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Two men, Mr. Nader Elhuzayel and Mr. Muhanad Badawi, were found guilty by a jury of conspiring to support the Islamic State on 21 June 2016 after earlier pleading not guilty. In particular, Mr. Elhuzayel, who was arrested prior to boarding a flight to Israel via Turkey at Los Angeles International Airport, was found to have encouraged others to support and join the Islamic State, and to have vowed to travel to Syria to fight for the terrorist group himself. Both were also convicted of financial fraud charges, the proceeds of which were used to fund the travel. A decision with regard to sentencing is anticipated later this year. 

On 26 August 2016, the Larmond brothers and Suliman Mohamed pleaded guilty to terrorist offences related to the Islamic State and Syria. They had planned to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and had attempted this travel on several occasions. One of the twin brothers, Ashton Larmond, was the group’s leader and had previously had his passport revoked prior to heading to Syria via Turkey. His twin brother, Carlos Larmond, was arrested at the airport on his way to Syria, via India. Suliman Mohamed had planned to travel to Syria but had not been able to obtain a passport. In their sentencing remarks, Judge McKinnon compared home grown terrorists, such as the defendants, to “a particularly virulent form of cancer that must be aggressively eradicated”. Ashton was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment, and Carlos and Suliman were both sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment. 

During the 1990s, several complaints of unlawful physical interrogation methods by the General Security Service reached the Israeli Supreme Court. In 1999, it assessed the essential question posed in most of these complaints: was the GSS even allowed to conduct interrogations and if so, did their interrogation methods fall within the scope of torture as prohibited by Israeli and international law. The Court answered the first question in the affirmative and deduced from a general provision in Israeli law the GSS’ authority to interrogate. However, the Court also stated that the GSS was not authorised to use most of the interrogation methods presented to the Court. These included long sleep deprivation, shaking suspects, covering suspects’ heads, and having them crouch on their toes for five minutes intervals. The GSS had argued that the ‘necessity’ defense provided sufficient authorisation to use these interrogations, as information obtained from interrogation might prevent terrorist attacks. The Court did not agree, stating that while the necessity defense might be used by an individual investigator during criminal proceedings, it cannot provide authorisation prior to using the prohibited interrogation methods.    

In August 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, arguing that it was a base for terrorism. Later, it was proven that the plant had no ties to terrorists. Therefore, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries brought complaints against the United States in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In March 2003, the US Court of Federal Claims dismissed the complaints as non-justiciable based on the ‘political question doctrine’ (which foresees that courts have no authority to hear or adjudge on matters that raise political, rather than legal, questions). Accordingly, the Court found that it did not have jurisdiction, even if the complaints raised issues under the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. Therefore, El-Shifa’s complaints were dismissed.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national, was arrested in Pakistan together with other Yemeni citizens as part of a dragnet seizure of Yemeni nationals in 2001 and 2002. They were transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) in January 2002. In 2004, the Petitioners filed for writs of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring a court to determine the legality of the detention of an arrested person).

After partially rejecting a motion to dismiss submitted by the government of the United States, the District Court stayed the proceedings in order to give the possibility to the Petitioners to appeal the decision. In the meantime, the Petitioners filed for a preliminary injunction (which is a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts), requiring the US government to provide a 30 days’ notice of any intention to remove the Petitioners from the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba).

The District Court granted the motion, after being satisfied that a four-part test was fulfilled. This test required the Court to balance four relevant factors, namely: (a) the irreparable injury to the Petitioners in the absence of the injunction; (b) the likelihood of success of the habeas corpus motion; (c) the harm to the US government; and (d) the public interest.

The District Court ruled that the US government must give the lawyers of the detainees 30 days’ notice before transferring a detainee from Guantánamo Bay to the custody of foreign governments in order to allow the transfer to be challenged.