rights to the vast majority of detainees at Bagram, who are Afghans or were captured in Afghanistan.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/07/AR2010010703205.html
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