President Bush won't be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention in September.

Former Minneapolis City Council member and activist Ed Felien lost his bid to compel the Hennepin County attorney to investigate Bush for war crimes.

Hennepin County District Court Judge Gary Larson issued an eight-page order Thursday rejecting Felien's push to have Bush arrested. Larson said issuing an order to arrest the president would violate the state constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

In late May, Felien argued before Larson that Bush should be investigated and prosecuted for murder because of troop deaths in Iraq, conspiring with the Saudi Arabian royal family to raise oil prices for personal gain, and conspiracy to distribute drugs by controlling the opium trade in Afghanistan.

Felien had written to the Hennepin County attorney several times asking that he arrest Bush.

The county attorney acted within his discretion not to file charges against Bush, Larson wrote. "It is therefore not within the authority, nor the prudent discretion, of this court to force the filing of criminal charges that the county attorney does not deem warranted," he wrote.

Larson said the court must defer to a prosecutor's discretion to evaluate and charge cases. "Judicial interference should be rare and occur only when an injustice results because the prosecutor has clearly abused her discretion in exercising the charging function," Larson wrote.

Deputy Hennepin County Attorney Patrick Diamond argued in court that the notion that the president could be taken into custody and prosecuted was "highly doubtful."

Felien was publisher of the now-defunct Pulse, a weekly alternative newspaper. He still publishes South Side Pride, three separate monthly newspapers in south Minneapolis.

He said the ruling was "terrible" and said he may file a similar request in Ramsey County.