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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
In Loss for Bush, Supreme Court Blocks War-Crimes Trials at Guantanamo
 Associated Press
| | The US Supreme Court dealt a stinging defeat to President George W. Bush over the "war on terror," ruling he overstepped his powers by creating military war crimes tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates. Bush said Thursday's ruling would not set any suspected terrorists free and that he still hoped to try them in military courts. "We will analyze the decision. To the extent that the Congress is given any latitude to develop a way forward using military tribunals, we will work with them," the US leader said. "I want to find a way forward." (AFP/Jim Watson) |
Washington - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.
The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
Thursday's ruling overturned that decision. |
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