'Enemy combatant' ruling blow to Bush

The White House suffered another serious legal blow in the "war on terror" on Monday when a court ruled that the military could not indefinitely detain a Qatari citizen captured in the US.

In a ruling with significant implications for presidential powers, the Court of Appeals ordered George W. Bush's administration to transfer Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri – a computer science student arrested in Illinois in connection with the 9/11 attacks – to the criminal court system.

"The president lacks power to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain al-Marri," wrote Judge Diana Gibbon Motz in the 2-1 decision. "We have found no authority for holding that the evidence offered by the government affords a basis for treating al-Marri as an enemy combatant, or as anything other than a civilian."

Mr Marri was arrested in late 2001 in connection with the 9/11 investigation. He was set for a criminal trial in 2003 on charges including credit card fraud. Weeks before his trial, however, Mr Bush classified him as an "enemy combatant".

He was removed from the criminal justice system and transferred to a naval prison in South Carolina.

"This is a huge victory," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center's Liberty National Security Project who represented Mr Marri. "The ruling puts the US where it belongs: in full support of fundamental habeas corpus rights even in times of perceived emergency. The court soundly and rightly rejected the administration's attempt to treat the globe as a battlefield that is exempt from rule of law."

The justice department said on Monday it would appeal. It had argued that Congress gave Mr Bush the authority to declare Mr Marri an "enemy combatant" when it authorised the use of force to prosecute the "war on terror" after 9/11.

The court also rejected the argument that the battleground extended to the US.

"If the president had his way, he would have virtually unlimited authority to detain any non-citizen on his say-so, place him in indefinite military custody, and deny him access to court to challenge the detention," said Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch. "This decision should remind the president that even he is not above the law."

The decision is the second setback for the administration in as many weeks. Last week, military judges at Guantánamo Bay ruled Congress had not authorised the administration to try "enemy combatants" at military commissions.

The Pentagon has asked the judges to reconsider the ruling. Separately, Colin Powell, former secretary of state under Mr Bush, over the weekend said the US should close Guantánamo.