The Bush Administration's plans to bring alleged terrorists to justice through military tribunals by denying them prisoner-of-war status has been thrown into question after a federal judge ordered a civilian court hearing for a man suspected of being Osama bin Laden's driver.
The Justice Department said it would seek an immediate stay of yesterday's ruling by US District Judge James Robertson and would file an appeal.
The judge, ruling from Washington, halted the pretrial proceedings of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 34, of Yemen, after his lawyers filed a petition challenging his status as an alleged enemy combatant.
Hamdan was taken captive in Afghanistan and held there for six months before being transferred to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where he claimed to have been kept in solitary confinement for eight months.
Hamdan - charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism - says he never supported terrorism. He was to have been the first detainee tried, on Dec. 7.
It was the first time a federal court halted legal proceedings before US military commissions, resurrected from World War II, at Guantanamo Bay. No trials have been held, although tentative trial dates for three other detainees.
The judge rejected the US government's contention that Hamdan and other detainees are not prisoners of war but enemy combatants, a classification affording fewer legal protections under the Geneva Conventions. Hamdan was declared an enemy combatant last month by a review tribunal during a hearing from which his lawyer was barred.
"Unless and until a competent tribunal determines that petitioner is not entitled to protections afforded prisoners of war under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention ... he may not be tried by military commission ... ," Robertson said in his ruling.
"There is nothing in this record to suggest that a competent tribunal has determined that Hamdan is not a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions."
The court also ruled that unless the military commission guidelines are changed to conform to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Hamdan cannot be tried by the commissions.
If the Guantanamo detainees are ultimately determined to be prisoners of war entitled to trial by court martial, they would have available to them different standards for evidence and could appeal up to the Supreme Court.
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the government would appeal the ruling on the grounds that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to members or affiliates of al-Qaida.