US enemy combatants

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 [...]

As the Fourth Circuit appeals court considers the case of Ali al-Marri, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, investigates the story of the last “enemy combatant” held without trial in Guantánamo’s shadowy American counterpart, the naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina.
Torture is defined in many ways. To the US administration, nothing that it ever [...]

News that Jose Padilla’s lawyers are seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 59 other US officials responsible for “abusive and unconstitutional tactics used against Mr. Padilla while he was held in military custody as an enemy combatant from 2002 to 2006” has temporarily revived the story of the Chicago-born former gang member [...]

As it seems almost impossible to keep up with the many, hydra-like fronts of the US administration’s “War on Terror,” I was unaware of the story of Benamar Benatta until he wrote to me in response to an article I had written about the Algerian Guantánamo detainee Ahmed Belbacha.

An Algerian air force lieutenant, Benatta came [...]