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U.S. Judge Orders Padilla to Be Released or Charged
The U.S. government must either release detained “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla or charge him with a crime, U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd ruled yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 17, 2004). The government has detained Padilla as an enemy combatant since arresting him in 2002 on suspicion that he planned to detonate a radiological weapon in the United States. The Justice Department later reported that Padilla had been assigned to use natural gas to blow up apartment buildings, Bloomberg News reported. Padilla challenged his detention last year after the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration could not indefinitely hold suspects, according to Bloomberg News. In his ruling, Floyd wrote that the Bush administration “has not provided, and this court has not found, any law that supports the contention that the president enjoys the inherent authority” to hold Padilla. Floyd ordered the administration to release Padilla within 45 days, charge him with a crime or hold him as a material witness in a criminal case. The Justice Department plans to file an appeal, spokesman John Nowacki said (Laurence Arnold, Bloomberg News/Philadelphia Inquirer, March 1).
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