Habeas Begins: Gitmo Prisoner Opens New Era Of Court Challenges

The Taliban tortured Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco. They thought he was a U.S. spy. Then, U.S. soldiers called the Syrian native an enemy and shipped him to Guantanamo.

Now, Ginco will be turning a spotlight back on the Bush administration itself. Newly empowered by the Supreme Court, Ginco has become the first Guantanamo detainee to demand in a U.S. federal court that the military show the hard evidence that justifies his detention. Scores of others are expected to do likewise, attorneys predict.

The war on terror may never be the same.

On June 12, the court rewrote the rules for the Guantanamo detainees in the landmark case known as Boumediene v. Bush. The 5-4 majority opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded that the foreigners held at the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay facility were protected by the U.S. Constitution's habeas corpus protections.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Redrover666]

I sincerely hope that Obama wins the election and the left is responsible for our safety.

I live in a small conservative city in the south.

Ironic that Islamic radicals target large, urban, mostly liberal cities.

Good luck.

[Deeg]

The 666 in your name is well suited.

[Redrover666]

The 666? Sparky, I immigrated here, served thirty years in your Army and a couple of years ago retired, 100% disabled. I've looked the beast in the eye. I'm not afraid of it.... but you had damned well better be.

[Redrover666]

It doesn't take Nostradamus to see how the liberal agenda is going to play out. However, when it does, it will rain down upon your own heads.

The far left has played off the thousands of Americans and the tens of thousands who have died worldwide and gamed the issue for political leverage. It's going to be real tough to reverse yourselves when the going gets real ugly. And, it will.

Like I said, good luck with that.

[BluesDogLefty]

The Nazis had habeas Corpus at the Nuremberg Trials for cripes sake.

If we are in the right, then this is not a problem.

[Redrover666]

Trials and habeas corpus came into play after the war. Not while it was being fought.

[MsLiz]

Weren't the Nazi's captured at the end of the war?

And as BushCo is so happy to point out, this is a different kind of war. Germany was a country. Japan was a country. They could surrender and cease fighting.

[Moshe]

The real reason the neo-cons don't want any legitimate hearings is because they fear public exposure. They have been playing the American public like a cheap fiddle, much like McCarthy did in the 1950s.

Legitimate hearings under habeas corpus would not only separate the guilty from the innocent, so that the guilty could be justly punished and the truly innocent justly set free, but in this case, it would also expose the massive incompetence that is the hallmark of the folks that have been running a massive marketing scam for power and profit under the trademark of a "war" on terrorism. If you weren't running a crooked shell game, how else could you get away with illegal invasions, occupations, no bid contracts to yourself and friends, blowing trillions of tax payer dollars, and then still failing to catch the person you have been saying was the reason you were doing all this, even when he is a 6' 7' Arab who regularly needs dialysis, and is the most infamous face on the planet.

Habeas Corpus is intended to promote justice, and discourage the use of prisons as political tools.

Only governments that have been operating in the shadows fear the open light of justice.

[MsLiz]

I hope we learn all the details. I fear that something bad will happen to some of the prisoners.

[outnow]

The shah of Iran finally resorted to torturing everyone just to "screen" them for opposition to his oil regime. The Iranians received next to nothing for their oil. The billions received by the shah went to purchase large weapon systems from the United States. That was the deal; the people's oil to prop up the shah in exchange for his purchase of large weapons systems. Again, weapons manufacturers and oil companies benefited. The oil business and torture have become intertwined. As people try to "nationalize" the oil, there is political repression by the dictators. The shah received were little money for the oil.

There is no reason for the animosity toward civil rights. Habeas corpus is a centuries old British legal reform that stopped authorities from arbitrarily throwing a person into a dungeon and leaving him there forever without presenting charges in a court of law. Without this protection, there can be no liberty. How many detainees at Gitmo attacked the US? These men are "enemy combatants" because the executive said so. So the mere accusation becomes conclusive proof of guilty, justifies torture and death and this goes on at Gitmo, a US controlled detention center. Then we expect the rest of the world to observe human rights? What is wrong with this picture is pointed out by Justice Kennedy, a Republican and mainstream jurist. It's really very simple.

[totalliberal]

If I had dark hair I'd be afraid to get on a plane in the USA. According to our fearful leaders we should not even complain if we are thrown into a jail on a simple accusation or suspicion. WTF kind of moron goes along with that.
What happened to the greatest generation. Have we been turned into a bunch of quivering dogs ready to give up our freedoms by a few Arabs with box-cutters?

Oh ya, the military/Bush says they are guilty. Fine let em prove it.

[Raymondf]

I'm sorry, but there goes your tax dollars again, not mine since I don't make enough money to file although I do so I can get money back from the government. Why not give them all life and keep them in Gitmo.

[MsLiz]

Maybe when you grow up you can get a real job.

[Redrover666]

Only someone real young and real silly would post a comment like yours.

[WorkingClass]

Its not gonna happen. The Bush Administration will not obey the court. They answer to no one. Back in the day we would have called them "totalitarians".

[wesinohio]

I am so happy that the right of an accused person to be able to question the grounds of his/her alleged guilt has been upheld in the United States of America, yet fearful of the four "justices" who thought that just because the president says so, that he can authorize the detention of people without any evidence. And just a week or so ago the managing editor, I believe, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper wrote an article about how terrible it was for the court to uphold habeus corpus rights. This man actually has a responsible postion at that newspaper, in this country. Why?

[TrevorAlan]

I am very glad for this but we need to be sure we can forcefully argue for this in a very pro-american, pro-security way reminding everyone that it IS about citizens rights first and American ability to get REAL security.

The right wing has this spin that all the people in Gitmo are "the worst of the worst," then claim anything less than unrestricted torture is handing keys to the scumbags. And as long as they control those definitions, anyone against the harshest measures seems a defeatist pansy. So we have to take back the very difinitions of who is there and how we deal with the real bad guys vs. wrongly accused.

I think the left needs to link Gitmo abuse to what the British were doing to cause the American Revolution. Our Declaration of Independence rails against unchecked central government power in imprisoning people, we are all supposed to patriotically bow to the Declaration, but now we must give our government unrestricted power to imprison and torture? We need to make Gitmo UNpatriotic.

[GemNY]

Imagine that you have had a conflict with your neighbor. He will not tie his dog up and the dog is dumping your trash and frightening your children. You two are in constant battle over this issue. He points the finger at you and says that you are aligned with terrorists.

You are arrested. You are placed into a facility where you are not allowed to refute the charges. And your children grow into their teens without their father.

Habeas Corpus is not a pass on behavior. It is a necessary process in our system of justice. To do less for these detainees is not humane.

And for those men that have been and still are being held for no other reason than a tribal dispute with the "neighbor"..... we have wronged them, their families and shamed the cornerstone of our own justice system.

[theMightyT]

Thanks for this post! I was trying to lay out a similar example but this one is great. Hopefully people will understand what's at issue after reading this...

[uvymopkq]

The troops in the field can solve this problem.

[BluesDogLefty]

There is no "Battle field" man.

We are dragging these people out of their houses.

Shameful.

[AxelDC]

Without Habeas Corpus, the President can arrest anyone, at anytime, for as long as he pleases. All he has to do is point his finger and say "Terrorist" and you are gone.

How does that make the US government any different from the KGB?

[TrevorAlan]

Exactly, without Habeas, how do we know only non-citizens are there? How do we know only military captures are there and not foreign politicians who simply wanted to vote an inconvenient way.

That's what we need to argue--without Habeas how do we KNOW??

[MajorKong]

Your not too far off. Most of our SERE techniques were reverse engineered from what the communists did to our POWs in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.

[TommyBobama]

The President has the power to declare martial law and suspend habeas corpus.

[Jason357]

It doesn't. As the guy on Homicide once said, "Keep your ass to the wall and don't trust ANYONE."

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Remove Habeas Corpus and please tell me how we are any better than the terrorists?

[outnow]

If you surrender all of your constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights and watch Fox News you will be safer? But the only problem is that you will be living under fascism. Many believed that Hitler's militarism was very "patriotic" and that they would be safe from communism which might take their property. Extreme "nationalism" is the problem. That's why Hitler called it the Nationalist Socialist party - a military police state run for the benefit of arms manufacturers. Starting to sound familiar? Fascism is knocking at our door here with false patriotism. We are loyal to our constitution. Anything else is treason.

We are being tested by terrorists to see if we really believe in our own system or whether we are just materialistic phonies who will immediately abolish our entire constitution and enrich oil companies and military contractors. So far, we have been proving the case that we will abandon all principle to enrich the same people who are taking oil from the Middle east. The SCOTUS has demonstrated that this is not the case for the majority of the Justices and the majority of Americans.

[realityczech4u]

We are being tested by terrorists to see if we really believe in our own system or whether we are just materialistic phonies who will immediately abolish our entire constitution and enrich oil companies and military contractors.
-------------------------------------------------------
Your statement is as idiotic as Bush's "They hate us because of our freedom."
So you believe that they're just testing us and if we 'pass' the test and show them that we're for real and believe in our own system, then they'll say "Wow. We're really impressed with you guys. We respect you now and won't bother you anymore." Ya sure.


Furthermore, we are not 'taking' oil from the ME, we are buying it from them at the world market price as we always have been. The price of oil is determined in a free market and not by the evil greedy oil companies, so try again. If you would educate yourself, you would wash away a lot of the fear and hatred you demonstrate of mysterious (and conspiratorial) forces that you fail to understand.

[adl]

Good!

[JiminNC]

The house will be voting at noon to allow immunity for the telecoms: There is time to call and register your disgust. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina has at least one solid piece of mind this morning. They will answer and listen. Please call:
---------------
Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your House Representative (not Senators) by name, or find your House Representative's name and direct dial by entering your address on the right side at the following link:
http://usalone.com

[realityczech4u]

It appears that Huffpo doesn't flag spam.

[LibDrummer]

So now the republicans are crying that democracy is getting in the way of their plan to spread our democracy.

It would be easier for the GOP to convice the middle east to emulate our constituion once they are shown that if it seems to obstruct your desires, you can simple ignore it. Great example their Bush!

[lisakaz2]

Wow, they FINALLY need some Stinkin' Proof! Hooray! Maybe it'll prompt them to actually do their jobs competently (nah, but it's a goal... ).