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| Lawyers Seeking Terror SuspectÂ’s Case Sue U.S. |
| 2010-08-05 |
| A group of human rights lawyers want to stop the Obama administration from authorizing the military and the C.I.A. to kill the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen believed to be hiding in Yemen. But the group has found itself in a Catch-22-like bind: because the government has designated Mr. Awlaki a terrorist, it would be a crime for the lawyers to file a lawsuit challenging the government’s attempts to kill him. On Tuesday, the lawyers waded into that thicket. After they filed a lawsuit challenging a Treasury Department regulation that requires them to obtain permission to provide uncompensated legal services benefiting Mr. Awlaki, who has been accused of terrorism ties but has received no trial, the government suggested it was inclined to approve their application for a license. It had been pending for 11 days. “The same government that is seeking to kill Anwar al-Awlaki has prohibited attorneys from contesting the legality of the government’s decision to use lethal force against him,” says the complaint, filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Should the lawyers overcome that hurdle, they would be in a position to seek court resolution of some of the most central legal disputes in the war against Al Qaeda — including whether the whole world is a battlefield subject to combat rules, or whether Qaeda suspects far from the armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq must, in the absence of an imminent threat, be treated as criminals entitled to trials. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 This would mean that essentially some terrorist group such as AQ could obtain a lawyer, bring a suit and win the war in our court system. I think this highly unlikely but then again one never knows these days. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-08-05 13:56 |
| #1 If these lawyers should be successful, then lawyers would be in a position to dictate how wars are fought and with whom. I just don't see how the suit could come out in their favor. This completely ridiculous and ought to be thrown out of the courts. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-08-05 13:54 |