Close Guantanamo, move captured enamies to a new prison in Iraq.
Supreme Court backs Guantanamo detainees
In rebuke to administration, suspects may appeal in U.S. civilian courts
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25117953/ Supreme Court: Terror suspects have rights
June 12: Enemy or not, the Supreme Court has ruled that foreign terrorism suspects can challenge their detentions. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."
It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than six years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
In Rome, President Bush said, "We'll abide by the court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it."
He said the administration would review the decision to see if new legislation was warranted.
Ruling could halt first war-crime trial
A lawyer for Osama bin Laden's former driver said Thursday he would try to stop the first scheduled war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay in light of the Supreme Court's ruling.
Other lawyers are expected to join in a blizzard of filings to the war-crimes tribunal and to U.S. federal courts after the ruling Thursday that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to habeas corpus, the right to challenge their detention in civilian court.
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Do you agree with majority ruling on Guantanamo?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25118905/Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since May 2002, and is one of only 19 of the roughly 270 men still held who has been charged with a crime. His military trial was scheduled to be the first.
The Supreme Court ruling complicates the Bush administration's repeated attempts to put suspected terrorists before war-crimes tribunals at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
"The entire legal framework under which Mr. Hamdan was to be tried has been turned on its head," Hamdan's lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, told The Associated Press.
Mizer said the defense lawyers can now argue that their clients have the right to confront their accusers and not incriminate themselves, both of which have been denied under the Military Commissions Act.
Mizer said he will file a motion next week also arguing that Hamdan was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. The military judge postponed the Yemeni's June 2 trial pending the Supreme Court ruling, and it is unclear what he will do now.
Guantanamo opened after 9/11
The administration opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants.
The prison has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and the aggressive interrogations that were conducted there.
The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.
The administration had argued first that the detainees have no rights. But it also contended that the classification and review process was a sufficient substitute for the civilian court hearings that the detainees seek.
Vigorous dissents
In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also dissented.
Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy to form the majority.
The court has ruled twice previously that people held at Guantanamo without charges can go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. Each time, the administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.
In addition to those held without charges, the U.S. has said it plans to try as many as 80 of the detainees in war crimes tribunals, which have not been held since World War II.
A military judge has postponed the first scheduled trial pending the outcome of this case. The trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's onetime driver, had been scheduled to start June 2.
Five alleged plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks appeared in a Guantanamo courtroom last week for a hearing before their war crimes trial, which prosecutors hope will start Sept. 15.
President Bush has said he wants to close the facility once countries can be found to take the prisoners who are there.
Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama also support shutting down the prison.
