The Hindu : U.S. court broadens anti-terrorism review

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

International

International

U.S. court broadens anti-terrorism review

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, FEB. 21. In a major development on the civil rights and liberties front, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear and decide if American citizens can be held indefinitely as "enemy combatants" without access to lawyers or courts.

The apex court has accepted the case of Jose Padilla or known as the "dirty bomb suspect" and in the process will be defining what is the Federal Government's scope in the so-called war on terrorism. The hearings on the subject will start in April with the highest court expected to give a decision sometime this summer.

Jose Padilla was picked up in Chicago nearly two years ago after his return from Pakistan and authorities have maintained that he was part of a plot to let loose a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States.

The Padilla case will be heard along with that of another American, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was picked up in the battlefields of Afghanistan. Attorneys for both men say that the treatment of them is unconstitutional.

Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court is also hearing a case on the detentions in Guantanamo Bay base where detainees are asking the top court to rule if they have recourse to American courts.

Civil rights advocates in the U.S. and overseas have been sharply critical of the manner in which the Bush administration has gone about the detentions which in the view of many violate not only basic human rights but also international accords.

What has not gone unnoticed is that the Supreme Court's decision to hear the Padilla case is coming at a time when this Republican administration is reluctantly showing some signs of backing down from its earlier policies on detentions.

Administration officials have said very recently that five Britons now held at Guantanamo Bay Base will be released.

A counter terrorism specialist, Michael Greenberger, who worked in different projects at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration has said that everything the Bush administration is doing now "is an attempt to make an awful situation much more defensible when it gets to the Supreme Court".

But the administration and its supporters are trying to make the point that every effort has been taken to ensure that those detained are indeed a threat to national security and have rejected charges of innocent people arbitrarily picked up and detained.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

News Update

Stories in this Section

Iranian polls: Conservatives establish lead

U.S. court broadens anti-terrorism review

Russia builds super-weapon

Pakistan all set for military operation on Afghan border

We will never roll back n-programme: Musharraf

Awami League plans fresh agitation

Nuclear deterrent force is indigenous: North Korea

Berlusconi criticises proposals of `Big Three'

`India-Russia-China triangle has good prospects'

White powder in Indian passport found harmless

India, Pakistan on the right path: Powell