NEW YORK, 19 December 2003 — A US federal appeals court ordered yesterday the release from military custody of Jose Padilla, an American citizen suspected of plotting a radioactive bomb attack on US soil with Al-Qaeda.

In a ruling sure to embarrass the White House, the court challenged President George W. Bush’s designation of Padilla as an “enemy combatant” and said he should be transferred to the charge of civilian authorities.

Padilla has been held without formal charges since June last year in a Naval brig in South Carolina, and denied access to legal counsel.

In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge appeals bench ordered that he be released by the military within 30 days.

“The president’s inherent constitutional powers do not extend to the detention as an enemy combatant of an American citizen seized within the country away from a zone of combat,” the ruling said.

Noting that Padilla was alleged to have committed “heinous crimes,” the court said he should be given over to the appropriate civil authorities who can bring criminal charges against him.

“Also if appropriate, Padilla can be held as a an material witness in connection with grand jury proceedings,” said the ruling, which explicitly recognized Padilla’s right to the same constitutional protections accorded to other US citizens.

US prosecutors had maintained that as a designated “enemy combatant,” Padilla has forfeited his normal constitutional rights and that allowing him access to lawyers would interrupt his interrogation and therefore undermine the war against terrorism.

Padilla, a 31-year-old former gang member, was arrested last May in Chicago as he stepped off a plane from Pakistan.

He was held in New York City pending a federal grand jury investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks but was secretly transferred in June to the Naval brig in South Carolina after Bush labeled him an “enemy combatant.” He has been held incommunicado since then.

US officials said in a court document in August that Padilla had been working with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, to make a “dirty bomb” and detonate it on US soil.

A “dirty bomb” uses a conventional explosive such as dynamite to spread radioactive material over a large area, although no nuclear explosion occurs in the blast.

Only two other people have been designated ‘enemy combatants’ since the 2001 attacks: Ali Salem Kahlah Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who has been accused of being an Al-Qaeda sleeper agent, and Esam Hamdi, a Louisiana native captured during the fighting in Afghanistan. Padilla’s lawyers had maintained their client’s case differed from that of Hamdi in that he was captured in the United States, not on an overseas battlefield.