Simply Politics & News

[sarals]

Court Blocks Moving American’s Case to Iraq Court

<< good news is that court blocked Bush admin... just unbelievable to me that this administration thinks it can just take american citizens and send them to another country for trial. Bush is a wannabe dictator. >>

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (AP) — A federal appeals court blocked the Pentagon on Friday from transferring an imprisoned American to an Iraqi court to face charges that he supported terrorists and insurgents.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously that the prisoner, Shawqi Omar, a citizen of Jordan and the United States, had a right to argue for his release before a United States court.

By a 2-to-1 vote, the panel also upheld an injunction issued last year by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court here that blocked the military from turning over Mr. Omar, 45, for trial in an Iraqi court.

“This is a case about whether a U.S. citizen can be cast into a legal black hole with no means to challenge the basis for his detention,” Aziz Huq, Mr. Omar’s lawyer, said. “The court today reaffirmed the Supreme Court’s view that war is not a blank check as far as a citizen’s liberty is concerned.”

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Erik Ablin, said it believed that the decision would “inappropriately interfere with the executive branch’s prerogative to prosecute a war and to make good on its commitments to our allies.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/washington/10iraqi.html