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America Targets Terrorism: 3 Detainees Seeking Release
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
(12:00 AM)
By Stewart M. Powell
Hearst Washington Bureau
The San Antonio Express-News

"The core contention of the litigation is that the United States cannot order indefinite detention without due process," their lawyers said in a joint statement. "The detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detention in court."

WASHINGTON
An Australian and two Britons taken into U.S. custody in Afghanistan asked a U.S. District Court on Tuesday to order their release from the open-air cages at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The detainees, including 26-year-old Australian David Hicks, asked the court to grant them the legal protections of the Constitution and to nullify President Bush's wartime order permitting indefinite detention and trial by military tribunal.

The petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the parents of Hicks and British citizens Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal represented the most far-reaching legal attack to date on the administration's plan to detain foreigners taken into custody overseas in the war on terrorism.

The detainees' case contrasts to that of John Walker Lindh, 21, of San Anselmo, Calif., the so-called American Taliban who faces 10 federal charges stemming from alleged activities in Afghanistan, including conspiracy to kill American personnel.
(More: The San Antonio Express-News Source)
2002 © KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News.

Dan