'Enemy Combatant' Can Challenge Bush Admin.

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2008— -- A federal appeals court ruled today that the Bush administration can keep the only so-called enemy combatant held within the United States, in the country, but said he has the right to challenge the government's designation of him.

President Bush declared Ali Saleh al-Marri an enemy combatant in June 2003, and he has been at the U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., ever since. The government claims he entered the country in 2001 to help carry out a second wave of terror attacks after Sept. 11, 2001.

Last June, the Richmond, Va.-based appeals court issued a 2-to-1 opinion in the case, rebuking the government for holding al-Marri illegally, and Bush for overstepping his constitutional authority in authorizing the detainment. The Justice Department appealed that ruling to the full nine-member appeals court.

The 5-to-4 ruling today sends the case back to a lower court, where a federal district judge will review the case evidence to determine if al-Marri can be held as an enemy combatant.

"While the decision rejects the administration's claim of unreviewable executive power, it effectively cripples the most basic right in the Constitution -- the right of all individuals in the United States to challenge the accusations against them at trial," said al-Marri's attorney, Jonathan Hafetz of New York University's Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

The judges wrote a total of seven opinions addressing the case, totaling 216 pages.

Judge William Byrd Traxler, one of the judges who voted to send the case back to the lower court, wrote that "the issues we decide today are significant for the reasons stated throughout all of the opinions. But, in my judgment, there are additional concerns implicated by our decision that may have gone without sufficient notice."

From the panel minority, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, "We do not question the president's wartime authority over enemy combatants, but absent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the Constitution simply does not provide the president the power to exercise military authority over civilians within the United States.