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Padilla Files New Appeal to Supreme Court

HeadlineOct 28, 2005

Lawyers for Brooklyn-born Jose Padilla—the man accused of plotting to set off a dirty bomb inside the United States—have asked the US Supreme Court to limit the government’s power to hold him and other U.S. terror suspects indefinitely and without charges. Padilla, who is a US citizen, has been held for over three years in solitary conferment on a Navy brig. No charges have ever been filed against him and he has never appeared before a judge. Justices refused on a 5-4 vote last year to review Padilla’s rights, ruling that he contested his detention in the wrong court. One of Padilla’s attorneys, Donna Newman, said the new case asks when and for how long the government can jail people in military prisons. She said the Bush administration’s position “is not only can we do it, we can do it forever. In my opinion, that’s very problematic and something we should all be very concerned about,” she said. Justices will not decide until late this year whether to hear Padilla’s appeal.

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