Appeals panel rules in favor of detainee

WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court has ordered the Bush administration to give a Guantanamo Bay detainee a new military hearing or release him, court papers indicate.

The ruling, which was made known Monday, overturned a military tribunal's decision in the case of one of 17 Guantanamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from western China, The New York Times reported.

The Uighurs were in Afghanistan when the United States invaded in 2001, but were never U.S. enemies and were mistakenly swept into Guantanamo, critics say.

In a one-paragraph notice from the appeals court, a three-judge panel ruled in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, a former fruit salesman who made his way from western China to a Uighur camp in Afghanistan.

"The court directed the government to release or to transfer Parhat, or to expeditiously hold a new tribunal," the notice said.

Parhat's lead attorney said the court's ruling is significant.

"This raises enormous questions about just who they are holding at Guantánamo," said P. Sabin Willett.

The Bush administration has said it will not return Uighur detainees to China because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists.