WASHINGTON (CP) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.
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 at Guantanamo. 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.
Among those facing such a tribunal was 19-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr, captured in Afghanistan in 2002 during the U.S.-led invasion.
Khadr, then 15, allegedly killed a U.S. army medic during a firefight in which Khadr himself was wounded. He faces murder and other charges by virtue of having been declared an illegal combatant by the Americans.
He had been scheduled to appear at a military tribunal June 26 in Guantanamo Bay, but the hearing was postponed while officials awaited legal clarification from the high court. Hearings were also postponed amid an outcry over a reported triple suicide at the camp.
The tribunals and the camp itself have attracted worldwide condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups. Several countries have demanded that Guantanamo be closed, but Canada has not taken a position.
The Khadr family has provoked intense debate in Canada. Its patriarch, Ahmed Said Khadr, killed in a firefight with Pakistani forces in 2003, was allegedly an associate of Osama bin Laden and a financier of his al-Qaida network. And at one time or another, each of the family's five siblings, all of whom are Canadian citizens, have either been accused of or investigated for alleged links to terrorism.
©The Canadian Press, 2006
http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/WorldNewsArticle.htm?src=w062923A.xml
I'll I can say is wow. I thought he had packed he court with several conservatives since he became President making it a Conservative court. Just wow, that must shock Bush out of his stupor.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.
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 at Guantanamo. 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.
Among those facing such a tribunal was 19-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr, captured in Afghanistan in 2002 during the U.S.-led invasion.
Khadr, then 15, allegedly killed a U.S. army medic during a firefight in which Khadr himself was wounded. He faces murder and other charges by virtue of having been declared an illegal combatant by the Americans.
He had been scheduled to appear at a military tribunal June 26 in Guantanamo Bay, but the hearing was postponed while officials awaited legal clarification from the high court. Hearings were also postponed amid an outcry over a reported triple suicide at the camp.
The tribunals and the camp itself have attracted worldwide condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups. Several countries have demanded that Guantanamo be closed, but Canada has not taken a position.
The Khadr family has provoked intense debate in Canada. Its patriarch, Ahmed Said Khadr, killed in a firefight with Pakistani forces in 2003, was allegedly an associate of Osama bin Laden and a financier of his al-Qaida network. And at one time or another, each of the family's five siblings, all of whom are Canadian citizens, have either been accused of or investigated for alleged links to terrorism.
©The Canadian Press, 2006
http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/WorldNewsArticle.htm?src=w062923A.xml
I'll I can say is wow. I thought he had packed he court with several conservatives since he became President making it a Conservative court. Just wow, that must shock Bush out of his stupor.
