U.S. high court deals blow to Bush
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that an American captured overseas in President George W. Bush's war on terrorism and held in a U.S. military jail must be given a chance to contest the government's decision to detain him.
The high court on Monday divided by a 5-4 vote to rule that Bush has the power to detain American citizen Yaser Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan as a suspected Taliban fighter and has been held in a U.S. military jail in the United States.
But in the more important part of the ruling, the justices by an 8-1 vote ruled he should get a fair opportunity to rebut the government's case for detaining him.
The decision was one of three by the high court on Monday in cases that pitted civil liberties concerns against national security arguments and marked a blow to Bush's assertion of sweeping presidential powers after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In the Hamdi case, the court said the U.S. Congress correctly authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged in the case, but ruled that he could challenge his detention -- a position at odds with what the Bush administration argued.
At least two court members -- Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- would have released Hamdi immediately.
They joined the main opinion by four other justices who said Hamdi should have a meaningful opportunity to offer evidence that he is not an enemy combatant.
The four, in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, said constitutional due process rights demand that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant must be given "a meaningful opportunity" to contest the basis for the detention before a neutral party.
Hamdi was born in the United States on September 26, 1980, to Saudi parents, and was raised in Saudi Arabia. He was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 while fighting with the Taliban, according to U.S. officials.
He initially was taken to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but was moved to the United States when U.S. officials discovered he was born in Louisiana.
The justices set aside a U.S. appeals court ruling that Hamdi was entitled to no further opportunity to challenge his enemy-combatant label.