http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13579-2003Dec18.html
Seized Citizen Is Ordered Released Bush Overreached Powers, Court Says
"NEW YORK, Dec. 18 -- A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that President Bush does not have the power to declare an American citizen seized on U.S. soil an "enemy combatant" and hold him indefinitely in military custody.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in a 2 to 1 ruling, gave the administration 30 days to release Jose Padilla, who allegedly plotted to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb." He has been confined to a South Carolina brig without access to an attorney for 19 months.
"The President's inherent constitutional powers do not extend to the detention as an enemy combatant of American citizens without express congressional authorization," the court concluded in a decision signed by Judges Barrington D. Parker and Rosemary S. Pooler. "Padilla will be entitled to the constitutional protections extended to other citizens."
Thursday's ruling constitutes one of the strongest judicial rebukes of the administration's tactics in the war on terrorism -- in this case, its policy of aggressively detaining suspects without formal charges and without access to lawyers or their families.
Also Thursday, a federal appeals court in California ruled that a detainee at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be granted a court hearing, and held open that possibility for all 660 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters there. [See story, Page A19.] But the U.S. Supreme Court has already agreed to review the same question."
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