Release of Enemy Combatant Hamdi 'Imminent,' U.S. Says

The Justice Department said yesterday that "enemy combatant" Yaser Esam Hamdi's release is imminent and asked a federal judge for an additional week to work out final details of a settlement with Hamdi's attorneys. Hamdi, who has been held incommunicado in Navy brigs for two years after being captured with Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001, probably will be sent to Saudi Arabia, prosecutors said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Norfolk. Hamdi is a U.S. citizen, but he spent most of his life in Saudi Arabia, where his family lives. U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar has yet to rule on the request for a seven-day stay of the proceedings against Hamdi, which would put off a federal court hearing scheduled for Monday. Doumar last week granted a separate request for a delay but ordered the government to produce Hamdi at Monday's hearing.  The Hamdi case has been a major test in the war on terrorism, with the Bush administration refusing to allow Hamdi to challenge his detention and holding him for much of the past two years without access to a lawyer. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that, as a U.S. citizen, Hamdi must have access to the U.S. legal system. [more ]