WASHINGTON, 22 March 2005 — The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear the appeal of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, rejecting a challenge to the Bush administration’s power to bar potentially key witnesses from the only US defendant charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Justices let stand a lower court ruling that allowed the government to pursue the death penalty while restricting Moussaoui’s direct access to three Al-Qaeda terror captives. The lower court, citing national security concerns, said Moussaoui could use government-prepared summaries from the captives but not interview them.

The Supreme Court’s move yesterday now shifts the case back to trial court, where US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Va., must oversee the crafting of summaries and other classified information. A trial could begin as early as September.

Moussaoui, a French citizen who was indicted in December 2001, remains the only person charged in an Al-Qaeda conspiracy that includes the Sept. 11 attacks. The defendant has acknowledged his loyalty to Osama Bin Laden but denies he was to have any role in the 2001 airplane hijackings that led to attacks on New York and Washington. A third plane destined for terror attack crashed in rural western Pennsylvania.

His court-appointed attorneys argue in filings that forcing Moussaoui to rely on summaries violate his 6th Amendment right to a fair trial because the classified documents contain information “from unnamed, unsworn government agents purporting to report unsworn, incomplete, nonverbatim accounts” of witness statements.

But the Bush administration countered that high court review at this point was premature because government attorneys were working to put together summaries under Brinkema’s direction. An appeal challenging the death penalty and use of summaries, if one is necessary, would be more appropriate after trial, it said.

“The challenged substitutions have not yet been crafted and thus their adequacy and admissibility cannot be examined in a concrete factual context,” writes acting Solicitor General Paul Clement.