Appeals Court Rules for 'Enemy Combatant'

Jun 11, 03:49 PM

Current Headlines: A U.S. appeals court ruled Monday that President Bush cannot detain indefinitely as an enemy combatant a foreign national arrested in the United States.

The court ruled in favor of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatar citizen who entered the United States legally with his family on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He had a visa to do graduate work in Peoria, Ill.

The panel of the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Military Commissions Act does not allow the government to suspend habeas corpus for people arrested in the United States.

This does not mean that al-Marri must be set free, the court said. Like others accused of terrorist activity in this country, from the Oklahoma City bombers to the surviving conspirator of the September 11th attacks, al-Marri can be returned to civilian prosecutors, tried on criminal charges, and, if convicted, punished severely. But the Government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention.

Al-Marri has been held in the Navy brig in South Carolina since criminal charges against him were thrown out in 2003.