June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Arizona Senator John McCain condemned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to allow detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, access to federal courts.

``These are people who are not citizens; they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have,'' McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said at a town hall meeting in Pemberton, New Jersey, yesterday. ``There are some bad people down there.''

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, has said the U.S. mustn't torture captured terrorist suspects and has repeatedly called for a closing of the Guantanamo detention facility. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, has also said he would close it.

McCain called the court's 5-4 ruling ``one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,'' warning that the court system would be clogged with petitions from the 270 inmates. He suggested that many inmates still present a threat.

``Thirty of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again,'' said McCain, 71.

The court June 12 invalidated a 2006 law, backed by McCain, which stripped Guantanamo Bay inmates of the right to file so- called habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts. The court's majority opinion, in a rebuke to the Bush administration and Congress, held that inmates at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay are protected by the Constitution and may seek release in federal court.

The Bush administration will ``abide by the court's decision,'' the president said following the ruling, during a news conference in Rome. ``That doesn't mean I have to agree with it.''

Impact on Independents

McCain's alignment on the ruling with the Republican Bush administration may be a disappointment to some of his independent supporters, whose votes he needs in the November presidential election.

Obama, 46, praised the Supreme Court's decision the day of the ruling as a ``rejection of the administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Nadine Elsibai in Washington at nelsibai@bloomberg.net; Hans Nichols in Pemberton, New Jersey at hnichols2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 14, 2008 12:35 EDT