Court Orders Release of “Enemy Combatant”
The Boston Globe reports that the first habeas petition that hit the federal appeals court system has gone against the government:
In the first Guantanamo Bay case to be reviewed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim known as a Uighur, undermining the basis for his more than six years in detention.
The appeals court directed the U.S. military to release Parhat, to transfer him or to hold a new proceeding promptly in light of the appeals court’s ruling.
Considering that this man has been held at Guantanamo Bay for six years, this seems like pretty poor evidence:
Parhat never fought against the United States and the government concedes there’s no evidence he ever intended to. He has been held for six years because he is linked to a Chinese separatist group that the military says has some ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Government attorneys say he can be held under the law authorizing military force against anyone who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” of 2001.
Seriously, that’s it? A guy whose enemy is Communist China just spent 6 years in a hole and the government admits that he never attempted, nor desired, to attack the US or our allies?
And before anyone in Congress starts wailing that a bunch of incense-burning, sitar-crazed, liberal judges were “legislating from the bench,” they should check out who the judges were:
Sentelle is an appointee of President Reagan, Garland was appointed by President Clinton and Griffith was appointed by President George W. Bush.
