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CNN Live Today

No Public Defender For Yasser Esam Hamdi

Aired June 26, 2002 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: It's 11 a.m. in the East, 8 a.m. in the West. I'm Leon Harris at the CNN Center in Atlanta. Glad to have you with us. We've got lots going on.

We've just got late word of a development coming from the U.S. Court of Appeals. Bob Franken is tracking that story about a decision made regarding one of the Americans who had been arrested for fighting with the Taliban. I shouldn't say, arrested, but detained for fighting with the Taliban, and this one is Yasser Esam Hamdi. We'll get the latest on that story, and Bob Franken is checking the details on that.

Up first this hour on CNN: We want to get to the story, and as we just talked about coming on at the top of the hour, this development on this American that had been fighting with the Taliban.

As I said, Bob Franken has been checking on the breaking developments there. And he checks in now live -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, first of all, the headline is that an appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that Yasser Hamdi was entitled to an attorney who can interrogate him without being monitored.

Now Yasser Hamdi was the so-called second American-Taliban. He was actually somebody who was raised in Saudi Arabia, was captured on the battlefield, was taken to Guantanamo Bay, where it was discovered he'd been born in the United States -- born in Cuba. So a decision was made to take him away from Guantanamo and take him to the Norfolk, Virginia, naval base, where was and is in the brig, being held virtually incommunicado.

Now what the court did not rule -- did not rule at all on the government contention that it is absolutely up to the executive branch to determine whether somebody is an unlawful combatant, a designation that's been made in the case of Yasser Hamdi. The court did not rule whether the court should stay out of this. The court did rule on a rather technical aspect of the law.

Let's do a little review now. They ruled on what is called, "the next friend." In the law, the "next friend" is a designation for somebody, though while not a guardian, is somebody who in effect is a representative of the interests of the individual who is involved. The "next friend," however, according to precedent, the court ruled, must be somebody who has a familiarity with the defendant.

The court found that the public defender who was trying to be the "next friend" and the attorney for Yasser Hamdi had no familiarity. And so the court ruled that because neither the public defender, nor a person otherwise who had tried to get into the case, has any prior relationship whatever with Hamdi, each fails to satisfy an important jurisdictional prerequisite for "next friend" standard. Therefore, the attorney will not be able to represent Yasser Hamdi; the case has been sent back to the lower court judge in Norfolk to try and dispose of the case -- Leon.

HARRIS: All right. Bob Franken in Washington. Thanks, Bob, for straightening all that out for us.

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