One of the perennial claims made by Americans who approve of the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay is that those people are just getting what they deserve, that the detainees should get no more consideration than the hijackers gave their victims on 9/11.

But this nation is supposed to be committed to justice. While Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, does hold some hardened terrorists, it has become increasingly clear that others who have been detained did nothing to harm America.

In the opinion of a U.S. appeals court, one of them is Huzaifa Parhat, whose continued detention ought to raise serious second thoughts for anyone who still thinks Guantanamo Bay represents sensible and just policy.

Huzaifa Parhat is a Chinese citizen of Uighur heritage, a Muslim ethnic group in the far west of China. He says he fled that country in May 2001 because of government oppression and settled in a Uighur camp in Afghanistan.

U.S. aerial strikes later destroyed the camp and he made his way to Pakistan, where he was eventually handed over to U.S. authorities. This refugee from communist tyranny was taken to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. Although a military officer recommended his conditional release in 2003, a Combatant Status Review Tribunal in 2004 declared him an enemy combatant.

Last month, as authorized by the Detainee Treatment Act, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reviewed the tribunal's decision -- and found it seriously wanting. "It is undisputed," its opinion said, "that he is not a member of al-Qaida or the Taliban, and that he has never participated in any hostile action against the United States or its allies." The unanimous panel declared his enemy combatant status invalid.

That status was based on a finding that he was "affiliated" with a Uighur independence group and that group in turn was "associated" with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The court found the government's argument unpersuasive.

The court took particular aim at its claim that several of the assertions made in intelligence documents were reliable because they were made in at least three documents. "Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make an allegation true." (The "said it thrice" reference is from Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark.")

The appeals court was on to something in citing Lewis Carroll, because a surreal quality pervades the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Terrorism is our Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, and we hunt it with all the logic of the Mad Hatter's tea party. As justice goes down the rabbit hole, Huzaifa Parhat will remain in Guantanamo Bay while the government decides whether to present more evidence against him.