US government has been sued by 2 civil liberties groups for listing respected scholar Anwar Al-Awlaki, who is a US citizen, on the CIA list of “Kill or capture”.

On Monday, The Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed the lawsuit. They stated in their lawsuit that unless Al-Awlaki comes out as an imminent threat, it is unconstitutional to put him up on hit list.

“A programme that authorises killing US citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,” said the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero.

Al-Awlaki was added to the list after US intelligence agencies linked him to the September 11 hijackers, and to several other plots, including the failed Christmas Day bombing of an airplane bound for Detroit.

The lawsuit notes that al-Awlaki has not been publicly indicted on terrorism charges. The executive director of the CCR, Vince Warren said that “The US cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so”.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of al-Awlaki’s father, Nasser al-Awlaki, a former agriculture minister in Yemen. The US justice department has defended the “kill or capture” list, saying it was allowed under “domestic and international law”.

“The US is careful to ensure that all its operations used to prosecute the armed conflict against those forces, including lethal operations, comply with all applicable laws, including the laws of war,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the US justice department.

The US government calls Al-Awlaki a “key leader” of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen. He was imprisoned in 2006 on charges of kidnapping, but was released from jail in December 2007, and subsequently went into hiding. Al-Awlaki was born in the US state of New Mexico and spent several years living and working in the US.

All these allegations have not be proved yet nor has he been tried in the international court. The two groups say that just mere baseless allegations cannot be allowed which endangers the civil liberty rights.

[Source: Al Jazeera new agency]