Replies to post #19210 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[easymoney101]

American terror detainee is set to go free

Taliban fighter Yaser Hamdi, an American citizen, will be released after being detained for almost three years as an enemy combatant.

By SHANNON MCCAFFREY

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WASHINGTON - A U.S. citizen picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan almost three years ago and imprisoned as an enemy combatant without ever being charged will be released under a deal announced by the Justice Department Wednesday.

Yaser Esam Hamdi will be flown to Saudi Arabia -- where he grew up -- as soon as transportation can be arranged.

Hamdi became a symbol in the government's larger campaign against terrorism, prompting a debate over the constitutional limits of President Bush's wartime powers.

His case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June that Hamdi couldn't be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer or the chance to challenge his detention.

''I am gratified at the prospect that Mr. Hamdi's return to Saudi Arabia and his family is now only days away,'' his lawyer, Frank Dunham, said Wednesday.

After his capture in November 2001, Hamdi was held for three months in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, with other low-level Taliban fighters. After his American captors learned that he was a U.S. citizen, he was transferred to a Navy brig in Norfolk, Va., and later to Charleston, S.C.

BORN IN LOUISIANA

Hamdi was born in Baton Rouge, La., but his family moved to Saudi Arabia soon after he was born. He has Saudi citizenship.

As part of the terms of his release, Hamdi will not face any criminal charges in the United States but must renounce his U.S. citizenship. He must also abide by strict travel restrictions. He's barred from returning to the United States or traveling to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

''As we have repeatedly stated, the United States has no interest in detaining enemy combatants beyond the point that they pose a threat to the U.S. and our allies,'' Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said in a written statement.

A call to the Saudi embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Wednesday. It was unclear whether Saudi officials would pursue any charges against Hamdi.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/9736934.htm