Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal Detentions

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• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Today's decision extends the Bush administration's losing streak to three Guantanamo-related cases.

  In 2004, the Supreme Court said U.S. federal courts had jurisdiction to decide whether detainees at Guantanamo were rightfully imprisoned.

  In 2006, the court invalidated an executive branch decision creating military tribunals, saying it lacked congressional authorization.

  In response, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which instituted the military tribunal system now in use at Guantanamo. Part of that act removed the habeas corpus protection for detainees, the ability to challenge their detention in court.

  And it was on this that the latest legal debate centered. Today's ruling involved two cases, Boumediene v. Bush and al-Odah v. United States.

  Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national, was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001. Bosnian authorities accused him of plotting to attack the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, and he was handed over to the U.S. military.

  Fawzi al-Odah, a Kuwaiti, was in Afghanistan in 2001 on what he claimed was a humanitarian mission. He crossed into Pakistan after the U.S. invasion. He was captured and transferred to U.S. authorities, who sent him to Guantanamo.

  Thirty-five other detainees are included in these cases. In all, some 270 men are currently held at the detention center on the eastern end of Cuba.

  The facility was opened in early 2002 and instantly created worldwide controversy over the legal status under which prisoners remain held.

  Allegations of abusive interrogation practices have also been lodged.

  The military tribunals were in session just last week, with the arraignment of top members of al-Qaida, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed planner of the 9/11 attacks.