Oct 9, 2007 3:04 pm US/Pacific
Judge: Gitmo Prisoner Cannot Be Shipped Overseas
A U.S. 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.
Lawyers said the order by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was an unprecedented direct intervention in the case of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where some 330 men accused of links to al Qaeda or the Taliban are held.
"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," said Joshua Denbeaux, the lawyer for Mohammed Abdul Rahman, the Tunisian detainee.
The White House last week denied reports that a secretly issued Justice Department opinion in early 2005 cleared the way for the return of painful interrogation tactics that the Bush administration had earlier seemed to renounce.
Under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' leadership, the Justice Department issued a secret opinion in 2005 authorizing use of painful physical and psychological tactics against terror suspects, including simulated drownings and freezing temperatures, The New York Times reported.
That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came a year after a 2004 opinion in which Justice publicly declared torture "abhorrent" and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.
