Belacha seeks stay from Chief Justice
on Aug 3, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Attorneys for an Algerian national, Ahmed Belbacha, held for more than five years as a Guantanamo Bay detainee, on Friday asked Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., to order a delay of his impending transfer to his home country. The stay application in Belbacha v. Bush , docket 07A98, can be found here. Some months ago, U.S. government officials began negotiating for Belbacha’s transfer from Guantanamo but only recently resolved discussions for his return to Algeria.
Belbacha’s counsel said that he “has a well-founded fear that should he be returned to Algeria, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the modern offshoot of {an Islamic terrorist group], will target him” for torture or abuse, as it did previously. “Trapped by the dual threat of armed domestic groups and a government that often brutalizes suspected Islamists, Mr. Belbacha cannot safely return to Algeria,” his counsel asserted.
The application asked the Chief Justice to delay his transfer until after the Supreme Court decides two cases (Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196) on the legal rights of detainees to challenge thier continued confinement. The application said that a petition for Supreme Court review of his case and a petition for an original habeas writ would be filed by next Friday. Belbacha also has an appeal pending in the D.C. Circuit Court (docket 07-5258) and is seeking asylum in the U.S.
Both the Circuit Court and a District Court judge have found that the federal courts lack jurisdiction, under Congress’ court-stripping provisions in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to block transfers from Guantanamo. (An earlier post on this blog discussing Belbacha’s case and similar transfer challenges can be found here.)
The application to the Chief Justice was based upon the All Writs Act and on the Court;s inherent constitutional powers to protect its own jurisdiction. The Chief Justice has the option of acting on the application on his own, or of referring it to the full Court. Although the Justices are scattered from Washington during the Court’s summer recess, all are within easy contact for individual or joint action.
