Padilla Should Be Charged, His Lawyer Tells Appellate Panel

The lawyer for an American citizen accused of being involved in a “dirty bomb” plot told appeals court judges Tuesday that his client should not be held indefinitely without charges. But a government attorney said the president must have the authority to protect U.S. citizens.

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in May 2002.

Accused of being an Al Qaeda operative, he was designated an “enemy combatant” by President Bush one month later.

“I may be the first lawyer to stand here and say I’m asking for my client to be indicted by a federal grand jury,” Padilla’s lawyer, Andrew Patel, told the three-judge appeals panel.

The Justice Department alleges that Padilla, now in a military prison in Charleston, S.C., flew from Pakistan to the U.S. on a scouting mission to detonate a so-called dirty bomb -- a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material -- within the United States.

The department also alleges that Padilla planned to blow up apartment buildings by filling them with natural gas.

“It would be very, very strange to say an intent on blowing up apartment buildings and killing U.S. citizens again is not a hostile act,” Solicitor General Paul Clement said.

Judge J. Michael Luttig, who presided at the hearing, pressed Clement on whether the government was suggesting that the battlefield in the war on terrorism now includes the U.S.

“I can say that. I can say it boldly,” Clement said.

But he did not emphasize that point in his arguments, saying instead that Padilla could be held as an enemy combatant because he trained in Afghanistan before coming to the U.S. to carry out the Al Qaeda mission.

The government contends that the Bush administration, under the president’s war powers, has the authority to order detention of “enemy combatants” and that the authority is vital to the fight against terrorism.

But lawyers for Padilla questioned whether his indefinite detention was a violation of U.S. civil liberties.