Judge Delays Hearing in Terrorism Case

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday postponed a pretrial military hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a Saudi Arabian accused of being part of an Al Qaeda bomb-making cell.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the Bush administration would not suffer any harm by delaying a few weeks the case against Ghassan Abdullah Al Sharbi until the Supreme Court ruled on the legality of the military commissions created to try suspected terrorists.

The high court’s term ends in late June or early July, when justices are expected to rule in the case of another Guantanamo Bay detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who is challenging President Bush’s power to create a separate system of justice for terrorism suspects. Administration lawyers had argued Sullivan lacked authority to stop Al Sharbi’s May 15 hearing.

Al Sharbi, 31, an electrical engineering graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., was captured in March 2002 in Pakistan with senior Al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubayda and other figures.