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| Home Front: WoT |
| Gitmo detainee challenges judge who halted case |
| 2009-11-13 |
| [Dawn] A man from Tajikistan seeking his freedom from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is challenging a practice among federal judges at the US Courthouse in Washington who in some instances are short-circuiting the cases of longtime detainees. The Obama administration is trying to pre-empt some of the cases by declaring that a detainee is being cleared for release to a foreign country and asking the judge to stop the review. In the case of Umar Hamzayevich Abdulayev, US District Judge Reggie Walton halted action on the detainee's case after the government approved a transfer of Abdulayev to Tajikistan, where the detainee says he would be persecuted if sent there. Abdulayev's argument is that his court case should continue and that he would be entitled to release into the United States if the government does not arrange for a safe country of asylum. The judge 'eviscerated the clear directives of the Supreme Court' that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their detention in civilian courts, lawyers for the prisoner said in papers filed this week with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If the government is allowed to ship Abdulayev off to the 'unmonitored corners of Tajikistan's prisons' before he has even an opportunity to be heard, he will be deprived of his right to court review, his lawyers added. Suspending his court case places Abdulayev 'at risk of his worst possible fate: repatriation to torture,' the court papers added. While at Guantanamo Bay, Abdulayev has been interrogated on three occasions by officials of the Tajik government, who allegedly told him that because he had lived in Afghanistan he could work there for the Tajik government as a spy, an offer Abdulayev says he refused, triggering threats from his interrogators, according to the court papers. In the past year, federal judges at the courthouse in Washington, D.C., have ordered release for 30 detainees from Guantanamo Bay. In the cases of eight other detainees, the judges have rejected pleas for freedom. The total number of Guantanamo Bay detainee cases before the judges is 250. Abdulayev has been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly eight years. According to his lawyers, his family fled Tajikistan for Afghanistan when civil war erupted after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the time, Abdulayev was 13. Abdulayev's father was shot and killed when he and other refugees tried to return in 1994 after overtures from the Tajik government were broadcast over the radio in Afghanistan. There, escalating violence led to Abdulayev and his family moving again, this time to Pakistan. Abdulayev was arrested by Pakistani police after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States and was turned over to the US military. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 I'm sure the facial structure doesn't match, JosephM, never mind the body type. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-11-13 14:17 |
| #1 ION WMF > PALAU: US SHOWS TROPICS HOSPITALITY TO UIGHUR TERRORISTS. HMMMMM, HMMMMMM, in their ISLAND WEAR they could easily resemble or pass for LT PALAU = PACIFIC/OCEANIC LOCAL ISLANDERS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-11-13 00:25 |