Despite International Condemnation, U.S. Wins Round in Case of Accused U.S. Taliban

In Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Doumar scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, August 13, to determine whether Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American Muslim of Arab descent, can continue to be held in military custody as an enemy soldier, without the rights given to criminal suspects in peacetime.

The U.S. has been embroiled in a wave of international condemnation for its civil rights abuses of American citizens alleged to have ties related to the September 11 attacks; and for its refusal to grant the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba the title of “prisoners of war” - which would make the U.S. responsible for adhering to Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.

Doumar acted after the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled Thursday he had overreached in demanding government investigators hand over notes of interviews with Hamdi.

Lawyers for the government had refused to provide the notes, saying an earlier ruling by the appeals court gave them broad discretion to decide who is an enemy combatant.

"In justifying the detention of captured enemy combatants in wartime, the military should not need to supply a court with the raw notes from interviews with a captured enemy combatant, statements from allied military forces, detailed chronologies of how the military has handled the enemy combatant or the other types of information listed in this court's production order," U.S. Justice Department officials wrote in a petition filed Monday.

Hamdi, 21 - who has not been charged with a crime - was captured with Taliban and al-Qa’eda fighters after a prison uprising in November in Afghanistan and taken to the US military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

So far, only one suspect of the roughly 1,000 domestic and international detainees has been charged with a crime. Zakarias Moussaoui has been charged with being the alleged “twentieth hijacker” in the attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania.

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 southern US state of Louisiana.

Hamdi is one of two U.S. citizens held by the military in indefinite detention as the nation's courts struggle to protect the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution without disarming its war effort.

Government lawyers also are fighting to block the release of Abdullah al-Muhajir, a 31-year-old former Chicago gang member born Jose Padilla who converted to Islam in prison.

Al-Muhajir has been held as an enemy combatant since June 9, when authorities accused him of planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

He also has not been charged with a crime.

Meanwhile, a report prepared for the American Bar Association - which represents and sets standards for the nation's lawyers and judges - called for changes in the treatment of U.S. citizens accused of helping the enemy.

Thursday's report by a bar association task force called on both the administration of President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to set clear standards for such treatment, and emphasized detainees' right to a judge's review of their detention and right of access to a lawyer.

"Actions taken today will serve as precedents forever," the task force said in its report to the association's governors.

In their report, the bar association task force members said they recognized the need to both ensure U.S security and protect its democratic heritage.

"We are a great nation not just because we are the most powerful, but because we are the most democratic," the report said.

"Indefinite detention, denial of counsel and overly secret proceedings could tear at the Bill of Rights, the very fabric of our great democracy."

Earlier this week, lawyers for an Australian held at a U.S. military base in Cuba for allegedly fighting alongside the Taliban said Thursday they would appeal a U.S. court ruling that he had no right to a trial.

A U.S. federal court ruled Wednesday that it had no jurisdiction in the base at Guantanamo, Cuba, and refused to hear a suit by relatives seeking the release of the accused Taliban or al-Qa’eda fighters held there.

Relatives of David Hicks, an Australian who has been held at Guantanamo for seven months, had filed a writ of habeas corpus along with the families of 12 Kuwaitis and two Britons in a bid to compel U.S. authorities to justify the continued custody of the detainees.

Stephen Kenny, a lawyer representing the Hicks family, said he would appeal the ruling by Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

"We will continue and we hope that the full court will provide a greater sense of justice in this case," Kenny told ABC radio.

Kollar-Kotelly had ruled that the U.S. base at Guantanamo was "outside the sovereign territory of the United States [and] writs of habeas corpus are not available to aliens held outside the United States."

She rejected arguments that Guantanamo constitutes the equivalent of a port of entry to U.S. territory, as well as another argument that Washington exercises de facto sovereignty over the territory, which the United States uses under a 99-year lease from Cuba.

Kollar-Kotelly added that the decision did not prejudice any rights the prisoners may have under international law.

Kenny said the U.S. military took the detainees to Guantanamo "knowing that this would be the likely outcome of any attempt to challenge their detention."

"I've never suggested that we expected to win at this level because there are various U.S. cases that we are aware of that suggest the decision may go against us," he said.

Hicks was captured late last year fighting with a unit of the Taliban.