Opinion ID: 2647453
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bagram and its Detainees

Text: In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on our homeland, the Congress authorized the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, 4 organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the attacks. Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, 224 (2001). Among the powers conferred on the President was the power to detain enemy combatants “for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 518 (2004) (plurality opinion); id. at 588–89 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (agreeing that AUMF authorizes detention); see also Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 733 (2008); Khairkhwa v. Obama, 703 F.3d 547, 548 (D.C. Cir. 2012); Uthman v. Obama, 637 F.3d 400, 402 (D.C. Cir. 2011), cert. denied 132 S. Ct. 2739 (2012). 1 An enemy combatant is any person who, at the time of capture, was a part of the Taliban, al Qaeda or associated forces engaged in hostilities against the United States. See Al-Madhwani v. Obama, 642 F.3d 1071, 1073–74 (D.C. Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 2739 (2012); Al-Bihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 866, 872 (D.C. Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1814 (2011). The United States has detained enemy combatants at facilities both within and outside the United States, including Bagram. Located in Parwan Province in northwest Afghanistan, Bagram is the largest U.S. military installation in that country. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 87. U.S. and allied forces conduct operations from Bagram. The current lease agreement between the United States and Afghanistan provides that the United States may occupy and use Bagram “for military purposes . . . until the United States or its 1 The Congress recently affirmed the President’s authority to detain enemy combatants. See Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 1021, 125 Stat. 1298, 1562 (2011) (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 801 note (2012)). 5 successors determine that the premises are no longer required for its use.” Id. (quotations marks omitted). Among those detained at Bagram are the five appellants in this case (to whom we refer collectively as the Appellants). Three of the Appellants—Fadi al-Maqaleh, Amin al-Bakri and Redha al-Najar—were appellees in Al Maqaleh II (we refer to them collectively as the Al Maqaleh II Appellants). Appellant al-Maqaleh is a Yemeni citizen who alleges that the United States captured him outside Afghanistan and transferred him to Bagram in 2004 or 2005. Appellant alBakri is a Yemeni citizen who alleges that the United States captured him in Thailand in 2002 and eventually transferred him to Bagram. Appellant al-Najar is a Tunisian citizen who alleges he was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and subsequently transferred to Bagram. Appellant Amanatullah is a Pakistani citizen who was captured by British forces in Iraq in 2004 or 2005 and subsequently transferred to Bagram. Appellant Hamidullah is a Pakistani citizen who alleges that he was captured in the Pakistani border region of South Waziristan in 2008 at the age of fourteen and subsequently detained at Bagram. Before Al Maqaleh II, the United States housed detainees within the confines of Bagram at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility (BTIF). In late 2009, however, the United States constructed a new detention facility, then known as the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP), just outside Bagram. The United States transferred all Afghan detainees held in the BTIF to the DFIP by late 2009. Adjacent to the DFIP, the United States built a separate facility to house non-Afghan detainees. In May 2012, the United States agreed to transfer both “U.S. detention facilities in Afghan territory to Afghan control” and “Afghan nationals detained by U.S. forces at the [DFIP] to Afghanistan.” Memo. of Understanding on Transfer of U.S. Detention Facilities in Afghan Territory to 6 Afghanistan, U.S.-Afg., § 2, Mar. 9, 2012, Joint Appendix (JA) 680 (2012 MOU). The United States completed the transfer of the DFIP facility and its inmates to Afghan control on March 25, 2013. John Kerry, Remarks with President Hamid Karzai After Their Meeting (Mar. 25, 2013), available at http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/03/206663. htm; Press Release, International Assistance Security Force, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, U.S. Transitions Parwan Detention Facility to Afghan Government (Mar. 25, 2013), available at http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/u.s.- transitions-parwan-detention-facility-to-afghan-government.ht ml. The DFIP—now known as the Afghan National Detention Facility-Parwan—is a part of the Justice Center in Parwan (JCIP), where the Afghan government conducts criminal trials of Afghan detainees. We note that the Appellants’ current status is unclear. Although the Government represented in May 2011 that it detained them at the DFIP, it has since ceded the DFIP to Afghan control. The record does not disclose whether, after that cession, the Appellants remain there or at some other facility and the Government has not informed us of the Appellants’ current location. The Appellants claim in their briefs—filed after the transfer of the DFIP to Afghan control—that the United States continues to detain them at “a separate prison facility at Bagram.” Joint Br. for Pet’rsAppellants (al-Maqaleh Br.) 38, Al Maqaleh v. Gates, Nos. 12-5404, 12-5399, 12-5401 (D.C. Cir. April 27, 2013). Because the Government concedes its continuing custody over four of the five Appellants, we accept the Appellants’ alleged location of their detention as accurate for the purpose of our jurisdictional analysis. 7