Guantanamo military tribunals illegal, federal judge rules.

Byline: Andrew Zajac

Feb. 1--WASHINGTON -- In a rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of suspected terrorists, a federal judge Monday ruled that military tribunals set up at the Guantanamo Bay naval base to allow detainees to contest their imprisonment are unfair and illegal.

U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that the government has not gone far enough to comply with a Supreme Court decision last June, which decreed that detainees could go to court to challenge their detention as "enemy combatants."

Judge Green's decision, in a case involving more than 50 detainees, sharply conflicts with a Jan. 19 ruling by another federal judge here on a similar lawsuit brought by a separate, smaller group of detainees. In that case, Judge Richard Leon said that detainees at the base in Cuba had no legal basis to challenge their imprisonment.

The conflicting rulings mean that an appeals court or possibly the Supreme Court will have the final word on the detainees' cases and that it may be a year…