NEW YORK-Alleged dirty bomb plotter Jose Padilla conferred with his attorneys for more than two hours Wednesday, the first meeting the former Chicago gang member has had with them since he was declared an enemy combatant nearly two years ago.

But, unlike conventional attorney-client sessions, the meeting at the naval brig in Charleston, S.C., was monitored and recorded by Navy officials.

Because of that, Donna Newman and Andrew Patel, Padilla's court-appointed attorneys, said they did not discuss the details of the government's claim that the Muslim convert was plotting to explode a radioactive device when he was arrested in May 2002 at O'Hare International Airport.

"One of the first things we told Mr. Padilla was that there were innumerable things we would love to discuss with him, but we would not be able to because this did not qualify as a confidential discussion," Patel said in a telephone interview.

The lawyers said Padilla, whose mental and physical state has been the subject of speculation while he has been held incommunicado, was alert and attentive as they briefed him.

"He appeared to be physically OK," said Newman in a separate telephone interview. "But a final judgment about his overall condition has to await a medical evaluation."

Most of the visit was spent reviewing legal developments in his case, which has become one of the most closely watched civil liberties disputes in the Bush administration's war on terror.

"He thanked us for our efforts and thanked us for coming to see him," said Patel.

The government says that the president's power as commander-in-chief gives him the authority in a time of war to hold American citizens indefinitely without charges and without access to an attorney. Civil liberties advocates say such detentions violate an individual's constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments late next month in the Padilla case and in the case of another U.S. citizen, Yasser Hamdi. Although both were declared enemy combatants, the circumstances of their cases are dramatically different.

Hamdi, who was born in the U.S. but moved to Saudi Arabia as a child, was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2001 while fighting with Taliban forces. Padilla, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Chicago, was arrested on U.S. soil upon his return from Pakistan, where he allegedly met with al-Qaida leaders to plot strategy for detonating a radioactive dirty bomb in the U.S.

In preparation for Wednesday's meeting, Newman and Patel sent Padilla, 33, a thick stack of legal briefs, news accounts of his case and a letter from his mother. The attorneys said that before he received the documents, Padilla apparently had not realized that he has been at the center of an intense legal controversy over the balance between individual rights and national security.

"I got the distinct impression that he was unaware what had been going on on his behalf," Newman said.

But the attorneys did not ask him about the conditions under which he has been held or what kind of questioning he has undergone. They said the Defense Department allowed them to see Padilla only on the condition that they not ask about such matters.

And, because the meeting was monitored, they did not ask him about the government's allegations against him.

"We did not want him saying anything factual about his life and what he did or didn't do," said Patel.

A Defense Department spokesman would not comment on the department's restrictions on the attorneys' visit. He said the department decided to let Newman and Patel see their client because the government had completed its questioning of Padilla.

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Padilla, who sat in a small room by himself during the morning meeting, wore an orange jumpsuit and was restrained by a waist shackle, Patel said. The two lawyers, who sat in an adjoining room, could see their client through a glass window. Grillwork in the wall allowed the parties to hear each other. A Navy lawyer sat outside the lawyers' room and listened to their conversation through an open door, while a video camera recorded the session.

Newman said Padilla "looked about the same" as the last time she saw him in June 2002. Newman had been appointed to represent Padilla in New York, where he was being held as a material witness in a terrorism investigation following his arrest at O'Hare.

But on June 9, 2002, as a federal judge stood ready to review whether the government had enough evidence to hold Padilla, President Bush signed an order declaring him an enemy combatant. He was taken to the Charleston naval brig, where he has been held since.

A federal appeals court in New York ruled in December that only Congress has the power to order the detention of an American citizen without charges and ordered that Padilla either be charged or released.

The government appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which agreed last month to hear the case in conjunction with the Hamdi appeal.

Hamdi, who is also being held at the Charleston brig, was allowed to see his attorney for the first time last month. That meeting was also monitored and recorded.

Newman said no further meetings with Padilla have been scheduled, but the Defense Department spokesman said additional sessions were possible.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the enemy combatants cases on April 28, the last day of oral arguments in the court's current session.

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ARCHIVE PHOTOS on KRT Direct (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): Jose Padilla