- (AFP) -- In a sudden reversal, the Pentagon allowed a
US citizen being held as an "enemy combatant" access to a lawyer
in what legal experts see as an attempt to ward off a US Supreme Court
review of the case.
-
- After denying him access to counsel for two years, the
Department of Defense said Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US citizen of Saudi descent
captured by US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, "will be allowed
access to a lawyer subject to appropriate security
restrictions."
-
- The department "decided to allow Hamdi access to
counsel because Hamdi is a US citizen detained by DoD in the United States,
because DoD has completed its intelligence collection with Hamdi, and
because
DoD has determined that the access will not compromise the national
security
of the United States," the Pentagon said in a statement.
-
- It argued the decision should be viewed "as a matter
of discretion and military policy" and "should not be treated
as a precedent."
-
- Practical arrangements for an attorney to visit the
22-year-old
Hamdi at a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, will be finalized over
the next few days, according to defense officials.
-
- Designated an enemy combatant, Hamdi was first shipped
off to a prison camp on the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but
was moved to the United States after it was determined he was a US
citizen.
-
- He was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Saudi parents
in 1980, but taken to Saudi Arabia as a child and raised in the desert
kingdom.
-
- Under an executive order signed by President George W.
Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US citizens
who fought for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere cannot
be tried by military tribunals or confined at Guantanamo Bay.
-
- But the Pentagon has been denying them access to lawyers,
insisting that under the rules of war enemy combatants may be detained
without charges until the end of hostilities.
-
- That approach has been challenged in US courts. Hamdi's
case is pending before the US Supreme Court, which is expected to decide
soon whether to take it, according to Michael Ratner, president of the
Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit advocacy group.
-
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