SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 20: A San Francisco-based federal appellate court on Monday blocked a challenge to the detention of more than 600 suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The US Court of Appeals ruled that a group of clergy and professors had no legal standing to represent Afghan war prisoners, effectively ending that attempt to mount a court challenge on their behalf.

The Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers and Professors filed the suit on behalf of the prisoners, many held in Cuba for about a year.

The suit alleged they had been deprived of their liberty without lawyers and had not been informed of the accusations against them, in violation of the US constitution.

But the appeals court declined to address that issue, and instead ruled the clergy did not have legal standing to seek redress for the detainees. And the court declined to rule on whether individual prisoners could bring their own cases.

The government’s position is that the federal judiciary has no power over US military policy being carried out in a foreign nation as part of the US “war on terrorism”.

“The Justice Department is pleased the Ninth Circuit accepted the government’s argument that the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda combatants in Guantanamo Bay cannot be challenged by the plaintiffs,” department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock said.

“The military has acted within its authority in detaining non-citizens captured in combat outside of the United States.”

The court ruling came amid reports that the US government is nearly ready to go forward with military tribunals for suspected Al Qaeda operatives in US custody in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.