Posted on 06/12/2002 4:21:35 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON - Two top Republic senators are questioning why terrorist suspect Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, is being detained outside the criminal justice system without charges.
''There is going to be a lot of public concern about how you treat a United States citizen,'' said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a former prosecutor and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ``I think that guy's got to be kept in detention, but I think the definition is a congressional matter.''
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., added that ``the attorney general has to come up with a rationale for why they're doing this. They've got to make their case.''
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said during a visit to Qatar Tuesday that the administration is in no hurry to bring Padilla -- accused of helping to plan a ''dirty bomb'' attack in the United States -- to justice.
''Our interest, really, in this case, is not law enforcement. It is not punishment,'' Rumsfeld said. ``Because he was a terrorist, or working with terrorists, our interest at the moment is to try to find out everything he knows so hopefully we can stop other terrorist acts.''
Padilla, 31, is confined indefinitely in a military brig in Charleston, S.C., as a ''military combatant,'' which means he can be detained for an unspecified period without facing trial.
Padilla's attorney complained on Tuesday that detention is punitive by its nature and said the military was holding him unconstitutionally.
''My client is a citizen,'' Donna R. Newman said outside federal court in New York where she had filed a writ of habeas corpus, which would require Padilla to be brought to court.
''He still has constitutional rights -- the right to counsel, the right to be charged by a grand jury. They have not charged him,'' Newman said.
Sen. Specter called Tuesday for congressional hearings, arguing that the right to set up military tribunals rests with Congress.
Other lawmakers, including liberal Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, sided with the administration.
''If you aid and abet the enemy, whether you are a citizen or not, you're not entitled to the right of due process,'' Schumer said.
Padilla's military custody stands in sharp contrast to the manner in which the administration handled terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen, and John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban apprehended in Afghanistan.
Both now face criminal charges in federal court. Padilla, arrested in Chicago on May 8, was detained as a material witness for a grand jury investigation until he was handed over to the Pentagon.
''Lindh has been charged under criminal provisions,'' Specter said. ``So you really wonder what the differences are between Lindh and this guy.''
Senior government officials have said that Padilla discussed the bomb plot with al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, among them Abu Zubaydah, the aide to Osama bin Laden who was captured in Pakistan in March, and who later told U.S. officials about the bomb plan. It is believed that Padilla met with Zubaydah as recently as March, just before Zubaydah was captured.
U.S. officials said another al Qaeda associate involved in the alleged plan is being held by Pakistani authorities.
They said the man, who has not been publicly identified but is from an Arab country in the Middle East, is being interrogated by U.S. authorities at an undisclosed location. There were conflicting reports as to whether Pakistan had handed the suspect over to U.S. authorities.
The second suspect traveled with Padilla to eastern Afghanistan last fall to meet Zubaydah and later accompanied Padilla to secret meetings with other senior al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan to discuss the ''dirty bomb'' proposal as well as potential attacks against hotels, gas stations and other targets, the official said.
One of the most urgent aspects of the investigation is whether Padilla had other accomplices, particularly in the United States.
''He clearly had associates, and one of the things we want to ask him about is who those associates were and how we can track them down,'' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on CBS's Early Show.
One law-enforcement official Tuesday cautioned that no specific target city or mode of carrying out the bombing had been determined. The official said it was not clear whether al Qaeda's leaders had fully embraced Padilla or the plan, which he had proposed to them.
''There is no indication he had the means to do it or was given the authority to do it,'' the official said.
Neither a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office nor Newman would comment on the grand jury investigation of Padilla.
But officials said he had not offered any information of value.
''He was not forthcoming,'' one official said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said in the Padilla case that authorities were acting under a 1942 Supreme Court precedent ``which establishes that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy or has entered our country to carry out hostile acts.''
Drew Brown of The Herald's Washington Bureau contributed to this report, which was supplemented with information from Herald wire services.
What a sad day for real conservatives.
Scottish LAW! Scottish LAW!
Anyone who is from AZ knows this.
If x42 still in office and was doing this, we would be screaming to the rooftops!
Either this country is a nation of laws, or it isn't.
If we don't admit that, then we conservatives are just being hypocritical.
FRegards,
CD
PS - re: your screen name, are you from N.C.?
How silly of us......not taking a lesson from our sensible constitutional experts who know it ALL.
No doubt they are all planning trips to Guantanamo to be sure those prisoners are being treated well. Fresh fruit loops and all!
Collecting money for the ACLU too, no doubt!
Maybe paranoia is contagious?
So, it's OK to violate the Constitutional rights of a US Citizen if you're REALLY angry? (Not just a little angry, but REALLY angry.) Is there some sliding scale that I'm not aware of that if you REALLY piss someone off you lose your rights? And if someday Chuckie Schumer is AG (and that's not so far-fetched) and he gets REALLY angry at JimRob? Why, criticizing public officials is surely an act of "domestic terrorism" which aides and comforts our enemies, and surely it would be OK to hold JimRob incommunicado for an indefinite period so that the Justice Dept. can "find out what he knows." Would that be OK with you?
Rhetorical question. You don't have to answer. It doesn't matter.
Meanwhile, we spend trillions for defense, and two dozen pukes make the Pentagon, CIA, FBI etc look like overpaid hobbyists.
Apparently the guys attorney is in the process of doing that. I see no problem as long as the guy is represented by council and the council is actively pursing the mans legal avenues.
Great post.
For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the feds finally crack the anthrax case, and the perp is an American with ties to the militia/patriot movement. I wonder how many here would cheer if the feds started rounding up everyone with even vague connections to militia/patriot groups, and held them incommunicado?
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