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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

D.C. Judge Orders Release |of Guantanamo Detainee

(CN) - A federal judge in the nation's capital ordered that a detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay be released by Aug. 21, saying the detainee had endured enough.

But it was unclear whether U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle's order will mean freedom for Mohammed Jawad, who has been detained for nearly seven years, according to The New York Times. He was captured on charges that he tossed a grenade in Kabul in 2002 that injured two U.S. servicemen and their Afghan interpreter. He was a teenager at the time.

Jawad's case made headlines after a military judge found that he'd been tortured by Afghan officials and abused in U.S. custody.

The government conceded last week that it could no longer justify keeping Jawad at Gitmo.

Judge Huvelle called the case "riddled with holes," and said much of the evidence against Jawad had been obtained under threat of death.

Justice Department officials said they were considering filing civilian criminal charges against the detainee, which means he could be transferred to the United States to face charges instead of being released in Afghanistan.

Judge Huvelle gave the government an Aug. 21 deadline to release Jawad and further ordered that he be "treated humanely consistent with respondents' legitimate security and operational concerns."

"I hope," Huvelle reportedly said from the bench, "the government will succeed in getting him sent back home."

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