Posted on 07/04/2003 12:41:16 AM PDT by kattracks
The Associated Press
MECCA, Saudi Arabia July 4 —Nearly two years have passed since Yaser Esam Hamdi returned to his native United States, handcuffed and classed as an "enemy combatant" after American forces captured him in Afghanistan.
A court appeal for his right to have a lawyer and answer the allegations is pending, but the parents of the 22-year-old Saudi from Baton Rouge, La., are no closer to knowing if they will ever see him again.
They say they should at least be allowed to visit him in prison. "If they consider him an American, then why don't they try him and give him his constitutional rights as an American?" says his mother, Nadia Hamdi.
Esam and Nadia Hamdi say Yaser, the eldest of their five boys, finished his sophomore year at King Fahd University, in the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran, and suddenly left for Afghanistan without their knowledge in July, 2001. Less than two months later, they say, he phoned his mother saying he wanted to come home but feared his father was angry at him for having gone to Afghanistan without permission.
The next time they saw him was in a file photo taken in Afghanistan and shown on television when he was flown to the States in April last year.
"We were relieved. We watched the footage of the plane landing in Virginia over and over again. At least we knew where he was. And that he was alive," Nadia Hamdi told The Associated Press in the holy city of Mecca, where the family is visiting relatives. It was her first interview since her son's arrest.
In the photo taken in Afghanistan, "He was very, very thin. His face was skeletal. He was dressed like an Afghan, and his hair was unkempt and long and curly," his mother. It was a big change from the slightly overweight, devout young man who lived a sheltered life, prayed five times a day and liked to make his mother laugh.
U.S. officials say Hamdi was one of two Americans captured when their Taliban unit was overrun in the Mazar-e-Sharif prison in November, 2001.
The other is John Walker Lindh, who last October was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to supplying services to the Taliban, Afghanistan's one-time rulers who harbored Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.
Hamdi was flown to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and held there for several months until it was discovered he was born in Baton Rouge. Then he was transferred to a naval brig in Norfolk, Va.
"It was the first time he'd been back to the United States. And it was in handcuffs," said Hamdi's father, a chemical engineer who worked in Louisiana before bringing his family back to Saudi Arabia when his son was 3.
He said he has written to 23 U.S. representatives pointing out that Lindh's relatives are allowed to visit him in prison. "I said to them, is it fair, because his (Lindh's) parents and his grandparents are American he's treated differently? He can see his family. He can talk to them. I said, if my son's guilty, he should be tried. And if he's innocent, he should be set free."
He said one congressman and one senator replied and told him there's little they can do.
In January, a U.S. court of appeals reviewing Hamdi's case ruled that U.S. citizens captured overseas could be treated as enemy combatants without concern for the rights normally afforded in criminal cases.
Hamdi was "squarely within the zone of active combat" and had an AK-47 rifle, the court said.
He has not been allowed access to a lawyer or to the government's evidence supporting its claims that he fought with al-Qaida and Taliban forces against the United States. An appeal case is pending but no hearing date has been set.
Hamdi has maintained contact with his family through monthly letters, usually around 10 pages long. "I go out 15 minutes a day. I look at the sky. I see birds. I get bitten by mosquitoes," he wrote in one letter.
"He's being treated well. But he misses us," says his mother. "In his letters he asks each one of us individually to pray for his early release."
"He's already asked me to start looking for a bride for him," she adds with a laugh. "He wants her to be very beautiful, very fair, with black or dark brown hair."
Hamdi's father thinks his son was simply unlucky, going to Afghanistan just two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Case closed.
In Saudi Arabia, families of the prisoners are expected to provide the bread and water.
Then why aren't the Gitmo prisoners being afforded the rights of an enemy combatant?
What utter nonsense. The Geneva convention says no such thing and a US court has found they're enemy combatants. PS save the hot air for someone who cares
in a huge rush so can't elaborate at length but my view is we should not surrender, in our rage, to the temptation to use the enemy's tactics- be it with the treatment of prisoners, or anything else. I reckon if we stick to the rule book it draws a clearer delineation between them, and us. Treat POWs justly and the enemy is more likely to surrender, than fight it out. Back in a week, happy 4th July, By
Prisoners cannot be summarily executed under any circumstances, Skywalk. Wake up to yourself, on Independence Day of all days. Conduct yourself according to the principles on which your country was founded and which has made her great. We will hold the high ground by acting in accordance with the rules of war, not by carrying on like the SS in the Ukraine. Cheers, By
Actually, it does
and a US court has found they're enemy combatants.
The legal phrase being used is "illegal enemy combatants," which is the phrase in the papers surrounding the Geneva Conventions (there are many) referring to someone who doesn't comply with the requirements for a "legal combatant." The main distinction being the uniform and papers referenced by the earlier poster. The difference in the treatment of the two groups is that "legal combatants" are subject to the legal protections of the conventions and "illegal combatants" (spys, sabeteurs, etc.) are not thus protected. By definition the military forces involved can do as they see fit with illegal combatants, which almost always means summary execution.
this is distinct from the obligations of a military for non-combatants. It's therefore very important that they have been identified as combatants. The significance is that they can't say "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," as these folks are trying to say about their son. The only benefit they'll get out of claming that their son is an American citzen (he was born here while his Saudi parents were in town) is that he can therefore be charged with the only crime enumerated in the constitution, Treason. The big requirement of that crime is that there are at least two witnesses to the treasonous act. I think he qualifies. That's the part of the Constitution that specifically allows capital punishment, you know.
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