A US Supreme Court judge has ridiculed legal claims by detainees of Guantanamo Bay as "crazy" in a tape recording of a lecture obtained by the American magazine Newsweek.

The comments attributed to Judge Antonin Scalia were published a day before the Supreme Court begins hearing a challenge to the legality of special military tribunals for suspects held at the US prison camp in Cuba.

The case, brought by Osama bin Laden's driver, is the greatest challenge yet to President Bush’s powers to detain and try terrorist suspects.

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Judge Scalia said, during a talk on March 8 at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, according to Newsweek.

"Foreigners, in foreign countries, have no rights under the American Constitution... Nobody has ever thought otherwise."

Judge Scalia said that if a foreign combatant was captured by the US army on a battlefield, as prison camp was where he belonged.

"I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I’m not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it’s crazy." The conservative judge’s son, Matthew, fought in the Iraq war.

Judge Scalia also said he was "astounded" at the hypocritical reaction to the Guantanamo camp in Europe.

Some legal experts said that the comments could be a reason for Judge Scalia to withdraw from hearing the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan - who was Bin Laden’s driver from 1996 to 2001 - in which he is arguing that the US administration does not have the constitutional right to order special military trials.

The case may also examine the extent to which the Geneva Conventions protect Guantanamo detainees.

John Roberts, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court, has already withdrawn from the hearing, because he ruled on the Hamdan case while serving as an appeal court judge.

Last summer the Supreme Court, whose decisions must be followed by the US Government, dealt a defeat to President Bush when it ruled, 6-3, that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their incarceration as “enemy combatants” in US courts.

Foreign governments, including Downing Street, have criticised the tribunals as fundamentally unfair because the prisoners have no rights under the Geneva Conventions and limited rights as defendants.

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