[5] On October 19, Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed the petition and denied the motions for the temporary restraining order sua sponte.

Omar had been held under the control of United States forces since October 2004, allegedly without legal process and with no meaningful access to counsel.

In late October 2004, United States military forces operating in Iraq arrested appellee Shawqi Ahmad Omar, a dual American/Jordanian citizen, at his Baghdad home.

It says that U.S. military forces, operating in Iraq pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1546 (2003) and 1637 (2004) as part of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), captured Omar during a raid on associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The CCCI, a Baghdad-based Iraqi court, has national jurisdiction over an array of criminal offenses, including terrorism.

According to the US government, during the CCCI investigation and trial phases, the MNF-I maintains physical custody of detainees like Omar, turning them over to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice only after conviction.

The petition claimed that Omar's detention by the United States military violates numerous constitutional provisions, chief among them the right to due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

The petition asked the district court to "[i]ssue a Writ of Habeas Corpus requiring Respondents to release Shawqi Omar from detention, and/or requiring Respondents to bring Shawqi Ahmad Omar before a court of competent jurisdiction in the United States to show just cause for his continued detention."

Also alleging that "the United States military may turn Mr. Omar over to the custody of Iraqi authorities in an effort to evade the strictures of United States law," the petition asked the district court to "[e]njoin Respondents from transferring Mr. Omar to the authority of any other government, sovereign, country, or agency until [the district court] has an opportunity to consider and decide the merits of this Petition."

In a memorandum filed shortly after entry of the TRO, the US government challenged the district court's jurisdiction to entertain the petition.

The government relied principally on Hirota v. MacArthur(1948), in which the US Supreme Court held that World War II Japanese officials could not invoke habeas to challenge their conviction by a multinational military tribunal.

In the accompanying memorandum opinion, the court explained that the jurisdictional issues in the case presented questions "so serious, substantial, difficult and doubtful, as to make them fair ground for litigation and thus for more deliberative investigation."

Fearing imminent referral to the CCCI would forever preclude a more deliberative investigation of the weighty jurisdictional questions, the court issued the injunction to freeze the status quo.

The government appealed, arguing (as it did in the district court) that Hirota controlled and that Omar's challenge presented non-justiciable political questions.