El-Hage charged the judge last week when his request to read a letter in court was denied

June 29, 1999
Web posted at: 7:31 PM EDT (2331 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The defendant who last week charged at the federal judge overseeing the case stemming from last summer's embassy bombings in Africa will not be allowed to have "contact visits" with his wife and children, the judge decided Tuesday.

The defendant, naturalized American Wadih El Hage, 38, is accused of being part of a conspiracy to kill Americans abroad, a conspiracy allegedly organized and run by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.

Prosecutors say El Hage served as bin Laden's personal secretary, transmitting messages for him and helping him run businesses in Sudan and Kenya.

Last week El Hage, forbidden by Judge Leonard Sand to read a letter in open court, charged at the judge during an otherwise routine pretrial hearing.

Tuesday, Sand again refused to release the letter into the public record.

"I don't believe First Amendment rights are being infringed," Sand said.

Instead, Sand asked El Hage's attorney, Sam Schmidt, and government prosecutors to review the letter and provide redactions before he reconsiders releasing it for public review.

Prosecutors had argued the letter, while seeming innocuous on the surface, might contain code words for terrorists.

Sand, summarizing the gist of the letter last week, said it blamed the government "because it did not act as quickly as it might have to prevent the tragedy in Nairobi."

The twin bombings at U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 223 people, including 12 Americans, according to the latest indictment.

While not implicated in the bomb attacks, El Hage is accused of 23 counts of making false statements to agents and to a grand jury investigating the bin Laden organization in September and October 1997.

El Hage has been incarcerated since last September, kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, and limited to three phone calls a month. He has not been allowed to see his wife or their seven children, who live in Arlington, Texas.

Attorney Schmidt requested that El Hage be permitted two "contact" visits over a three-day period, meaning he would be in the same room as his family.

But Sand struck down the request, deferring to the suggestion of the warden, who said allowing this type of visit could endanger jail staff, especially if El Hage had an outburst.

Schmidt argued that El Hage was a "rational man" who would not put his family in harm's way.

Sand said El Hage's courtroom outburst last week was not an example of rational thinking, but said he would allow a possible non-contact family visits later in the summer.

El Hage is one of five embassy bombing defendants in U.S. custody. Federal authorities say 10 others, including bin Laden, are fugitives. One other defendant is in British custody awaiting extradition.

CNN's John Rutenberg and Phil Hirschkorn contributed to this report

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