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Kathleen Kelly, teaching fellow for the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) is interviewed by the Associated Press about a hearing before Judge John D. Bates in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to determine if detainees in at Bagram Prison have the right to challenge their indefinite detention by the U.S. Government in an Article III Court based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene, which extended the writ of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees.
The IHRC is acting as co-counsel with the International Justice Network to represent plaintiffs Fadi Al Maqaleh, Haji Wazir and Redha Al Najar.
The Washington Post carried the AP story:
WASHINGTON -- Four men being held as terror suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan are asking a federal judge for the right to sue for their release _ a right already given to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
A hearing Wednesday will test whether a 2008 Supreme Court decision _ allowing al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to challenge their detention _ should be extended to detainees held at other military prisons overseas.
The government argues that the detainees should have their cases heard by military tribunals.
...
But lawyers for the four men in Wednesday's case in U.S. District Court say the Guantanamo standard needs to be applied to other prisons.
Otherwise, "a lot of the Guantanamo detainees could be transferred to Afghanistan _ basically shifting the problem somewhere the government argues that they cannot challenge," said Kathleen Kelley of the International Human Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, who is representing three of the four men.
"We are saying that's just not true," Kelley said Tuesday. "Detainees cannot be held without process indefinitely anywhere by the U.S. government."