"Now all of these cases have been revived and this is the first case to move forward," said David Cole, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University. "And here is somebody that the military has been holding on to for six years and the federal court now says he shouldn't have been held in the first place.
"Absent this independent judicial review, he might have been sitting there for another 10 to 15 years. Now he has a chance to find freedom," said Cole, the author of two books on legal issues in the U.S.-led counter-terrorism campaign.
In a one-paragraph notice, the three judges on the appellate panel said they could not discuss their order publicly because it contained classified information and that a declassified version would be available later.
But those familiar with the panel's decision, made Friday, said it suggested that other judges might follow its lead and challenge the government's underlying reasons for keeping detainees like Parhat in military custody for so long.
The ruling came in response to a petition under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which allowed detainees a limited review of their enemy-combatant designation before the Washington appeals court.
Military officials designated hundreds of detainees like Parhat through combatant-status review tribunals, which allowed for them to be prosecuted by the military.
"The premise of the DTA was that the courts would rubber-stamp whatever the administration wanted to do to people designated as enemy combatants. But this shows that the courts are not going to roll over and play dead on the basis of bogus evidence," said Willett, adding that the ruling "cleared" his client of any connections to terrorism.
Parhat, 37, and other Uighurs were captured in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. He has insisted that he sought refuge there from an oppressive Chinese government and never fought against the United States.
The U.S. government has produced no evidence suggesting that he ever intended to fight, but it designated him an enemy combatant because of alleged links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group demanding independence from China that Washington says has links to Al Qaeda.
Five Uighurs were released from Guantanamo two years ago to seek asylum in Albania, after the United States said it could not return them to China because they would face persecution there.
Parhat is one of 17 Uighurs being held at Guantanamo, and all of them have been cleared for release as part of annual reviews, a U.S. official said Monday. Although they are still designated enemy combatants, they are not considered significant threats or to have further intelligence value, the official said.
The Uighurs at Guantanamo have become a legal and diplomatic headache for the administration, which says it cannot find a country willing to accept them.
The U.S. official said federal authorities have balked at allowing the Uighurs into the United States.
Some critics have also accused the administration of unfairly portraying the Uighurs as terrorists as a way of appeasing the Chinese government, which seeks to tamp down separatist efforts by the group.
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josh.meyer@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Peter Spiegel contributed to this report.
