WASHINGTON — A judge tossed out a lawsuit Tuesday that challenged the Obama administration’s placement of a Yemeni cleric, who is also a U.S. citizen, on a kill-or-capture list of terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
U.S. District Judge John Bates of the District of Columbia ruled that the Yemeni father of the cleric, al-Qaeda propagandist and plotter Anwar al-Aulaqi, lacked the standing to bring the challenge in federal court. Bates’ 83-page opinion handed a victory to the White House and a setback to civil liberties groups.
Bates also said the case raised “stark” and “perplexing” questions about the scope of presidential wartime powers and the role of the courts before concluding that he lacked the jurisdiction to review the targeting of a U.S. citizen abroad for death.
“This court recognizes the somewhat unsettling nature of its conclusion — that there are circumstances in which the executive’s unilateral decision to kill a U.S. citizen overseas is . . . judicially unreviewable. But this case squarely presents such a circumstance,” Bates wrote.
“The serious issues regarding the merits of the alleged authorization of the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen overseas must await another day or another (nonjudicial) forum,” such as before Congress, the judge said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in August in behalf of Aulaqi’s father, Nasser al-Aulaqi. The groups said the targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi for killing or capture far from a war zone and absent an imminent threat amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen. They also sought legal standards for such operations.
Unnamed U.S. officials disclosed in the spring that Aulaqi, 39, had been placed on the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command capture-or-kill lists before formally designating him a global terrorist in July.
Officials say Aulaqi, who is in hiding, was an operational planner in last year’s failed Christmas Day bomb plot against a jetliner over Detroit and an inspiration behind numerous attacks, including the November 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
