Rights groups seek to challenge US order to kill Awlaki

(AFP) – 48 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — Two civil rights groups filed a court challenge Tuesday saying the US government has illegally ordered the assassination of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights said in their petition that they are not even allowed to represent Awlaki because he has been named a "specially designated global terrorist."

The US government in July said Awlaki was a key leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, placing him on its list of terrorism supporters, freezing his financial assets and banning any transactions with him.

Awlaki, now based in Yemen, rose to prominence last year after it emerged he had communicated by email with Major Nidal Hasan, a US army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

The imam has also been linked to a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight with explosives in his underwear on December 25.

The petition filed in federal court alleges that the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has refused to grant a license that would allow the groups to file a lawsuit challenging the government's use of lethal force.

The new petition filed in federal court in Washington said the groups want to challenge "the government's asserted authority to use lethal force against US citizens located far from any battlefield without charge, trial or judicial process of any kind."

The two organizations said they were retained in early July by Nasser al-Awlaqi, the cleric's father, to bring a lawsuit to challenge what was alleged to be a kill order from the CIA and Defense Department.

"The government is targeting an American citizen for death without any legal process whatsoever, while at the same time impeding lawyers from challenging that death sentence and the government's sweeping claim of authority to issue it," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

"This is a dual blow to some of our most precious liberties, and such an alarming denial of rights in any one case endangers the rights of all Americans. Attorneys shouldn't have to ask the government for permission in order to challenge the constitutionality of the government's conduct."

Vince Warren, executive director of CCR said the US government "is going outside the law to create an ever-larger global war zone and turn the whole world into a battlefield. Would we tolerate it if China or France secretly decided to execute their enemies inside the US?"

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