WASHINGTON, 8 November 2005 — The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider a challenge to the Bush administration’s military tribunals for foreign terror suspects, a major test of the US government’s wartime powers.
Justices will decide whether Osama Bin Laden’s former driver can be tried for war crimes before military officers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Chief Justice John Roberts, as an appeals court judge, joined a summer ruling against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni.
He did not participate in yesterday’s action, which put him in the difficult situation of sitting in judgment of one of his own rulings.
The court’s intervention piles more woes on the Bush administration, which has already suffered one set of losses at the Supreme Court and has been battered by international criticism of its detention policies.
“I think it’s a black eye for the Bush administration. This opens a Pandora’s box,” said Michael Greenberger, a Justice Department attorney in the Clinton administration and law professor at the University of Maryland.
Arguments in the Hamdan case will be scheduled next spring.
The announcement of the court’s move came shortly after President George W. Bush, asked about reports of secret US prisons in eastern Europe for terrorism suspects, declared anew that his administration does not torture suspects.
“There’s an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again,” Bush said during a joint news conference in Panama City with President Martin Torrijos. “So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law.”
