A federal appeals court ruled here Thursday that the president does not have the power to detain a U.S. citizen seized on American soil as an enemy combatant. The decision is a major legal challenge to the sweeping executive powers claimed by President Bush since he launched the war on terrorism. Calling the ruling “troubling and flawed,” the White House said the government would seek a stay and further judicial review of the decision. The ruling concerns the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was arrested in Chicago at O’Hare International Airport in May 2002. Suspected of conspiring with Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States, Padilla was designated by the president as an enemy combatant. As such, he has been held in the high-security Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C., without charge and without access to a lawyer or family member for the last 18 months. Full Story
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