Attorneys file petition for al-Marri: Two weeks after Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was dubbed an "enemy combatant" by President Bush, his attorneys have challenged that assertion in U.S. District Court here. A 22-page petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed Tuesday, asks U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm to order government officials to allow al-Marri visits from his attorneys, the chance to meet with officials from his home country of Qatar and also to prove why they believe he's an al-Qaida "sleeper agent."
"If they have evidence of his involvement in al-Qaida, that has never been presented to us or in any courtroom," said one of al-Marri's attorneys, Lee Smith of Peoria. "We think it's an important part of our constitution to be presented with the evidence against you and then to have an attorney as an advocate." A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Jan Paul Miller in Springfield declined to comment. A call to a Department of Defense spokesman was not returned Tuesday. [...] The designation means al-Marri has no legal rights under the U.S. Constitution. Gone is the right to an attorney, the right to be tried before a jury and the right to a speedy trial.
Well, this ought to be entertaining, in a slightly nauseating way. We'll get to watch the government do its version of Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the telephone operator" routine.
When asked why the phone company doesn't explain why it just did something capricious and arbitrary, Ernestine snaps, "We don't have to. We're the phone company. [flicks a switch] See that? Just lost Peoria."
The government's response to this challenge will almost certainly be a more officious version, something like: "Justify our case? We don't have to! We're the government! The judicial branch has no authority here! [lines drawn through numbers in budget] See that? Just lost all of Peoria's federal funding for any projects whatsoever!"
(OK, yes, I do realize that the government wouldn't be quite so petty as to cut Peoria's federal funds for this. But I'm sure they'd like to. This administration has been remarkably petty at times.)
First, of course, the government will challenge his attorney's ability to make any claim whatsoever; since al-Marri has been declared an enemy combatant, he has no right whatsoever to an attorney; thus, the attorney lacks standing. This may be a difficult case to make, however, since he seems to have had an attorney to represent him previously after he'd been arrested for more conventional reasons. If that line fails -- and I rather suspect it will -- then they'll fall back on the tried and true Ernestine Declaration.
The puzzling thing is still why on earth Al-Marri was declared an enemy combatant in the first place. He's been in jail since December 2001; even if he had known anything originally, the government made no such allegation at the time, and anything he might have known is now nearly two years out of date. He was originally arrested for credit card fraud and lying to FBI agents; one wonders if perhaps the case against him was terribly weak, and so the government decided to shift things over to a venue where the burden of proof is substantially less. After all, the government doesn't have to show us anything; military tribunals may be closed or open as the administration decrees. One suspects that the tribunal judges will be under a certain amount of pressure to churn out the guilty verdicts; the government can and has, after all, pressed military people in ways that would not be acceptable to use against civilian judges.
It will be fascinating. Assuming we get to see any of it, of course.
Posted by iain at July 09, 2003 06:12 PMComments
