US top court takes hard look at Guantanamo detention

Reuters, Washington
US Supreme Court justices Tuesday sharply questioned the administration's detention of enemy combatants at what their lawyer termed a "lawless enclave" at Guantanamo Bay without access to the courts, in the first big legal test of the war on terrorism.

The justices seemed deeply divided over whether President Bush had the legal authority to order the indefinite holding of foreign citizens captured abroad while denying them the right to challenge their detention in court.

US Solicitor General Theodore Olson defended the Bush administration's controversial policy, which has come under attack by civil liberties and human rights groups.