Habeas Corpus: Guantanamo Inmate Cases of Odah and Boumediene Hit Supreme Court – Andy Worthington, author of the Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, unearths details about the two men challenging the US’s right
From BBC News
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The cases were filed by US lawyers on behalf of Kuwaiti Fawzi al-Odah and 11 other Kuwaiti detainees, and Algerian-born Bosnian Lakhdar Boumediene and five other Bosnian detainees.
At issue is the 2006 Military Commissions Act, passed by Congress and signed by President George W Bush.
It stripped Guantanamo Bay detainees of the right to challenge in federal courts the basis of their indefinite detention as “enemy combatants”.
Their cases could only be heard in military commissions, not civilian courts, it stated.
Lawyers for the detainees say this violates their constitutional right to habeas corpus – a procedure under which someone who holds a prisoner is required to explain to a court the reason why.
The administration disagrees, arguing that habeas corpus does not apply to non-US sovereign territory.
The main sources of information about both men are the accounts they have given to US military tribunals. If you ask officials at Guantanamo Bay for information, they will point you towards these documents.
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