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The End of the United States' War in Afghanistan Requires Detainee's Release From GTMO
Such is this gist of this quite important Motion to Grant Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed last night by attorneys for Guantanamo detainee Mukhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi. His filing opens as follows:
Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. No. 107-40, § 2(a), 115 Stat.
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Such is this gist of this quite important Motion to Grant Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed last night by attorneys for Guantanamo detainee Mukhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi. His filing opens as follows:
Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. No. 107-40, § 2(a), 115 Stat. 224 (2002) (“AUMF”), the Government cannot detain a person captured during a conflict once the conflict has ended. Mukhtar Al Warafi has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for more than 13 years, based solely on a claim that he was “part of the Taliban” in 2001 during the United States’ war in Afghanistan. President Obama has made it clear in authoritative statements, including in his State of the Union Address of January 20, 2015, that the United States’ war in Afghanistan and its combat mission in Afghanistan ended at the close of 2014. There is thus no legal basis for Al Warafi’s continued detention and the Court should forthwith grant his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
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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