U.S. district judge halts transfer of Guantanamo detainee to Tunisia

A federal judge in Washington has blocked the Pentagon from transferring a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia, where he allegedly faces torture, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday that marked a milestone in the treatment of detainees.\nThe order by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was unprecedented as a direct intervention in the case of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where some 330 men accused of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban are held, according to a human rights group and the detainee’s lawyers.\n“This is the first time since Congress tried to strip court jurisdiction over detainees that a court stepped in and said to the administration, ‘Hey wait. You can’t do what you say you want to do,’” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.\nKessler said that detainee Mohammed Abdul Rahman, who has a heart condition, was convicted in absentia in Tunisia, sentenced to 20 years in prison and allegedly would face torture there, demonstrating “the devastating and irreparable harm he is likely to face if transferred.”\nIn her Oct. 2 ruling that was kept under seal until Tuesday, Kessler granted a preliminary injunction to halt the Defense Department’s move to transfer Rahman to Tunisia. He was captured in Pakistan and allegedly handed over for a bounty. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England cleared him for transfer after a military panel heard his case in 2005.\n“In view of the grave harm Rahman has alleged he will face if transferred, it would be a profound miscarriage of justice if this court denied the motion” pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on rights of Guantanamo detainees, Kessler wrote in her ruling.\nJoshua Denbeaux, Rahman’s lawyer, praised the ruling.\n“It’s the first time the judiciary has given a detainee any substantive right – in this case it is the right not to be tortured by the Tunisian government,” Denbeaux told AP by phone.\nCynthia Smith, a Department of Defense spokeswoman, said the United States tries to ensure that repatriated detainees are not abused.