Hydrablog

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR2009110203637.html
Nation Digest
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
COURTS
Deportation suit against U.S. rejected
[Obama white house] [residuals, …] [federal judiciary] [courts and Canadian who was grabbed as terrorist] [follwup] [*]
A Canadian engineer cannot sue the United States over being mistaken for a terrorist a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit voted 7 to 4 to uphold a decision by a lower court judge dismissing a lawsuit by Syrian-born Maher Arar, who was detained as he tried to change planes in New York in 2002. [*]
Arar sued the U.S. government and top Justice Department officials, saying the United States sent him to Syria to be tortured days after he was picked up on a false tip from Canada that he had ties to Islamic extremists. The lawsuit said Arar was allowed to see a lawyer only once. [god I remember this one] [*]
Syria has denied he was tortured. The Canadian government agreed to pay him almost $10 million after acknowledging that it had passed bad information to U.S. authorities.
The appeals court said it cannot let Arar sue the U.S. government without Congress enacting legislation that spells out exactly how a case as unusual as his can be brought and what potential remedy exists. Otherwise, the court said, allowing the lawsuit would "offend the separation of powers and inhibit this country's foreign policy."
Maria LaHood, a senior staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Arar, said an appeal to the Supreme Court is likely.
-- Associated Press
Guantanamo detainee will be released: The Obama administration has decided to transfer overseas a Kuwaiti held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will not appeal a court decision freeing him, the Justice Department said.
-- Reuters
FOOD SAFETY
. . . .
-- Associated Press
Imam enters plea in terror case: An imam accused of lying to FBI agents investigating an alleged bomb plot against New York pleaded not guilty Monday. Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, was arrested in September as authorities tried to thwart the alleged plot by Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado man they say received training from al-Qaeda. Prosecutors say Afzali, who was an imam in the Queens neighborhood where Zazi once lived, lied in a statement denying he had tipped off Zazi.
Ariz. woman dies after days in coma: A young Iraqi woman whose father allegedly hit her with his car because he thought she had become too Westernized died from her injuries Monday after lying in a coma for nearly two weeks. [*]Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, had been in a hospital since Oct. 20, when police say her father ran down her and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria. [*]
California's Bay Bridge reopens: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is open to traffic again after emergency repairs, ending days of frustration for Northern California commuters. Two rods and a crossbar fell into rush-hour traffic lanes last week.
-- From news services © 2009 The Washington Post Company