Padilla fights 'enemy combatant' jailing

CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The man accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" on U.S. soil is seeking a judicial review of his long confinement as an enemy combatant.

However, the U.S. Justice Department was to ask a federal magistrate Thursday to dismiss Jose Padilla's complaint, including all allegations of constitutional violations, saying a Padilla win would hinder how the U.S. government captures and treats enemy combatants, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen and convicted al-Qaida conspirator, is suing to hold former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others responsible for the years he was kept in an isolation cell in a Charleston, S.C., naval brig without formal charges being filed while being held as an enemy combatant. In his 43-page civil suit, Padilla asks a judge to declare what happened to him illegal and unconstitutional.

In its brief, the Justice Department warned that a ruling in favor of Padilla "would strike at the core functions of the political branches, impacting military discipline, aiding our enemies, and making the United States more vulnerable to terrorist attack."

"Adjudication of the claims pressed by (Padilla) in this case would necessarily require an examination of the manner in which the government identifies, captures, designates, detains, and interrogates enemy combatants," the brief says.

Padilla was arrested in 2002 as he got off a jetliner at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Officials said he was part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. The plot has never been verified.

He was convicted in August 2007 on terror conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He has appealed his conviction.