Maqaleh Pleadings

Overview

Throughout his more than six-year detention, Mr. al-Maqaleh has been held virtually incommunicado without charge or access to a court of law to challenge his detention. As a result, very little is known about when, where, or by whom Mr. al-Maqaleh was initially seized.

Mr. al-Maqaleh’s family first learned that he was in the custody of U.S. forces when they received a handwritten letter from him in 2004 via the International Committee of the Red Cross (“ICRC”).  Since then, Mr. al-Maqaleh’s only contact with his family has been through heavily redacted letters and brief telephone conversations that are closely monitored by the U.S. Government.  The U.S. Government has prevented Mr. al-Maqaleh from revealing the details of his seizure, sites of detention, or conditions of his confinement at Bagram.  Mr. al-Maqaleh has repeatedly requested to meet with counsel, but the U.S. Government has denied him this essential right.

Pre-Bagram Sites of Detention

Mr. al-Maqaleh was held by U.S forces at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq prior to his transfer to Bagram. Before he arrived at Bagran, Mr. al-Maqaleh was illegally taken to one or more “black sites,” or secret prisons run by or at the behest of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”).  At these sites, detainees have been denied all access to the outside world, including access to the ICRC, and have been subjected to harsh interrogation techniques that include or amount to torture.

Detention at Bagram Prison

Mr. al-Maqaleh’s family first learned that he was at Bagram in 2004, when Mr. al-Maqaleh’s father, Ahmad al-Maqaleh, received a handwritten letter via the ICRC.  Since that time, Ahmad al-Maqaleh has received additional letters from his son, though they have been heavily censored and redacted by the U.S. military.  Many letters initially had “BT” written at the top of each page, indicating that they had been screened and processed by personnel at “Bagram Theater.”

From 2004 through 2009, Mr. al-Maqaleh was held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility (“BTIF”).  It is well documented that detainees at the BTIF were confined in squalid conditions and subjected to repeated physical and mental abuse, including being threatened with dogs, stripped and photographed in uncomfortable or obscene positions, and being placed in cages with hooks and hanging ropes from which they were blindfolded and hung for days.  Two detainees were shackled to the ceiling for days, tortured, and then savagely beaten to death by U.S. interrogators.

In late 2009, Mr. al-Maqaleh was transferred to the adjacent Detention Facility in Parwan (“Parwan Facility”), where he remains to this day.  While the U.S. military has promoted the Parwan Facility as an iimprovement over Bagram Prison in terms of the physical living conditions, Mr. al-Maqaleh continues to be held there without charge, access to a court of law, or access to an attorney. Any communications he is permitted with his family are via letters and occasional telephone calls, and are strictly monitored by his captors. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to determine whether there has been any meaningful improvement in the conditions of Mr. al-Maqaleh’s confinement or treatment at Parwan.

Alleged Justification for Continued Detention

To date, the U.S. Government has neither brought charges against Mr. al-Maqaleh nor presented any evidence alleging that he engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its allies.  Rather, without citing any specific allegations against Mr. al-Maqaleh, the U.S. Government’s has simply designated him as an “unlawful enemy belligerent”, without legal due process.  This designation forms the sole justification of the US government for his continued detention.

Legal Proceedings within the U.S.

Because Mr. al-Maqaleh is being detained with virtually no communication to the outside world, his father authorized the International Justice Network (“IJN”) to act as his son’s attorneys.  In September 2006, IJN filed a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Mr. al-Maqaleh, which was the first legal case filed on behalf of a detainee at Bagram in U.S. courts.  Mr. al-Maqaleh’s petition was assigned to Judge John D. Bates.

In his petition, Mr. al-Maqaleh alleged that he was being held without legal or factual justification.  Rather than responding to Mr. al-Maqaleh’s claims, the U.S. government instead argued that he had no right to challenge his detention in U.S. courts.

In April 2009, Judge Bates denied the U.S. Government’s motion to dismiss Mr. al-Maqaleh’s case, holding that the Court had jurisdiction to hear his case as well as the cases of two other non-Afghan prisoners who had been transferred to Bagram by the United States from outside of Afghanistan.  The Court held that while the Military Commissions Act of 2006 purported to deprive the Court of jurisdiction over habeas petitions filed on behalf of detainees held outside the United States, it was unconstitutional as applied to Mr. al-Maqaleh and two of the other detainees because they were non-Afghans transferred to Bagram from outside Afghanistan.

The Government appealed the District Court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and oral arguments were held in January 2010. In May 2010, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision – reversing the lower court and siding instead with Government.  Subsequently, the petitioners, citing new information and evidence about Bagram that had come to light since they argued the case six month prior, asked the panel to rehear and reconsider the case. In July 2010, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear the case, but speciified that petitioners could seek to raise the new evidence before the District Court.