Posted on 03/25/2004 3:53:43 PM PST by Indy Pendance
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (Reuters) - A U.S. military judge denied a motion on Thursday to dismiss the case against a Syrian-American airman accused of spying at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
A civilian lawyer for Ahmad al Halabi asked a military court on Wednesday to dismiss the case because he did not have access to important documents he needs to defend his client.
At a hearing at Travis Air Force Base 50 miles north of San Francisco, Military Court Judge Barbara Brand denied the request but said she would allow Halabi's defense team greater access to evidence.
Halabi, who is in a military prison pending trial, is charged with espionage connected to his work at Guantanamo, the military base where the United States maintains a prison camp for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
"I find there is evidence that there is information not provided to defense counsel that is relevant," Brand said. "I find that counsel has not been granted carte blanche access to information the government has."
"I find there is an ongoing intelligence investigation and there is an ongoing criminal investigation with potential new charges."
Halabi formerly worked in the low-level position of supply clerk at Travis before being pressed into service as a translator because of a U.S. military shortage of Arabic speakers.
Halabi's civilian attorney Donald Rehkopf said on Wednesday he hoped the motion to dismiss the charges would win better access to case documents the government has classified as off-limits. He also said he would introduce other motions to dismiss the case on other grounds in coming weeks.
In the second day of pretrial motions, defense attorneys argued that many classified documents and investigative evidence that prosecutors had access to were deemed "irrelevant" to the case by the government and not made available to them.
Earlier on Thursday, the lead investigator in the case said a computer with 186 letters from prisoners and a box of secret documents under a blanket helped build the case against Halabi.
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