Pentagon appeals Guantanamo case

Canadian Omar Khadr was accused of killing a US soldier

The Pentagon is to ask US military judges to reconsider a decision earlier this week to throw out charges against two Guantanamo Bay detainees.

This week charges against Canadian Omar Khadr and Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan, were dropped, casting fresh doubt on efforts to try foreign terror suspects.

Both cases collapsed because military authorities had failed to designate the men as "unlawful" enemy combatants.

The Pentagon will be filing a motion for reconsideration, a spokesman said.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan has been accused of being al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's driver and bodyguard.

Canadian Omar Khadr was accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan with a grenade.

Legal limbo

Under a new system of military justice approved by Congress last year, detainees facing trial must be designated "unlawful enemy combatants".

When they were assessed years earlier they were described only as "enemy combatants". The word "unlawful" did not appear, giving the new tribunals no jurisdiction.

It seems the same may apply to all the other 380 detainees, leaving the tribunal system in legal limbo while Bush administration lawyers race to clarify the situation.

The Pentagon argues there is no material difference between the two terms.

"The motion for reconsideration will go back to the two judges who ruled in each of these cases," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.