Experts spar in Virginia court over status of accused Russian fighter for Taliban

By Gary Robertson

RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) - Attorneys for a former Russian army officer charged with terrorism and conspiracy for his role in a Taliban attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan argued in federal court in Virginia on Wednesday that the case should be dismissed because he was a war combatant.

Irek Hamidullin, who is believed to be in his early 50s, is the first military prisoner from Afghanistan to appear in a federal court. He was arrested in November 2009 and held in Afghanistan by the U.S. Department of Defense.

A U.S. grand jury indicted Hamidullin in 2014 on charges that he joined the Taliban in a 2009 attack on an Afghan police base. The charges against him include aiding terrorists, attempting to destroy a U.S. military aircraft and attempting to kill a U.S. citizen.

A trial date has been set for July, but his attorneys at a hearing in Richmond, Virginia, argued the case should be dismissed because as a war combatant with the Taliban he was entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.

"If you are sworn into the armed forces, you are entitled to POW status and you cannot be prosecuted for legitimate acts of war," Jordan Paust, a University of Houston law professor called to testify by defense attorneys, told U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson.

But Hays Parks, a retired colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve and former special assistant to the Judge Advocate General of the Army on law-of-war matters, said the fighting in Afghanistan could no longer be regarded as an international conflict since a presidential election there in 2004.

"There are no POWs in a non-international conflict,” Parks testified for the prosecution. "The Geneva prisoner of war provisions do not apply in a non-international conflict."

Hamidullin had been a Russian officer and tank commander in

the early 1980s. He became a follower of Afghan Taliban leader

Mullah Omar in about 2001, according to the indictment against him.

He pleaded not guilty last year to the charges against him.

Attorneys are expected to present their final arguments on Thursday on the motion to dismiss the case against Hamidullin.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Cooney)