Case Not Closed (Padilla - WH will still hold indefinitely as "enemy"

The Bush administration, determined not to yield any ground on the constitutional issues in the case of Jose Padilla , has indicated it may still hold the accused “enemy combatant” indefinitely—even if he is acquitted of the terrorist conspiracy charges he was indicted on this week.

Jonathan Freiman, a lawyer for Padilla, told NEWSWEEK that a senior lawyer in the Solicitor General’s office told him Wednesday that the government still asserts it has the power to hold his client—regardless of the outcome of the criminal case against him.

“I was told, ‘he’s still an enemy combatant according to the president and therefore they can still detain him at anytime,” Freiman said.

Freiman declined to identify which senior lawyer in the Solicitor General’s office made the assertion. The Justice Department’s director of public affairs, Tasia Scolinos, would not say today whether Padilla, a U.S. citizen born in Chicago, would be freed were he to be acquitted in the criminal case announced Tuesday by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “The prosecutors believe this is a very strong case,” she said when asked what would happen in the event of an acquittal. “We’re not going to talk about hypotheticals.”

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