How very ... odd.
The Bush Administration has taken the first step towards releasing the American-born "enemy combatant" whose case resulted in a landmark US Supreme Court defeat for the White House six weeks ago.
Four months after telling the Supreme Court that holding Yaser Esam Hamdi in military confinement was crucial to national security and the war on terrorism, Administration lawyers told a judge on Wednesday that they were negotiating arrangements for sending him back to his family in Saudi Arabia. Lawyers for both sides of the case said they hoped "to resolve this matter under terms and conditions... that would allow Mr Hamdi to be released". They asked the judge for 21 days to work out the details.
"If all goes well, this is a huge victory for the rule of law," said Deborah Pearlstein, a lawyer for Human Rights First. "The reality is that the Supreme Court handed the Administration a huge defeat, and releasing Hamdi is one way of complying with that ruling."
But a Government official said that Hamdi had been thoroughly questioned for more than two years and had no further intelligence value.
The government knew pretty much immediately that Hamdi had no intelligence value. It's just taken them two years to admit it to everyone else.
Government officials familiar with the negotiations said they were not seeking punishment for Hamdi, only some assurance that he would not return to fighting in Afghanistan.
Well, watching them enforce that ought to be fascinating. Not that they'll really care; even if he does go back, it's unlikely that he'd be seen or captured again.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the government simply didn't want to take this case into a real trial. The military tribunals they're using for foreign nationals -- which even now don't pass the legal "sniff test", as it were -- couldn't be used for Hamdi, and in a genuine court, the government would likely have not only lost, but lost badly.
Still, we'll see if the government goes through with this. It's entirely possible that they're just making accommodating noises before the election.
Posted by iain at August 13, 2004 10:38 AM
