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Search results for bellahouel: 12 matches
2004-02-23 SUPREME COURT DENIES REVIEW IN SECRET 9/11 CASE
The U.S. Supreme Court said today that it won't hear the appeal of Mohamed K. Bellahouel, an Algerian immigrant secretly detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bellahouel and a coalition of 23 news and public interest groups, including The Reporters Committee, had challenged the extreme secrecy with which his case was handled. The Supreme Court also denied the media's motion to intervene in the case, and -- in a move that may be unprecedented -- permitted the government to file its brief entirely under seal. Bellahouel told CNN that he sees his case as a fight on behalf of all immigrants secretly detained in the war on terror. The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, and the Associated Press also have reports.
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2004-01-20 FEDERAL COURT SECRECY CALLED EXCESSIVE.
Reporting from Florida, correspondents from the Associated Press and Knight Ridder wrote this week about excessive levels of secrecy in cases moving through the federal court system. While some secrecy has always been part of the process, defense attorneys, civil libertarians and news media say the federal courts are going too far in closing their work to the public, particularly in terrorism and drug cases. Both stories point to the case of Algerian-born Mohamed Bellahouel, who was arrested after he was linked to at least two of the terror hijackers. He's appealing a deportation order but the case remains under seal, presumably for national security reasons, and has reached the U.S. Supreme Court in a case called M.K.B. v. Warden.
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2004-01-12 EDITORIAL: CURB THE ZEAL FOR SECRECY.
The case of an Algerian-born waiter in Florida who was locked up for more than five months in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks offers a troubling glimpse into the unusual secrecy that shrouds the government's terror-related arrests and detentions, according to an editorial in the Chicago Tribune. The government is trying to keep the case of Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel a secret, and keep its reasons for the secrecy secret. The editorial called for the government to curb its "zeal" for secrecy.
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2004-01-09 NEWSPAPER: SECRET COURTS HAVE NO ACCOUNTABILITY.
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) is the latest newspaper whose editorial page has come out against secrecy in the federal courts. In describing the Florida case involving Mohammed Bellahouel (M.K.B. v. Warden) now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the editorial said, "The government has assumed the rights of a star chamber, to act secretly and therefore without accountability. . . .The government has gone too far in violating the right of habeas corpus. It cannot be permitted to operate in complete secrecy. That was how Saddam Hussein operated."
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2004-01-08 SECRET FLORIDA DOCKET HIDES CASES FROM PUBLIC.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports this week on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida maintaining a dual, separate docket of public and non-public cases. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has taken legal action in both cases mentioned in the story - one involving Algerian-born waiter Mohammed Bellahouel and the other involving convicted Colombian drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vasquez.
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2004-01-06 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES SECRET SUPREME COURT BRIEF
Continuing the pattern of secrecy that prompted 23 media and public interest groups to file a motion to intervene in the U.S. Supreme Court case M.K.B. v. Warden, the government yesterday filed its brief opposing review entirely under seal. The only public part of the government's filing was a two-sentence motion from Solicitor General Theodore Olsen asserting that the case "pertains to information that is required to be kept under seal." Stories by the Associated Press and CNN describe the extraordinary nature of Olsen's request. The case involves Mohamed K. Bellahouel's challenge to his post-Sept. 11 detention.
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2004-01-05 MEDIA GROUPS SEEK TO INTERVENE IN TERROR-RELATED CASE.
A coalition of 23 media and public interest groups organized by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has filed a motion to intervene - that is join the case directly as parties - in the U.S. Supreme Court appeal of Mohamed K. Bellahouel, an Algerian-born man who was secretly detained after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The groups seek to obtain a direct role in order to assert the public's right of access to the proceedings, which so far have been conducted in extreme secrecy. For more details, see The Reporters Committee's press release, the motion to intervene in M.K.B. v. Warden, and coverage in The New York Times and the Associated Press.
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2003-12-02 "SUPERSEALED" CASES TAKE SECRECY TO NEW LEVELS.
In today's Miami Daily Business Review, Dan Christensen describes a growing trend toward "supersealing" federal cases - that is, keeping secret the very existence and nature of a judicial proceeding, often without conducting a hearing or making findings in support. As Christensen reports, this practice appears to be on the rise, particularly (but not exclusively) in cases that bear an alleged connection to terrorism. Examples discussed by Christensen include the case of Mohammed K. Bellahouel, whose habeas corpus challenge has been conducted in almost total secrecy, as well as that of Colombian drug lord Fabio Ochoa. The story also discusses secrecy practices under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).
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2003-11-10 USA TODAY JOINS CHORUS SEEKING HIGH COURT REVIEW OF SECRECY CASE.
The secrecy surrounding the detention, habeas corpus proceedings, and appeals of Mohamed Bellahouel continues to draw interest, as USA Today points out that Supreme Court review "could help a post-9/11 nation find the proper balance between two competing needs: The need for secret law enforcement to protect national security vs. the constitutional guarantee of an open judicial system to ensure the government doesn't trample individuals' rights."
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2003-11-05 REPORTERS COMMITTEE URGES HIGH COURT TO REVIEW 9/11 SECRECY CASE
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court this week, urging the court to accept review of a Sept. 11-related case that has been conducted in near-total secrecy. The case, M.K.B. v. Warden, involves an Algerian-born Florida man - whose name has been publicly reported as Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel - who was detained for five months after Sept. 11, 2001, for reasons that have never been publicly disclosed. All pleadings in the case are sealed, all hearings have been conducted in secret, and even the titles of all but two of the 65 docket entries are listed as "SEALED." Bellahouel's petition for review by the Supreme Court is available, but only in heavily redacted form. Details of the case, including the alleged Sept. 11 connection, were first reported in a series of articles by Dan Christensen of the Miami Daily Business Review , including a story today that summarizes the proceedings to date. The case has also received media attention today from The Washington Post and the Associated Press. For more information, see the press release issued yesterday by the Reporters Committee.
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2003-09-25 SECRECY PERVADES FORMER SEPT. 11 DETAINEE'S HABEAS PROCEEDINGS
Dan Christensen of the Miami Daily Business Review reports the story of Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel, an Algerian-born waiter in Florida who was detained for five months without charges after Sept. 11. Bellahouel was released in March 2002 but has since brought a habeas challenge to the government's ongoing effort to deport him. As Christensen details, Bellahouel's habeas proceedings have been shrouded in unusual secrecy at every stage. Most recently, Bellahouel's petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court was "heavily censored, with entire pages blanked out" of the public version of the document, according to the article.
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2003-03-12 TERRORISM ACCESS ISSUES TO THE FOREFRONT.
This is shaping up to be quite a week for terrorism access issues. The detainees at Guantanamo Bay lost their bid to get into court to challenge their detentions after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., decided it couldn't hear the case. (See coverage in the New York Times (editorial) and Boston Globe; the opinion is also online.) But the decision in the case of Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," drew more attention due to the judge's sharply worded criticism of how the case has been handled. "Lest any confusion remain, this is not a suggestion or a request that Padilla be permitted to consult with counsel, and it is certainly not an invitation to conduct a further 'dialogue' about whether he will be permitted to do so," the judge wrote. "It is a ruling -- a determination -- that he will be permitted to do so." (See the Washington Post editorial; coverage in The New York Times and the New York Law Journal; and read the court's opinion.) And from Florida comes a report in the Miami Daily Business Review about a sealed civil case involving a post-September 11 detainee that has disappeared from the court docket entirely. After a calendar reference was removed, the newspaper reports, "the appellate court's computer records were altered to remove from public view any information about the case, No. 02-11060. In between, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit closed its courtroom March 5 to the public and the press to hear arguments in the sealed case. . . . Also unusual: The public docket for the Southern District of Florida, where the case apparently originated, is devoid of any mention of either Bellahouel or his case."
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