If I'm reading correctly, a trial begins this Tuesday in Richmond, Va.
Here's an interesting note from wikipedia: Several websites promoting what most observers consider to be conspiracy theories including whatreallyhappened.com have pointed to a supposed uncanny resemblance between Padilla and police sketches of an Oklahoma City Bombing suspect known as "John Doe Two." These sites claim he was likely a CIA agent and that the fact he is being held as a enemy combatant is part of a coverup of his involvement in the Oklahoma City bombings while a CIA agent. whatreallyhappened.com
On June 9, 2002 President Bush issued an order to Secretary Rumsfeld to detain Padilla as an "enemy combatant". The order legally justified the detention by leaning on the AUMF[2] which authorized the President to "...use all necessary force against ... such nations, organizations, or persons." and in the opinion of the administration a U.S. citizen can be an enemy combatant (This was decided by the United States Supreme Court in the case of ex parte Quirin)[3]. Padilla is currently being detained without charge in a naval brig at Hanahan in South Carolina and is accused by the Bush Administration of being an illegal enemy combatant and a nuclear terrorist planning to set off a dirty bomb. [4]
On December 18, 2003, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the Bush Administration lacked the authority to designate a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil an "illegal enemy combatant" without clear congressional authorization (per 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a)); it consequently ordered the government to release him from military custody within thirty days[5]. However, the court has stayed the order pending appeal.
On February 20, 2004, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the government's appeal. The Supreme Court heard the case, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, in April 2004, but on June 28 it was thrown out on a technicality. The court declared that New York State, where the case was originally filed, was an improper venue and that the case should have been filed in South Carolina, where Padilla was being held.
On February 28, 2005, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd ordered the Bush administration to either charge Padilla or release him[6]. He relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in the parallel enemy combatant case of Yaser Hamdi (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld), in which the majority decision declared a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."
Padilla remains in custody pending appeal of Judge Floyd's decision. On June 13, 2005 the US Supreme Court denied Padilla's petition they hear the case directly instead of the appeal being first heard by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. That trial is scheduled to begin July 19.
en.wikipedia.org |
