Top US court to hear case of Guantanamo detainees

The justices agreed to rule on whether US courts have the power to consider challenges by a group of Afghan war detainees to their continued confinement without access to families or lawyers, and with no charges brought against them.

The nation's high court will hear an hour of arguments in March, with a ruling due by July in a pair of cases that could decide the judiciary's role to review certain government's actions in the war on terror.

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The justices said in a written order they would decide whether US "courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."

The high court agreed to hear appeals by two British, two Australian and 12 Kuwaiti nationals. They are among about 660 detainees from more than 40 nations at the base in Cuba following their capture during the war in Afghanistan.

The detainees were seized during the US-led campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The first detainees arrived at Guantanamo in January 2002.

US officials defended the government's policies.