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03/29/2006:

"Guantánamo's day of reckoning in supreme court"

The US supreme court was urged yesterday to rein in President George Bush's use of his powers as a wartime president, challenging his order to dispatch al-Qaida suspects to trial before military tribunals.

In arguments that could redefine the balance between presidential power and the laws of war, lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo, told the court that Mr Bush had violated basic military protections with his November 2001 executive order setting up the tribunals.

Mr Hamdan, a Yemeni accused of driving a pick-up truck for Osama bin Laden, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and charged with war crimes. The Bush administration claims he conspired with the al-Qaida leader to carry out attacks in the US. He says he was merely working to support his family, and needed the $200-a-month salary.

The case challenges the Bush administration's justification for holding people without recourse to US courts or the Geneva convention.

Terror suspects brought before the tribunals do not have the right to an attorney of their choice or to see the evidence against them. Even if they are acquitted and freed, the verdict can be reversed by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr Hamdan's lawyers contended yesterday that that makes the tribunals unconstitutional because they allow the president to define the crime, and select the prosecutor and judges who act as jury.

"This is a military commission that is literally unburdened by the laws, constitution and treaties of the United States," one lawyer, Neal Katyal, told the court.
guardian.co.uk