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High court takes up detainee trials

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration's military trials for foreign terror suspects, stepping into a high-stakes test of the president's wartime powers.

The court's intervention is troubling news for the White House, which has been battered by criticism of its treatment of detainees and was rebuked by the high court last year for holding enemy combatants in legal limbo.

The justices will decide if President Bush overstepped his authority with plans for a military trial for Osama bin Laden's former driver, who is being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It would be the first such trial since World War II.

New Chief Justice John Roberts took himself out of the case because as an appeals court judge he backed the government in the same appeal. If Bush nominee Samuel Alito is confirmed, he could be a pivotal figure when the case is argued next spring.

The Pentagon announced Monday that five additional terror suspects at Guantanamo will face military trials on various charges including attacking civilians and murder. That brings to nine out of about 500 detainees at the facility who have been charged with criminal offenses.

Announcement of the court's move came shortly after Bush, asked about reports of secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe for terrorism suspects, declared anew that his administration does not torture anyone.

"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again," Bush said during a news conference in Panama City, Panama, with President Martin Torrijos. "So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law.

"Anything we do to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture," he said.

Also Monday, the U.S. command in Iraq announced that five soldiers from the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment were charged Saturday with kicking and punching detainees in Baghdad. All five were reassigned to administrative duties, the statement said.

Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, has been in U.S. custody for four years. He and three other terror suspects are to be tried before military officers.

Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, denies conspiring to engage in acts of terrorism and denies he was a member of al-Qaida. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism.

The Bush administration had urged the high court to stay on the sidelines until after the trials, arguing that national security was at stake. "The military proceedings involve enforcement of the laws of war against an enemy force targeting civilians for mass death," Solicitor General Paul Clement wrote in a filing.

Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor, said the court in taking the case seemed to be making a statement that it would "define the perimeters of this war and what tools the president has available to him in this unique environment."

In 2004 the justices took up the first round of cases stemming from the war on terrorism. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring, wrote in one case that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

Arguments in the Hamdan case will be set in time for O'Connor's successor to take part. Senate confirmation hearings are planned for January for Alito, who often has been deferential to government in his appeals court rulings.

[Last modified November 8, 2005, 02:15:36]