Hamdi going free

last updated 8 January 2015

Charleston, S.C.

The government is preparing to free Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported last week. Hamdi has been held without charges at a Navy brig in Charleston for two years. Under the proposed deal, he would be stripped of his citizenship and sent to Saudi Arabia, where he has spent most of his life, if he agrees not to accuse the government of violating his civil rights. Former Clinton administration lawyer Michael Greenberger said freeing such a high-profile “enemy combatant” would be “a huge embarrassment” for Bush. But a Justice Department official said it made sense to release Hamdi if he “no longer has intelligence value or is no longer a threat to national security.”