Latest in Detention: Law of
The Doe v. Mattis saga has taken a significant turn, as the U.S. government continues to attempt to rid itself of the dual U.S.-Saudi citizen it has held in military custody in Iraq since last September (following his capture in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces): In a filing late this afternoon in the D.C.
Prosecuting John Doe seemed unviable at first. Things may be different now.
When the D.C. Circuit hears oral argument in Doe v.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a John Doe habeas petition on behalf of the still-not-identified American citizen the U.S. military is holding as an enemy combatant in Iraq (for background, see here). The case is Doe v. Mattis, No. 17-cv-02069, and it was filed in federal district court in D.C. Here is my preliminary assessment.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. military received custody of an as-yet unnamed American citizen who had been captured in Syria by a Syrian Defense Force (SDF) fighter. The Pentagon soon confirmed that the person is being held in military detention as an enemy combatant, somewhere in theater, on the basis that he was a fighter for the Islamic State. Many days had gone by without further information, until today.
When the Senate Intelligence Committee initially released its Study on the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Program in December 2014, the CIA quietly released a Note to the Reader along with its Fact Sheet, statement from Director John Brennan, and June 2013 Response to a draft of the SSCI Study.
Last summer, U.S. forces conducted a raid in Syria that resulted in the capture of Umm Sayyaf, an ISIL member involved in the imprisonment and rape of women including American citizen Kayla Mueller. She was in U.S. military custody long enough to allow for interrogation both by the HIG and by a subsequent FBI clean team, but was not ultimately brought to the United States for trial. Instead, she was transferred to Kurdish authorities to face trial there.
By now, of course, readers of this blog will be familiar with the fact that a UN Working Group has concluded (by a vote of 3-1, with one abstention) that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is being arbitrarily detained in the Embassy of Ecuador. Assange considers this decision a significant victory.
The gist of Judge Royce Lamberth's opinion---which I have not yet read---is to deny the detainee's motion to grant his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. (As readers know, the motion was founded on the President's statements about the end of the United States' war in Afghanistan.)
I caught development one on social media last week: It seems Judge Royce Lamberth has set a hearing on Mukhtar Al Warafi's bid to end his detention at Guantanamo. The former Taliban medic, as readers well know, claims that assertions by the President, to the effect that the U.S.