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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 23rd,
2009 - Judge Orders Syrian Guantanamo Inmate Freed |
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Judge Orders
Syrian Guantanamo Inmate Freed From Agence France Presse June 23, 2009 Washington - A federal judge
has ordered the release of a Syrian man held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval
Base, saying his imprisonment at the US-run detention after months of torture
by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban "defies common sense." According to court documents
obtained by AFP Tuesday, Judge Richard Leon ordered the US administration to
take all appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate the immediate release of
Abdulrahim al-Ginco saying his continued incarceration was "taking a
position that defies common sense." The government maintained
that Ginco's alleged affiliation with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan
- where he is purported to have trained with extremists determined to wage
"jihad" against US interests - was sufficient to prove that he
remains a terror threat. But in a closed door hearing
in May, his attorneys argued that any Taliban and Al-Qadea ties Ginco might
have had would have been irrevocably severed after his incarceration and
torture by those groups, which accused him of being a spy for the United
States. Ginco was referred to in
court records by the name "Janko" the name he now uses, according
to the judge. Leon said the question now
is "whether a prior relationship between a detainee and Al-Qaeda (or the
Taliban) can be sufficiently vitiated by the passage of time, intervening
events, or both, such as the detainee could no longer be considered 'part of'
either organization at the time he was taken into custody." The judge, appointed to the
federal bench by former US President George W. Bush, added that "the
government effectively concedes however that petitioner Janko was not only
imprisoned, but tortured by Al-Qaeda into making a false 'confession' that he
was a US spy, and imprisoned thereafter by the Taliban for over eighteen
months at the infamous Sarpusa prison in Kandahar." "The conditions in the
Sarpusa were so terrible - if not horrific - that many prisonners died while
incarcerated," he wrote. Leon added that the Syrian's
torture had been "barbaric" and "evinces a total evisceration
of whatever relationship might have existed" with the Taliban or
Al-Qaeda. The judge in his opinion
expressed incredulity at the government's contention that "the extreme treatment
Ginco was subjected to over a substantial period of time ... was not
sufficient to vitiate the relationship." "I disagree!" Leon
exclaimed in his ruling. Copyright © 2009 AFP. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hDZ41781-2GLVtAzxHv75oR__qng |