US Citizen Held in Iraq Without Lawyer or Charged Filed for More Than a Year

Yes, I know some people will look at this info and dismiss it as "Oh, well, see? He's a terrorist. Let 'em rot."

But if he's so really one, why have no charges been brought? Why is this being done against federal law? In fact, almost NO ONE has been charged. Most of who we hold are usually nobodies we eventually release.

From Swiss Info:

The U.S. military said on Friday it has held since last year an American citizen without chargesin Iraq as a suspected top aide to militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, drawing condemnation from civil rights activists.

The man, who U.S. officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq refused to identify by name, possessed dual U.S.-Jordanian citizenship, themilitary said.

The man was not born in the United States, but became a naturalized U.S. citizen and lived in "a couple of different cities" duringabout 20 years in America, one official said.

Thought to be the first U.S. citizen caught as a suspected participant in Iraq's two-year-old insurgency, he was seized in a raid "latelast year" on a Baghdad home where weapons and bomb-making material was found, the military said.

Air Force Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, said the man, deemed an enemy combatant, had personal ties to Zarqawiand was believed to have served as his personal emissary in several Iraqi cities. The man has not been allowed to have a lawyer,Skinner said.

"I think it's extremely high on the outrageous scale. This is a direct violation of a Supreme Court decision," said lawyer RachelMeeropol of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights.

The justices ruled last June that the government cannot hold an American citizen indefinitely in a U.S. military jail without providing achance to contest the case against him.