Former Gitmo detainees arrive in Afghanistan News
Former Gitmo detainees arrive in Afghanistan

[JURIST] Seventeen Afghan men held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] arrived in Afghanistan Tuesday and were being turned over to local officials, the Defense Department announced [DOD news release]. The 17 Afghans and one detainee from Turkey all had their enemy combatant status lifted by Combatant Status Review Tribunals [DOD backgrounder] which concluded they had been improperly classified. A senior Afghan official said that the 17 former detainees were being handed over to the Afghan National Security Council, but it was not clear whether any would be charged with any crimes. The US released 81 Afghans held at military bases in the country in January, and Afghan Supreme Court Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari said that the government was pressuring the US to release other Afghans held by the US. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.