US enemy combatants

So it’s finally over. Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident from Qatar, who was held as an “enemy combatant” on the US mainland for five years and eight months without charge or trial, was finally sentenced in a federal court last Thursday. The prosecution was seeking a 15-year sentence, following al-Marri’s guilty plea in April, [...]

Ali al-Marri, who was held as an “enemy combatant” on the US mainland for five years and eight months without charge or trial, was finally sentenced in a federal court last Thursday (as discussed in an article here), and he made the following statement in court, which I believe is worth reproducing in full:
Ali al-Marri’s [...]

For five years and eight months, the Bush administration held Qatari national and legal US resident Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri without charge or trial as an “enemy combatant” in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Arrested by the FBI in December 2001, and subsequently charged with crimes including credit card fraud and identity [...]

Two weeks ago, when the Obama administration announced that it was bringing to an end the disturbing isolation endured by Ali al-Marri, a US resident who has been held without charge or trial for seven years and two months — and who, most worryingly, has spent the last five years and nine months as an [...]

Last Thursday, US resident Ali al-Marri, the last “enemy combatant” on the US mainland, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Peoria, Illinois, for providing material support for terrorism, bringing to an end the Qatari national’s disturbing imprisonment for five years and eight months without charge or trial in a state of solitary confinement [...]

Finally! 2569 days after the prison at Guantánamo opened — but just two days into the new Presidency — Barack Obama signed three executive orders and a Presidential memorandum that mark a decisive break with the “War on Terror” policies of the Bush administration. As he signed the orders, he reiterated a comment that he [...]

In brighter times, before a fog of fear descended on the United States, and the discourse of decent men and women was coarsened by an acceptance of the use of torture as a “no-brainer,” it would have been inconceivable that an American could have been held for seven years without charge or trial on the [...]

As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the US Justice Department has dropped the key allegation against British resident and Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed — that he was involved, with American citizen Jose Padilla, in a plot to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a US city.
For over three years, Binyam’s lawyers at Reprieve, the London-based legal [...]

Wake up, America! On July 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled by 5 votes to 4 in the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli (PDF) that the President can arrest US citizens and legal residents inside the United States and imprison them indefinitely, without charge or trial, based solely on his assertion [...]

The news that US citizen Jose Padilla has received a prison sentence of 17 years and four months should provoke outrage in the United States, although it is unlikely that there will be much more than a whimper of dissent.
The former gang member and convert to Islam –- whose arrest in May 2002 was trumpeted [...]