Detention Challenge—Majid Khan

The first of the 14 “high-value” terrorism detainees “transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay” has “challenged his detention on federal court.”^[1] In addition to challenging his detention, Majid Khan’s case “is also the first case to contest the legality of the CIA’s secret prisons program.”^[2] Mr. Khan grew up in Catonsville, Maryland.^[3]

His challenge was filed in federal District Court in Washington, and he asserts in his filing “that he is far from the terrorist the government alleges him to be and [that] confining him to a cell without providing an opportunity to contest his detention violates the Constitution and international law.”^[4] He also denies ever being associated with al-Qaida or “ever being ‘a combatant of any kind.’”^[5]

His case is of course going to be extremely interesting to follow, not the least for the fact that the view the government has of him is 180 degrees at odds with the view he presents of himself. The government alleges that he is “a young Pakistani who never obtained US citizenship, got caught up in a local Islamic organization and returned to Pakistan, where an uncle and cousin introduced him to Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and enlisted in al-Qaida's cause,” allegedly researching explosives and the feasibility of blowing up gas stations.^[6] He, on the other hand, “makes no mention of Muhammad or [another al-Qaida personality known as] Zubair, or plots to blow up gas stations.”^[7] Instead, his picture is one of a “quiet student” who became a database administrator with the Maryland Office of Planning, and was granted asylum in the United States in 1998 and received permanent resident status in 1999.^[8] He states that he was in Pakistan in 2002 in order to get married, and—after a brief trip to the United States—returned to Pakistan at the end of that year to be with his wife.^[9]

Mr. Khan’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court, and it will be heavily contested at every step of the journey.

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[1] Siobhan Gorman, Terror Suspect Challenges Detention, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 5, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.