Terror suspect can challenge U.S. detention

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush can order the imprisonment of an al Qaeda suspect within the United States, but the detainee must be able to challenge his designation as an "enemy combatant," a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The court, based in Richmond, Virginia, split by a 5-4 vote on both issues in deciding the case of a Qatari national, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who is the only foreign national held in the United States as an "enemy combatant."

Marri has been held in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina for more than five years without any charges being brought against him.

He entered the country on September 10, 2001, and was said by a captured al Qaeda member to have come to help operatives who were plotting a second wave of attacks.

Marri was a legal U.S. resident and was initially detained in December 2001 to testify in the investigation of the September 11 attacks.

He later was indicted in Illinois, where he attended school, for credit card fraud, making false statements to the FBI and other charges. Marri pleaded not guilty.

The U.S. government dropped the charges on June 23, 2003, when Bush designated him an enemy combatant and Marri was taken to Charleston, where he has been held while his case has been pending before the courts.

In the ruling, the appeals court said that if the government's allegations about Marri are true, then Congress has given Bush the power to detain him as an enemy combatant.

But the court also concluded that Marri "has not been afforded sufficient process to challenge his designation as an enemy combatant." The appeals court sent the case back to a federal judge in South Carolina for further proceedings.

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Kristin Roberts and Cynthia Osterman)