Latest in Detention & Guantanamo
The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments on December 11 in Ali v. Trump. Abdul Razak Ali, who has been detained at Guantanamo for over 17 years, had petitioned for an initial en banc hearing before the D.C. Circuit but that request was denied. Ali seeks relief under the Due Process Clause for his continued detention at Guantanamo.
On June 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit returned to the question of the constitutional rights possessed by the detainees remaining at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In particular, Khalid Ahmed Qassim asserted a Fifth Amendment due process right to see the classified information that allegedly supports his detention.
On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled in Qasim v. Trump that circuit precedent in Kiyemba v. Obama does not preclude Guantanamo detainees from claiming procedural due process violations. The ruling reverses the district court's ruling below and remands the case for consideration on the merits of the claim. The ruling is below.
Has the statutory foundation for detention of enemy combatants quietly collapsed thanks to changing circumstances in Afghanistan? Justice Stephen Breyer is urging his colleagues to take up that question. Today they passed on the opportunity, but what if they had not?
The Justice Department filed a brief opposing certiorari in Al-Alwi v. Trump. Al-Alwi’s petition is available here. The full government brief is below.
In an opinion signed on Jan. 28 and released in redacted form on Mar. 15, Judge Royce C. Lambeth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman al-Hela, a Yemeni citizen captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and detained at Guantanmo Bay since 2004. The full opinion is available here and below.
The Periodic Review Board (PRB) appears to be broken. Since President Trump’s inauguration 21 months ago, the PRB—often described as a parole-like body established to determine whether an individual may be transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay—has become a one-way ratchet, only ratifying continued detention and never recommending release. This is not to say the PRB has recommended continued detention for all the detainees whose cases it has reviewed since February 2017.
On Oct. 1, the following joint unclassified appendix and appellant brief were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Qassim v. Trump.
Joint Appendix (Unclassified)
The government has filed a brief in opposition before the Supreme Court regarding Saifullah Paracha's petition for a writ of certiorari over whether certain statutory restrictions regarding the release or transfer of Guantanamo detainees constitute bills of attainder. Paracha, a Pakistani national who has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2004, initially filed his petition on Sept. 26, 2017 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Earlier today, the Pentagon announced that Ahmed al-Darbi, a Guantanamo Bay detainee who pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, has been repatriated to his native Saudi Arabia pursuant to the terms of his settlement agreement.