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Lawyer: Enemy combatant to leave Tuesday

Hamdi must give up U.S. citizenship

From Kevin Bohn
CNN Washington Bureau

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Yaser Esam Hamdi, center, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S.-born, Saudi detainee at the center of a landmark terrorism case is expecting to leave the United States aboard a military plane for Saudi Arabia sometime Tuesday, according to his lawyer.

Yaser Esam Hamdi was designated by the U.S. government as an enemy combatant after he was captured in Afghanistan by the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance forces in December 2001.

He was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and traveling with a military unit of the Taliban, the deposed regime that gave al Qaeda safe harbor in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has maintained.

Hamdi had been scheduled to leave Sunday from the Charleston, South Carolina, naval yard but "because of the hurricane and other problems that flight was rescheduled" for Tuesday, his public defender Frank Dunham said.

Hamdi is being held in solitary confinement in the military brig in Charleston.

Last week the government and Hamdi's lawyer announced they had reached an agreement for his release from U.S. custody that would send him back to Saudi Arabia where he grew up.

The agreement, which was made public Monday, calls for Hamdi's release no later than this Thursday. It said the United States would transport Hamdi in civilian clothes, unhooded, directly to Saudi Arabia.

"Hamdi agrees not to aid, assist or in any way affiliate with the Taliban or any member of al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization or terrorist so designated by the United States," the agreement states.

It also includes a statement saying, "Hamdi agrees that he will not engage in, assist in or commit any combatant activities or act in preparation thereof against the United States or its citizens, or against of the United States or citizens of such allies."

Hamdi is required to tell Saudi and U.S. Embassy officials if he is solicited to engage in combatant activities. The agreement mandates that he has to renounce his U.S. citizenship and has to renounce terrorism and violent jihad.

Hamdi was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1980. He has lived most of his life in Saudi Arabia and has dual citizenship.

The agreement for his release requires that he agree to remain inside Saudi Arabia for five years, not travel to the United States for 10 years, and never to travel to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

The agreement also said "the United States agrees to make no request that Hamdi be detained by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based on information as to Hamdi's conduct known to the United States as of the official date of this agreement."

Hamdi has been in U.S. military custody since shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

After his capture, Hamdi was turned over to U.S. armed forces, and was transferred in January 2002 with hundreds of other battlefield captives to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Hamdi, who speaks some English, then made his claim of U.S. citizenship known to his captors.

As a result, he was moved in April 2002 to a U.S. Navy brig in Norfolk, Virginia, and then to the brig in Charleston in August, 2003.

Hamdi was the first detainee designated an "enemy combatant' by the Bush administration.

The Supreme Court this summer decided Hamdi had a right to challenge his ongoing detention at the U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the court's June 18 majority opinion that "an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others who do not present that sort of threat."

Since that decision, Dunham has been negotiating with the government for Hamdi's release.


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