Judge rules against Bush's decisions on alleged terrorists

Washington: A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the Bush administration violated the US Constitution when it froze the assets of more than two dozen alleged terrorist groups after the September 11 attacks.

US District Judge Audrey Collins, in a ruling released on Monday, held that an executive order that President Bush issued on September 24, 2001, designating 27 groups and individuals as "specially designated global terrorists" was "unconstitutionally vague".

Collins said the order was flawed because it failed to explain the criteria used to make the designations, and because it included no process to challenge the decision.

"The president's designation authority is subject only to his unfettered discretion," the judge noted.

The ruling came in a long-running lawsuit before Collins in which humanitarian groups are seeking to support the non-violent work of two groups that the secretary of state has designated as terrorist: the Kurdistan Workers Party, the main Kurdish political party in Turkey, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group fighting for a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.