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Yaser Esam Hamdi, shown captured in Afghanistan |
RICHMOND,
Virginia, June 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Hearing arguments
from lawyers on whether a U.S.-born member of the Taliban captured in
Afghanistan, Yaser Esam Hamdi, should be allowed to meet with his
lawyer, a court-appointed public defender, a three-judge federal
appeals court on Tuesday, June 4, has yet to issue a ruling on the
matter.
Citing
national security concerns, U.S. prosecutors on Friday, May 31, asked
the court to overturn an order allowing Hamdi, in military custody
since his capture, to meet with an attorney.
CNN
reports that a lower federal court in Norfolk last week rejected the
government’s arguments that an unmonitored jail cell meeting could
represent a national security threat, and ruled the meeting could
occur as early as this past weekend.
In
issuing the order last Wednesday, May 29, the U.S. district court
judge in Norfolk, Virginia, “took the extraordinary step of ordering
the military to permit unmonitored access by the Public Defender to an
enemy combatant during wartime,” U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said in
an emergency motion submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia.
The
motion argued that a meeting with an attorney would hamper the
military’s ability to gather intelligence from Hamdi, “and
critical, life-saving intelligence may be lost.
“In
addition, members of the Al-Qaeda network and its supporters are
trained to pass concealed messages through unwitting intermediaries
such as attorneys,” the motion said.
Public
Defender Frank Dunham, who has also defended Zacarias Moussaoui, has
requested to meet with Hamdi.
“Hamdi
must be allowed to meet with his attorney because of fundamental
justice provided under the Constitution of the United States,” the
judge’s order said.
“This
meeting is to be private between Hamdi, the attorney, and the
interpreter, without military personnel present and without any
listening devices of any kind being employed in any way.”
But
U.S. President George W. Bush has determined that all forces
associated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have the status of unlawful
combatants, McNulty pointed out. “The free-floating right of
immediate access to counsel ... has no footing in the laws of
war," he argued.
On
Tuesday, however, arguments in court focused on jurisdictional issues
more than security concerns. Government lawyers questioned whether
Dunham, assigned by the court in Norfolk, had the legal standing to
represent Hamdi, now caught in legal limbo between military and
civilian courts.
Hamdi,
21, was captured with Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters after a prison
uprising in November in Afghanistan and taken to the U.S. military
prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In
April, he was transferred to the brig at the U.S. Naval Station in
Norfolk after authorities discovered he was born to Saudi parents in
the U.S. state of Louisiana.
Unlike
John Walker Lindh, the first “American Taliban”, who has been
charged under civilian criminal law, Hamdi is held under military
authority, having been declared an “enemy combatant.” He is the
only U.S. citizen captured in Afghanistan and brought to the United
States without civilian criminal charges, reports CNN.
Hamdi
was not in the courtroom Tuesday, and continues to be held in
isolation at a military brig at the naval station in Norfolk.
