Lawyers demand to see third enemy combatant
Action follows Supreme Court's decisions in terror cases
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) -- Attorneys for the third enemy combatant detained indefinitely and held incommunicado in U.S. military custody are demanding to see their client.
The attorneys for Ali Saleh al-Marri, a Qatari national incarcerated the past 13 months at the naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina, made their demand in a letter faxed Tuesday to the office of the solicitor general, who represents the executive branch in arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In their letter, a copy of which was provided to CNN, al-Marri's attorneys "request that the government immediately arrange for us to meet with our client."
Since President Bush transferred al-Marri to military custody in May 2003, the government has blocked all attorney-client meetings.
That was the policy with such terrorism suspects until the cases of the other two men being held as enemy combatants, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, came up for review before the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The court decided Monday that prisoners designated enemy combatants have the right to counsel and a fair hearing before a "neutral decision maker" to rebut government accusations. (Full story)
Al-Marri, 38, was arrested in late 2001 and later indicted on charges of conducting credit card fraud and making false statements to FBI agents in Illinois, where he lived and was enrolled as a graduate student in computer science.
Two weeks before Al-Marri's trial was to begin last June, Bush declared him an enemy combatant who "represents a continuing, present and grave danger to the national security of the United States."
Prosecutors never levied terrorism-related charges against al-Marri during his first 19 months in captivity but alleged in open court that he had ties to al Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist group behind the attacks of September 11, 2001.
According to government sources, information from al Qaeda leaders in U.S. custody identified al-Marri as someone who helped the group's operatives entering the United States.
Detainee appeals
In the appeal of Hamdi, 23, a Louisiana-born Saudi national detained in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of fighting for the Taliban regime, the Supreme Court said indefinite detention for interrogation purposes was illegal. (Hamdi case background)
"If Hamdi, who was seized on a battlefield, is entitled to process and counsel, then a civilian seized within the United States certainly is entitled to process and counsel as well," said Mark Berman, one of al-Marri's attorneys.
Attorneys for Hamdi and Padilla are preparing petitions for the federal court in South Carolina arguing that the men are being held illegally.
Al-Marri's attorneys, who previously petitioned the Supreme Court to review his case, are doing likewise.
As was the case with Padilla, al-Marri's attorneys initially sued Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, challenging the detention at the Charleston brig.
But in the Padilla case, the Supreme Court agreed with the solicitor general's argument that a prisoner's "immediate custodian" -- in this case, Cmdr. M.A. Marr of the brig -- is the proper defendant.
Padilla, 33, a Brooklyn-born former Chicago, Illinois, gang member who converted to Islam, was arrested returning to the United States in May 2002 and initially detained on a material witness warrant in the September 11 investigation. (Padilla case background)
The government, which changed Padilla's status to enemy combatant after he had been in jail a month, contends that Padilla attended al Qaeda training camps, and conspired with its leaders and other operatives to blow up high-rise apartment buildings and detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.
Attorneys for Padilla and Hamdi were denied access to their clients for two years, but were allowed monitored visits in the weeks before the Supreme Court arguments.
In their letter to the solicitor general Tuesday, al-Marri's attorneys said it was more urgent than ever that they see al-Marri, given "the government's repeated denial over the past year of our requests to meet with" him.
The attorneys said the urgency was further heightened by "our concern, given recent reports, that he may have been tortured or otherwise abused during the course of his now lengthy incommunicado detention."
Berman said he had no information that al-Marri has been mistreated and that the letter was referring to reports about mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody in Iraq.
