American-born prisoner held in military jail in Virginia

Saturday, April 6th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Federal officials have not determined the fate of an American-born prisoner from the Afghan war, although the man has been transferred from U.S. Navy detention in Cuba to a military jail in Virginia.

Yasser Esam Hamdi, 22, was taken Friday to Norfolk Naval Station from the detention center at the Navy Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was the first of the 300 captives there to be moved off the island.

Hamdi was flown aboard a military C-130 transport plane to Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia before being flown aboard the same plane to the Navy base at Norfolk on the southern Virginia coast.

Officials said he would be kept under 24-hour guard in an isolated cell in the base's military prison.

Still to be determined is Hamdi's future status _ whether he will be transferred to a civilian jail to await federal criminal charges or remain under military control.

``Given the likelihood that Hamdi is an American citizen, it was deemed appropriate to move him to the United States,'' the Pentagon said in a statement released Friday. ``As a captured combatant, Hamdi remains in the control of the Department of Defense.''

He had been at Guantanamo Bay since Feb. 11.

Hamdi was captured with fighters of the former ruling Taliban militia and the al-Qaida terror network after a November prison uprising in the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters Friday that because Hamdi spoke English when he was captured, officials in Afghanistan knew he might have been American. Franks said the matter had not been resolved when Hamdi was transferred to Guantanamo Bay along with other prisoners captured in the Afghan operation.

Justice Department officials found a birth certificate to back up Hamdi's claim he was born in 1979 in Baton Rouge, La., where his Saudi parents worked. He went to Saudi Arabia with his parents while a small child, officials said, and it was unclear whether Hamdi may later have renounced his citizenship.

He is the second American captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Franks said he knew of no others who claim U.S. citizenship among the hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters taken prisoner.

U.S. officials have released no details about Hamdi's role in the fighting in Afghanistan or his role in either the Taliban or al-Qaida.

Hamdi could be charged with crimes in the federal court based in Alexandria, Va. His landing in Virginia gave the federal court there jurisdiction over any criminal charges.

No civilian criminal charges have been filed against Hamdi.

John Walker Lindh, a former Californian captured at the same Afghan prison as Hamdi last November, is awaiting trial in the Alexandria federal court, a few miles from the Pentagon.

He is charged with conspiring to murder Americans, providing support and services to foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, and using firearms and destructive devices during crimes of violence.