Legal Commentary

Judge Rules Bagram Detainees Can Challenge Confinement

By Jeralyn

A federal judge has ruled the detainees at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan can challenge their confinement in U.S. court. The opinion is here (pdf.)

[Judge]Bates noted that the detainees are similar to those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those detainees won the right to challenge their confinements in federal court under a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year.

....Bates ruled that while the sites were "not identical," the "objective degree of [U.S.] control" was not "appreciably different." Obstacles to resolving the detainees' rights "are not as great as respondents claim," Bates said of the U.S. position. "And importantly," he wrote, the obstacles "are largely of the Executive's choosing," because the men "were all apprehended elsewhere and then brought (i.e. rendered) to Bagram for detention now exceeding six years."

The Obama Administration had sided with Bush on the case.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).