Obama Seeks Delay in case of 'Enemy Combatant' Held in US

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order asking the Supreme Court to delay a review of the case of Qatari national Ali al-Marri, the only "enemy combatant" detained on US soil.

"You have a legal resident (of the United States) who has been detained; he is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama told reporters as he signed an executive order pertaining directly to al-Marri's case.

"His case is currently before the Supreme Court. We have asked for a delay in ... going before the Supreme Court in dealing with this case, so that we can properly review the evidence against him," Obama said on his second day as president.

Lawyers for al-Marri, who has been held in a US military prison since 2003 without charge after then-president George W. Bush declared him an enemy combatant, filed briefs for the review on Wednesday, defense counsel Jonathan Hafetz told AFP.

"The government brief was due February 20 but we have already agreed, at the solicitor general's request, to a 30-day extension for that," Hafetz said, adding that he had not seen the executive order.

The 30-day delay would give the Obama administration until around March 20 to file briefs and the case would be reviewed by the Supreme Court in April, Hafetz said.

"We have agreed to that modest delay but would vigorously oppose any further delay that would push the case beyond the current Supreme Court term which ends in June," Hafetz said.

"This is someone who has been detained for five and a half years without charge in solitary confinement. The detention is plainly illegal and we are confident that upon review the Supreme Court will strike it down," he said.

This is also interesting in that it brings up the very important but in the press much ignored story of the A Q Khan nuclear proliferation network in relation to KSM's capture:

MARCH 1, 2003 : (KSM IS CAPTURED IN PAKISTAN-- AND WILL BE QUESTIONED ABOUT HIS SAFE HOUSE OPERATOR WHO IS ALSO CONNECTED TO PAKISTANI NUCLEAR SCIENTIST A Q KHAN) Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the No. 3 leader of al-Qaeda, who was captured in Pakistan on March 1, has been questioned extensively about his relationship with Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers. But his U.S. interrogators have also grilled him about another figure of much concern to Washington: Abdul Qadeer Khan, the maverick Pakistani scientist who has been called the father of the Islamic Bomb. U.S. intelligence, according to one official, has information that the al-Qaeda man and the nuclear scientist had connections with the same safe-house operator and may have crossed paths. They were "reported to be at the same place at approximately the same time," the official said. Under questioning, according to the source, Mohammed denied seeing Khan and downplayed any usefulness Khan may have had to al-Qaeda. Khan declined repeated requests from TIME to comment on the accusations. - "Al-Qaeda's Nuclear Contact?," by TIM BURGER AND TIM MCGIRK, Time , Monday, May. 19, 2003
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* KSM : Snake Sheikh's Rise and Fall, posted on 03/02/2003 6:08 AM EST by kattracks. 10 posted on 03/02/2003 5:23 AM PST by First_Salute
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* He is known to have travelled on forged passports to the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. ...If [KSM]... talks, he could provide fresh leads into terrorist operations in the Australian region, including the Bali bombings, and derail any planned attacks. "If he is offered total immunity he may talk, but if not then I don't think he'll spill the beans," said Professor Amin Saikal, head of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University. - "Then There Were Two: Al-Qaeda Planner Caught," by Christopher Kremmer, Sydney Morning Herald, News And Features; Pg. 1 , March 3, 2003 Monday

If the third guy they captured in that raid was Saif al Adel then it gets even more interesting because he leads to Hezbollah and Iran. He may not be Adel - other articles say he was still loose in 2006. I haven't looked into him in such a long while his status is unknown to me:

Saif al Adel himself, the officials said, got help from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah after a suicide boat attack against the U.S. Navy destroyer The Sullivans went awry in Yemen in January 2000. Armed with new plastic explosives and a better bomb design, al-Qaida attacked the USS Cole in Yemen that October, killing 17 Americans.- "U.S. checking whether Saudi bombings were planned in Iran," By JOHN WALCOTT, Knight Ridder Newspapers via The Mercury News, Posted on Wed, May. 14, 2003, http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/5861884.htm

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