Nadarajah v. Gonzales Oral Arguments
Channel: LawResourceOrg
Date: 07/04/2011

Nadarajah v. Gonzales Oral Arguments - U.S. Court of Appeals - 191514-1-DVD - 2006-03-06 - The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Nadarajah v. Gonzales to decide whether the government could continue to detain Ahilan Nadarajah while his grant of asylum was appealed. Mr. Nadarajah had been granted asylum twice by an immigration judge under the Convention against Torture and had been detained for over four years while the government appealed his case. Ahilan Nadarajah, a citizen of Sri Lanka, is a member of the Tamil ethnic minority and asserted that he was tortured and persecuted by members of the Sinhalese majority. The government continued to detain him on the basis of secret evidence alleging that he is a member of a terrorist organization. At issue was the extent to which the government may rely on secret evidence to make terrorism allegations. Ahilan Nadarajah argued that his constitutional due process rights, as well as his rights under relevant treaties, were being violated by his continued detention. On Friday, March 17, 2006, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Nadarajah's detention was unreasonable and violated federal law. The Court also granted a writ of habeas corpus and ordered Mr. Nadarajah's immediate release. Case No. 05-56759.  Filmed by C-SPAN. Non-commercial use only. For more information, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/191514-1