CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Attorneys for alleged enemy combatant Jose Padilla argued yesterday that the president has no authority to order anyone held indefinitely without charges, nor does any federal law allow such detentions.
Padilla, a US citizen who the government alleges was part of an Al Qaeda plot to set off a radiological bomb, is being held at the brig at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station.
"The Constitution grants the president no power to detain a citizen seized in a civilian setting in the United States and to imprison him, indefinitely and without charge, in a military brig," the attorneys said in a court filing. "No statute authorizes such detention."
The motion asks that Padilla be freed while the government decides whether to bring criminal charges.
Padilla, who was born in New York City, was arrested in Chicago after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
He was later designated an enemy combatant, brought to the brig, and prevented from challenging his detention.
His attorneys sued, and last year the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ordered him released unless the government charged him with a crime.
The Supreme Court, without ruling on the merits of the case, decided the New York court had no jurisdiction over the brig commander. The lawsuit was refiled in Charleston.
The government has until late November to respond to yesterday's motion, and a judge will hear arguments in early January.
The defense linked Padilla's case to that of Yaser Hamdi, another so-called enemy combatant held in US solitary confinement for nearly three years after being captured on an Afghan battlefield.
Hamdi, who was born in Louisiana, was released last week after the Justice Department said he no longer posed a threat to the United States and no longer had any intelligence value.
The Supreme Court had ruled earlier that Hamdi should be allowed to argue for his freedom.
"A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the Hamdi case.