WASHINGTON, 10 August 2005 — Lawyers for a detainee at the Guantanamo ‘war on terror’ detention camp have appealed to the US Supreme Court to stop military commissions set up to try prisoners there, authorities said yesterday.
A US appeals court last month authorized the commissions after reviewing the case of Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, held since early 2002 in at the US detention camp in Cuba.
Lawyers for Hamdan appealed that ruling to the highest US court, arguing that it did not respect the US constitution or international law.
“The court of appeals, by rejecting longstanding constitutional, international law and statutory constraints on military commissions, has given the president that power in tribunals that impose life imprisonment and death,” argued Hamdan attorneys Neal Katyal and Charles Swift.
