Citizen Held in Al Qaeda Probe Can See Lawyer

An American citizen held incommunicado by the military for more than a year as an alleged Al Qaeda supporter will be allowed to see a lawyer, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

But one of Jose Padilla’s lawyers says the government plans to monitor any meetings at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.

That arrangement “would make it impossible to have an attorney-client conversation,” said lawyer Andrew Patel.

The Bush administration says Padilla, working under a senior Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan, plotted to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States.

In a statement, the Pentagon said it had determined that providing Padilla access to a lawyer would not compromise national security or interfere with efforts to use him as an intelligence source.

Still, the Pentagon maintained it was not required to let him speak with counsel.

Padilla’s lawyers have challenged the government’s right to hold him indefinitely, without charges or trial, as a violation of his rights as a U.S. citizen. The government, meanwhile, calls him an enemy combatant who can be held for the duration of the war on terrorism.

In another case of a suspected terrorist held by the U.S., Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni captive in isolation at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, acknowledged being Osama bin Laden’s $200-a-month driver in Afghanistan but denied belonging to Al Qaeda, the Miami Herald reported.

And officials in Washington and Madrid said Wednesday that the U.S. is set to turn over to Spain this week the only Spaniard held at the base in Cuba.