Judge Stays Order in Taliban Case

WASHINGTON —  A U.S. judge ruled Wednesday that the government can appeal his order requesting more evidence about whether a U.S.-born Taliban prisoner can be held as an enemy combatant.

U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar in Norfolk, Va., said the question on Yaser Esam Hamdi can go to a federal appeals court. He also issued a stay to postpone a deadline for compliance with his Aug. 16 order demanding more evidence in the case. Doumar said the government had provided insufficient evidence to support Hamdi’s detention and ordered it to provide documents about his capture, classification and detention.

Hamdi, 21, has been held in a U.S. military jail in Norfolk since early April, without access to a lawyer and without any charges brought against him. The Saudi national was among Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees held at a U.S. naval base in Cuba when officials discovered he had been born in Louisiana and moved him to Norfolk.

On Monday, the Justice Department asked Doumar for permission to appeal the Aug. 16 order, saying it had provided more than sufficient evidence to support its determination that Hamdi could be detained as an enemy combatant. In addition, it said the information Doumar wanted could have national security implications.

The case, which has become a test of the government’s power to hold enemy combatants in the war against terrorism, has already been taken to the appeals court twice.

In an affidavit filed by the Defense Department, the government said Hamdi told U.S. military interrogators that he went to Afghanistan last summer to train with and, if necessary, fight for the Taliban.

But Doumar ruled the declaration was insufficient, and he said he would be acting as “little more than a rubber stamp” if he accepted the sparse facts of the affidavit to permit Hamdi’s detention as an enemy combatant.