Innocent, But In Limbo at Guantánamo

Five Chinese Muslims, captured in Pakistan by mistake, try to get the US Supreme Court to take their case.

Five Muslim detainees from China's western Xinjiang province are stranded in a legal no man's land at the US terrorism prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

They shouldn't be there. Even the US military has found that the men, members of the besieged Uighur ethnic group, are not enemy combatants. But their ordeal in custody isn't over. Because they could face harsh treatment back in China - and the US doesn't want to set a precedent by granting them asylum here - they sit in a barracks-like detention center waiting for a country to give them a home.

Now, more than four years after their imprisonment by US military forces, the men are asking the US Supreme Court to examine their case. At issue is whether individuals captured abroad can be held in military detention indefinitely - even after the US government has declared that they pose no threat to national security.

Details here from the Christian Science Monitor.