Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging U.S. Drone Killings of Three Americans
WASHINGTON - A federal district court today dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the targeted killing of three American citizens by U.S. drones in Yemen in 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the case on behalf of the families of Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, and Al-Aulaqi’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman.
Plaintiff Nasser Al-Aulaqi, the father of Anwar and grandfather of Abdulrahman, said, “I am deeply disappointed by the judge’s decision and in the American justice system.What I am asking is simply for the government to account to a court its killings of my American son and grandson, and for the court to decide if those killings were lawful. Like any parent or grandparent would, I want answers from the government when it decides to take life, but all I have got so far is secrecy and a refusal even to explain.”
In May, the Obama administration publicly acknowledged responsibility for the killings, but the Justice Department continued to argue in court that national security concerns bar any judicial review of the government’s actions. In response to this broad claim, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer stated at oral argument that “the executive is not an effective check on the executive,” and in her opinion, she rejected the government’s argument that the case presented a “political question” that prevented the judiciary from hearing it at all. Nonetheless, she dismissed the case.
Said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Maria LaHood, “Judge Collyer effectively convicted Anwar Al-Aulaqi posthumously based on the government’s own say-so, and found that the constitutional rights of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan weren’t violated because the government didn’t target them. It seems there’s no remedy if the government intended to kill you, and no remedy if it didn’t. This decision is a true travesty of justice for our constitutional democracy, and for all victims of the U.S. government’s unlawful killings.”
Said ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi, one of the attorneys who argued the case,“This is a deeply troubling decision that treats the government's allegations as proof while refusing to allow those allegations to be tested in court. The court's view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution. It is precisely when individual liberties are under such grave threat that we need the courts to act to defend them. In holding that violations of U.S. citizens' right to life cannot be heard in a federal courtroom, the court abdicated its constitutional role."
The case, Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta,was filed in July 2012 and argued in July 2013. It names as defendants former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; former CIA Director David Petraeus; Adm. William H. McRaven, Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command; and Gen. Joseph Votel, Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.
In 2010, following press reports that the U.S. government had put Anwar Al-Aulaqi on government “kill lists,” CCR and the ACLU filed their previous representing Nasser Al-Aulaqi challenging the government’s authority to kill his son. The court dismissed that case on the grounds that Nasser Al-Aulaqi did not have legal standing to challenge the targeting of his son and that the request for before-the-fact judicial review raised “political questions” not appropriate for the court to decide.
Today's ruling is at:
aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-ruling-granting-governments-motion-dismiss
National Security
Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta - Constitutional Challenge to Killing of Three U.S. Citizens
National Security
Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta - Constitutional Challenge to Killing of Three U.S. Citizens
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.