The Bush Administration's decision to drop a federal criminal action against Qatari student Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri one month before his trial, and transfer him to military custody in a South Carolina brig where he awaits a decision as to whether he will be tried in a military tribunal proceeding, marks a change in Administration policy according to Administrative officials and experts.

The move does not bode well for Zacarias Moussaoui, whom experts predict will also be declared to be an enemy combatant and removed from the federal criminal justice system.

The Administration claims the move of Mr. Marri is intended to allow them to interrogate him about al Qaeda.

Critics of the Bush administration tactics said today that they believed the decision to declare Mr. Marri an enemy combatant set a dangerous precedent and exposed inconsistencies in the administration's treatment of terrorist suspects.

By declaring Mr. Marri an enemy combatant, the administration also sends a message to other terrorist suspects now in the criminal system about what could happen if they do not cooperate with investigators, officials said.

Defense lawyers for some criminal defendants in terrorism cases in Lackawanna, N.Y., and elsewhere have complained that prosecutors used the threat of enemy combatant status to coerce pleas. Justice Department officials have denied such a tactic, saying it would be unethical. But a senior F.B.I. official said today that the Marri decision held clear implications for other terrorism suspects. "If I were in their shoes, I'd take a message from this," the official said.

....Civil liberties advocates and military law experts said they were troubled by the decision to declare Mr. Marri an enemy combatant less than a month before his trial. They said he posed no imminent threat to the United States because he had been in custody more than 18 months. "The fact that a person is removed from the framework of the federal district courts and thrust into a legal environment with few if any protections can't help but be disturbing," Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said.

You can read the text of Bush's Executive Order declaring Mr. Marri an enemy combatant here.