Bush administration wants U.S. citizen tried in Iraqi court.(INSIDER REPORT)(George W. Bush)

The Bush administration insists that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction to deal with the case of Jordanian-born U.S. citizen Shawqi Omar, a former Minnesota National Guardsman imprisoned in Iraq on charges of harboring insurgents and abetting terrorism.

Shawqi Omar is described by the Bush administration as being a relative and would-be accomplice of deceased terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Because he is held in Iraq under the custody of a UN-authorized multinational coalition--where he is forbidden to speak with an attorney--U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over him, and he can be transferred to the custody of an Iraqi court.

This would almost certainly mean the accused would be tortured and run through a trial conducted under a bizarre amalgam of Islamic and "international" law--meaning that he would have none of the due process protections and immunities to which those tried before U.S. courts are entitled. It would also create a precedent that could be used against other U.S. citizens in the future--a possibility of which a federal appeals court was very aware.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ...