Yemeni's lawsuit contends special tribunal violates Constitution

[icymist]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001932869_tribunal19m.html

Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

Yemeni's lawsuit contends special tribunal violates Constitution

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter

On the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in Seattle, a lawsuit is being heard that weighs the foundations of American laws and values against the mission of protecting the country from foreign terrorists.
At the center of the case is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who admits he was a driver for Osama bin Laden.

The military lawyer assigned to represent him, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, is using Hamdan's detention in Guantánamo Bay to question the power of his own commander in chief, the president of the United States.

The issues, wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in a procedural ruling last week, have "monumental significance" and are reminiscent of the Japanese-internment cases decided six decades ago in the same courthouse.

Swift argues not only that Hamdan is an innocent civilian, but that the military tribunal President Bush's administration created to try him is unconstitutional. Also, he says, the tribunal rules violate military law and the Geneva Conventions.

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