USA. COURT RULING A BLOW TO BUSH, BUT OFFICIAL SAYS TRIALS TO PROCEED

June 13, 2008: The US Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo prisoners can challenge their detention in US civilian courts dealt a blow to President George W. Bush, but a senior official said the military trials will continue.
The court ruled by five to four that prisoners in the US military prison in southeastern Cuba "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus."
President George W. Bush said he would abide by the decision but disagreed with it, and would consider seeking new legislation, while the Pentagon said it would examine the implications of the ruling.
In a sign that controversy over the detentions will carry on, US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday that the administration would continue the military trials at the Guantanamo military base on Cuba despite the verdict.
"I think it bears emphasis that the court's decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed," Mukasey told reporters.
He said the decision instead focused on the "procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to allow enemy combatants to challenge their detention."
Thursday's ruling should now give the prisoners and their legal teams the right to demand to know on what basis they are being held.
It was not immediately clear how Thursday's ruling would affect those 270 detainees still held in the jail, opened in January 2002 to deal with suspects rounded up in the US "war on terror."
The Supreme Court took up the issue of Guantanamo inmates in 2004 and again in 2006, ruling both times that detainees had a statutory -- legal but not constitutional -- right to contest their indefinite detention.
But Congress in 2006 simply passed new legislation that forbade them from seeking justice in a federal court until they are judged by a special military tribunal. (Sources: Afp: 13/06/2008)