WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- A U.S. appeals court in Washington is taking up a challenge on how the U.S. military decides whether prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay are enemy combatants.
Lawyers for eight detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba have criticized the system in which if a military panel finds a detainee is not an enemy combatant, a new hearing is held. In some cases, a third hearing has been held until the detainee is found to be an enemy combatant, the lawyers said in a report in The New York Times.
"The system is designed to validate the holding of everyone they are now holding," Hofstra University law Professor Eric Freedman, who has consulted with some detainees' lawyers, told the Times.
The lawyers challenged the "do-over" system before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A government brief said the military hearings can't be compared to civilian hearings and the rights afforded in them.
"This is just one of many areas where it is inappropriate to compare (combatant status review tribunal) proceedings with background principles that stem from domestic criminal law," the brief said.
While the court could just consider whether the military is following its own rules, the detainees' lawyers were also trying to get it to address issues of fairness, the Times reported.
