Judges will hear arguments over whether the federal government violated the US constitution in designating Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, including its US chapter as a terrorist organization.

“The hearing is significant keeping in view the fact that Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation had little recourse when the US Treasury Department designated it a sponsor of terrorism," said a source closely associated with the case.

“The Saudi charity, at that time, could neither see the evidence nor contest despite the fact that all its assets were frozen overnight," said the source, on the condition of anonymity.

The plaintiffs, he said, have been arguing that the charity’s designation as a terror organization violated the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution. Hence, the US court is being asked to overturn the judgment that was delivered by a federal judge in Oregon in 2004.

Al-Haramain's attorneys plan to argue that the designation was illegal because the government declared the designation without providing notice. Tom Nelson, an attorney working on the case on behalf of Al-Haramain, said in a statement that the charity has an “even to better-than-even chance of winning the appeal despite a political climate of fear of Islamic influences in the United States … If it were any other age or time, without all the hysteria about Muslims and terrorism, it would be pretty good.”

The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments by Al-Harmain's Oregon's chapter attorneys and the government on Wednesday.

Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was a charity, based in Saudi Arabia, and alleged by the US Department of the Treasury to have direct links with Osama bin Laden. It is now banned worldwide by the UN Security Council. The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of Treasury had already banned its various branches.

Al-Haramain Foundation was mainly involved in social and religious projects, relief operations as well as rehabilitation work. The directors and office-bearers of the Ashland (US) chapter of Al-Haramain were Pete Seda, a US national, Suliman Al-Buthe and Aqeel Abdulaziz Al-Aqil, both Saudi nationals. The charity, which had its headquarters in Riyadh and had several branches across the world, is now defunct.