Guantanamo Inmate Rejected by Supreme Court on 17-Year Detention

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal from one of the 40 inmates still being held at Guantanamo Bay, refusing to question the government’s power to continue to hold people there without criminal charges.

The inmate, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, has been held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba for more than 17 years since he was captured in Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan. He argued that the government’s power to detain people as enemy combatants has expired given that hostilities in the region have largely subsided.

The case centered on the reach of the 2001 law that authorized military force against al-Qaeda and its supporters after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the measure authorizes the president to detain enemy combatants as long as the conflict lasts.

Although the court as a whole made no comment Monday, Justice Stephen Breyer said in a statement accompanying the order that “it is past time” for the court to consider whether perpetual detention is permissible under federal law and the Constitution.

“Al-Alwi faces the real prospect that he will spend the rest of his life in detention based on his status as an enemy combatant a generation ago, even though today’s conflict may differ substantially from the one Congress anticipated” when it authorized the use of force, Breyer wrote.

The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal, saying the U.S. remains engaged in hostilities against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“The risk that a combatant will return to the battlefield lasts as long as active hostilities remain ongoing,” the administration contended in court papers.

Al-Alwi, who is Yemeni, has admitted he trained at a Taliban-affiliated camp and then fought for the Taliban under the command of a high-level al-Qaeda leader, according to the government.

The case is al-Alwi v. Trump, 18-740.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton

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