One to watch
Appeals Court to Consider Padilla Case
Ruling Has Vast Implications on Fight Against Terrorism
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
07/18/05 “Washington Post” – – For more than three years, Jose Padilla, an alleged al Qaeda operative, has been held without trial, much of the time without access to a lawyer.
A former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, Padilla was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in May 2002. A month later, he was designated an “enemy combatant” by President Bush and sent to a naval brig in South Carolina.
On Tuesday , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is scheduled to convene in Richmond to consider a question with vast implications for civil liberties and the fight against terrorism: whether the president can indefinitely detain, without criminal charges, a U.S. citizen captured on American soil. </i>
This is big.
