Government Might Allow U.S. Trial for Detainee

Government Might Allow U.S. Trial for Detainee
By William Glaberson | NYTimes

The Obama administration changed course Friday in the case of one of the youngest prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, saying he would no longer be considered a military detainee but would be held for possible prosecution in American civilian courts.

The decision came after a federal judge said last week that the government’s case for continuing to detain the prisoner, Mohammed Jawad, was “riddled with holes” and that the Justice Department had been “dragging this out for no good reason.”

Mr. Jawad, whose precise age is unknown, has been held for nearly seven years, after first being detained as a teenager. The federal judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court in Washington, reacted furiously last week after government lawyers conceded that much of their evidence to justify Mr. Jawad’s detention consisted of statements he had made that a military judge had previously ruled were obtained after he was tortured. Government lawyers said they would no longer rely on those statements.

In a filing Friday, the administration effectively conceded that it had lost the case, a habeas corpus challenge to Mr. Jawad’s imprisonment, before Judge Huvelle. The filing said the government would “no longer treat petitioner as detainable” as a military detainee. Read more.