Legislation passed by Congress earlier this year empowers the U.S. government to indefinitely detain without charge any non-U.S. citizen in the country, the Justice Department has argued in newly-filed court documents. The filing before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, argues that the Military Commissions Act, which deals predominately with the detention and prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees, also applies to non-citizens held in the United States. The Justice Department says that means a Qatari citizen, Ali Saleh Kahlah Al Marri, who has been designated an enemy combatant, has no right to challenge his detention without charge before a U.S. court. Al Marri was arrested in 2001, while studying in the United States. The U.S. government alleges that he had links to a key Al Qaeda financier, and has held Al Marri in a military prison in South Carolina. His detention within the United States, Al Marri s lawyers argue, means he should have the right to file a habeas corpus suit, which challenges the government to justify his detention. The Justice Department filing says the new law applies to anyone designated an enemy combatant regardless of the location of the detention. It s pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right, said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al Marri. It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention. The Military Commissions Act, passed after weeks of negotiations between Republican senators and the White House, explicitly prevents those designated enemy combatants from appearing before U.S. courts, except to appeal the decision of a review board, or military tribunal. In a separate court filing in Washington on Monday, the Justice Department defended that provision as constitutional and necessary. Government attorneys say detainees at Guantanamo Bay were arrested as part of an overseas military action and therefore have no constitutional rights to challenge their detention before U.S. courts. The Bush administration maintains that Al Marri is an Al Qaeda sleeper agent, and the Defense Department has ordered a review of Al Marri s status as an enemy combatant if the court refuses to review his detention.
