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Al-Maqaleh Dismissed

Wells Bennett
Friday, October 19, 2012, 1:17 PM
Judge John Bates has granted the government's motion to dismiss in Al-Maqaleh et al v. Gates---in which detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had petitioned for writs of habeas corpus.

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Judge John Bates has granted the government's motion to dismiss in Al-Maqaleh et al v. Gates---in which detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had petitioned for writs of habeas corpus.  I've only glanced at the District Court's opinion; here is an excerpt from the introduction:
After carefully considering petitioners' filings and the evidence cited therein, the Court concludes that the petitions must be dismissed.  As the many lengthy opinions previously written on this issue attest, determining the scope of a federal court's habeas jurisdiction can be enormously complicated.  But given the D.C. Circuit's opinion in this case, the issue now before this Court is quite narrow: whether petitioners' new evidence undermines the rationale of the court of appeals' decision.  Consistent with the one other district court that has faced this issue, this Court concludes that the answer to that question is no.  See Wahid v. Gates, — F. Supp. 2d —, 2012 WL 2389984 (D.D.C. 2012).

Wells C. Bennett was Managing Editor of Lawfare and a Fellow in National Security Law at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to Brookings, he was an Associate at Arnold & Porter LLP.

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