Terror suspects head for court

2005-11-08 13:44

Washington - Five terror suspects, including one accused of killing a United States special forces medic, are the latest Guantanamo Bay detainees headed for the kind of military trials that now face a Supreme Court review.

The high court agreed on Monday to consider a constitutional challenge to military trials for foreign terror suspects. The justices will decide whether US President George W Bush overstepped his authority with plans for a military trial for Osama bin Laden's former driver, who is also being held at the US military's Guantanamo Bay naval base.

His trial - and those of three other terror suspects who were charged more than a year ago - would be the first such tribunals since World War 2. The five newly charged suspects, who have been held in the US detention centre in Cuba since 2002, will also have a stake in the Supreme Court hearing.

Bid to ban torture

Meanwhile, key members of congress are pushing for a ban on torture and other inhumane treatment of prisoners in US custody. The White House has threatened to veto the defence spending bill if the ban is included.

The five suspects charged on Monday embody the military's most daunting challenge: the use of homemade roadside bombs - or improvised explosive devices - that are the No 1 killer of troops in Iraq.

Toronto-born Omar Khadr was charged with murder, attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy, for allegedly tossing a grenade that killed a US special forces medic while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, planting mines to target US convoys and gathering surveillance.

The other four - Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi and Jabran Said bin al Qahtani of Saudi Arabia; Sufyian Barhoumi of Algeria; and Binyam Ahmed Muhammad of Ethiopia - were charged with conspiracy.

Barhoumi allegedly was an al-Qaeda explosives trainer who taught al Qahtani and al Sharbi how to build remote-detonation explosive devices. And al Qahtani allegedly wrote two instruction manuals on how to build timing devices for roadside bombs. Muhammad was allegedly trained to build dirty bombs and was planning terror attacks against high-rise apartment buildings in the US.

Their prospects for a full trial are now in the hands of the Supreme Court - a troubling development 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.

Bush, asked about reports of secret US prisons in Eastern Europe for terrorism suspects, declared anew that his administration does not torture anyone.

There are about 500 detainees being held at Guantanamo.

- AP