Arkansas Criminal Defense Blog ©

There is a story this morning on the unique enemy combatant case of Ali Al-Marri. (posted here. you will need windows media player or real audio).

Ali Al-Marri is a unique enemy combatant case in that Mr. All-Marri was picked up in the United States, not in the battlefield. It is going up before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals for argument today. For a great summary of the history of the case see this Washington Post article.

What I did want to focus on was a comment taken in the interview by NPR. Former Assistant United States Attorney David Laufman commented on the importance of being able to designate someone an enemy combatant (I hope you are shocked):

“On the other hand, Laufman says, if the case depends on hearsay evidence, or testimony that came out under coercion, or evidence that would compromise sensitive intelligence sources and methods then the government may not be able to try the person in criminal court, so the president goes the enemy combatant route.”

Tags: Constitutional Rights, Criminal Defense Articles