#Second Guantanamo detainee gets lawyer-Pentagon [Archives:2003/696/Front Page]

Reuters
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) – A Yemeni man being held at a U.S. military prison in Cuba for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects has been provided with a military lawyer, the second of hundreds of detainees at the base to receive defense counsel, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
Salim Ahmen Hamdan is expected to meet with his new lawyer,Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, “in the near future,” the Defense Department said in a statement.
None of the more than 600 prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been charged with any crimes.
Most of those at the base were arrested during the U.S.-led war that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and many have been held for two years without charges, drawing sharp criticism from civil rights groups.
Pentagon officials declined to say when or where Hamdan was arrested.
Hamdan is one of six detainees at Guantanamo who has been designated by President George W. Bush to be eligible for possible trial before a military commission in the U.S.-declared war on terror.
One of the other six, an Australian, was earlier granted access to a lawyer by the Pentagon.
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