Posted by
Team Turk on Thursday, November 02, 2006 5:35:30 PM
From United Press International:
A new challenge to the U.S. government's detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba has been filed in Washington.
The federal appeals court petition claims the United States cannot indefinitely imprison foreign nationals in a military prison without charging them and cannot deny them access to the judicial system.
The move is the first to challenge the Military Commissions Act, which U.S. President George Bush signed into law Oct. 17. It set new rules for terror suspects, replacing military tribunals with military trials. It also set the stage for the government to move to throw out hundreds of pending lawsuits by detainees, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Wednesday's challenge claims the new law doesn't override centuries-old burden-of-proof concepts known as habeas corpus, which Congress can only circumvent in cases of invasion or rebellion, the Post said.
The Justice Department has a Nov. 13 deadline to respond in a court brief, the report said.