Litigation

Court Hears Pleas for Bagram Detainee Rights

By Peter Hardin

A federal appeals court heard arguments it should permit prisoners at Bagram Air Base prison in Afghanistan to challenge their detention in U.S. courts, and the judges were “wary” of granting that right, according to a Washington Post article.

In the case argued in Washington, D.C., the judges indicated concern that upholding a lower court decision–which granted three Bagram inmates a right to contest their detention with habeas corpus petitions–could extend that right to other detainees abroad.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay prison may challenge their detention in U.S. Courts. The Justice Department has contended that the situation in Afghanistan presented a sharply different set of circumstances, including a “highly active war zone,” than at Guantanamo Bay, and it disagreed with the lower-court ruling in the matter involving the three Bagram detainees.

These Bagram detainees  say they were captured outside of Afghanistan and taken to the prison there. The lower-court ruling found them to be in similar legal circumstances to detainees held at Guantanamo. You can learn more about issues involving detainees’ rights and their proceedings in federal courts from earlier Gavel Grab posts.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 08, 2010 (boomark / email).