Anton just sent me an NPR write-up on yesterday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the habeas rights of Guantanamo prisoners. In summary, it seems the court is divided 4-4 along party lines with Justice Kennedy, as usual, holding the swing vote. There’s one part from the end of the write-up that I found really interesting and very troubling. It’s a comment from the defense attorney…
To illustrate his point, Waxman pointed to a case in which he said a detainee was finally released after four years in detention because the detainee, a German man, had “what other detainees have not had — a lawyer.” And when the lawyer filed a habeas petition in the federal courts, and the government filed a reply with its evidence, the lawyer saw that the government claimed the detainee had associated with a named terrorist who had blown himself up.
“Within 24 hours, his counsel had affidavits not only from the German prosecuter, but from the supposedly deceased Mr. Bilgen, who is a resident of Dresden, never involved in terrorism, and fully getting on with his life,” Waxman said.