Background
The plaintiff in this case is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a citizen of Yemen and a bodyguard and chauffeur for Osama bin Laden, who had been formerly employed to work on an agricultural project that Osama Bin Laden had created to support the people of Afghanistan. Hamdan was captured by militia forces during the invasion of Afghanistan and turned over to the United States, then sent to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. In July 2004, he was charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, and the Bush administration made arrangements to try him before a military commission authorized under Military Commission Order No. 1 of March 21, 2002. Hamdan filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military commission convened to try him was illegal and lacked the protections required under the Geneva Conventions and United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. Following the Supreme Court ruling on another case, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan was granted a review before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which determined that he was eligible for detention by the United States as an enemy combatant or person of interest.
The defendants in this case include many United States government officials allegedly responsible for Hamdan's detention; as is customary, the short name of the case includes only the first-named defendant, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Read more about this topic: Hamdan V. Rumsfeld
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)