U.S. Shifts Stance on Lawyer

Reversing course, Pentagon officials have decided to allow a U.S.-born terrorism suspect access to a lawyer, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

The department will make arrangements over the next few days for a lawyer to visit Yaser Esam Hamdi, “subject to appropriate security restrictions,” a Pentagon statement said. Hamdi is being held as an “enemy combatant,” a designation the Bush administration says denies him rights to a lawyer or a trial.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal from a public defender, Frank Dunham, who challenged Hamdi’s detention and wanted to act as his lawyer.

Dunham has asked the high court to decide whether the government unconstitutionally imprisoned Hamdi without access to attorneys and without charges being filed against him.

Dunham said Tuesday night that he assumed he would be able to meet with Hamdi, although he had not been formally notified by the Defense Department. He said he was happy the department was allowing Hamdi to meet with a lawyer, but he said the decision would not affect his arguments before the high court.

The Pentagon announcement came a day before the Bush administration was scheduled to file a response at the Supreme Court to that appeal.

Hamdi will be allowed to decide whether he wants to meet with Dunham, a military lawyer or a private attorney, a spokesman for the Defense Department’s legal office said.

Hamdi is being held in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001. Originally taken to a prison for terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he was transferred to the United States in April 2002 after military authorities determined he had been born in Louisiana and therefore was a U.S. citizen.

The Pentagon said allowing Hamdi access to a lawyer was “not required by domestic or international law and should not be treated as a precedent.”

Officials decided to grant access because Hamdi was a U.S. citizen and the military had finished interrogating him, the Pentagon statement said. Hamdi has not been charged with any crime.