Al Alwi, et al. v. Obama, et al., No. 09-5125 (D.C. Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseThis was an appeal from the denial of the petition of a detainee at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay for a writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the district court erred in determining that the detainee was being lawfully detained on the record as it stood before that court and whether the district court's procedural errors deprived him of a meaningful opportunity to develop a record upon which he could challenge his detention. The court rejected the detainee's contention that the district court's findings of fact were clearly erroneous and because those findings were enough to establish that the detainee was "part of the Taliban or al Qaeda," the court rejected his contention that the record before the court was insufficient to establish the lawfulness of his detention. Given the time the detainee's attorneys had after their receipt of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal record, the district court's grant of leave to file an amended traverse, and the absence of any subsequent request for additional time or discovery, the court held that the detainee had failed to show that he was prejudiced by the denial of the thirty-day continuance. The court also held that, in light of the circumstances, there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to issue further discovery orders without a showing that there was a basis for believing that the requests satisfied the Case Management Order's predicate conditions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.