After a very long delay, and a couple of new presidential appointments of military judges to the court (resolving one of the two serious structural problems Steve has described elsewhere), the Court of Military Commission Review has finally issued its decision in the government’s interlocutory appeal on the MV Limburg aspect of the case against Abd al-Rahim Hussain al-Nashiri.… continue »
As one of those who spends parts of his Tuesday and Friday mornings trolling PACER for new D.C. Circuit rulings (which appear there before they’re posted on the Court of Appeals’ public website), two of the decisions for which I’m especially keeping an eye out are the en banc D.C.… continue »
A panel of the DC Circuit recently held oral arguments in the case of Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri — a Saudi man accused of involvement in numerous terrorist plots and attacks against western ships, including the American destroyer USS Cole. Much of the discussion turned on the question of whether the United States and al-Qaeda were engaged in an armed conflict during al-Nashiri’s alleged conduct: the January 2000 attempted bombing of the USS The Sullivans; the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, most notably; and the 2002 bombing of the M/V Limburg.… continue »
Word has it that, later today, the Obama administration will release its long-ballyhooed Plan. To. Close. Guantánamo. (Not to be confused, mind you, with the original plan from back in 2009, or the one after that, or the one after — well, you get the idea.) I could’ve waited to write this post until the details emerge, but — let’s be honest — the details aren’t going to matter.… continue »
Given the rather significant legal news of the past four days, it’s easy to forget that a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit (Tatel, Griffith, & Sentelle, JJ.) is set to hear oral argument tomorrow morning in two major national security cases: ACLU v. … continue »
On Wednesday, the DC Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on a request to halt the military commission prosecution of Guantánamo detainee Abd al-Rahim Hussein al-Nashiri. The 51-year-old Saudi national is accused of, among other things, plotting the bombing of a US Navy ship docked in the port of Yemen in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.… continue »
Lots of attention has been focused both here and elsewhere in recent days on tomorrow’s en banc oral argument before the D.C. Circuit in “Al Bahlul IV,” which makes a lot of sense even if, like me, one is of the view that the ultimate result before the Court of Appeals may not matter that much.… continue »
Thanks to Rogier Bartels and Kevin Heller for their fascinating debate here and at Opinio Juris on whether the alleged Israeli/U.S. car-bomb operation operation that killed Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyah in a Damascus parking lot in 2008 violated the laws of war. … continue »
Marty’s important post from last night includes a link to yesterday’s statement by General Mark Martins, Chief Prosecutor of the Guantánamo military commissions, in anticipation of this week’s trial proceedings in the al-Nashiri case. Among other things, General Martins’ statement included the following paragraph, which appears to be a response to this post of mine from last Wednesday about the Court of Military Commission Review’s decision to throw out the guilty plea of David Hicks in light of the en banc D.C.… continue »
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published at 9:00 PM E.S.T. on February 22, 2015]
Two weeks ago, I reported here that the prosecution had submitted motions to the trial judges in the 9/11 and al-Nashiri military commissions to amend the protective orders in those cases to permit the defendants and their counsel to speak publicly about their treatment and conditions of confinement–a restriction that, as I explained, has been an unnecessary and counterproductive (and legally problematic) blight on the commissions for years. … continue »
