Judge Orders Gitmo Detainee Returned to Afghanistan

A Guantanamo Bay inmate may be released to Afghanistan next month after successfully challenging his detention under habeas corpus, the Washington Post reports. US District Judge Ellen Huvelle ordered Mohammed Jawad’s release based on the dodgy evidence against him—mainly, a confession allegedly obtained by threatening to kill Jawad or his family—and the fact that the detainee has already spent 6 years at Gitmo.

Jawad, then a teenager, allegedly threw a grenade at a US military vehicle in 2002, injuring three. Congress can try to block his transfer to Afghanistan, and the Justice Department could still try him for the attack in a US court. But Huvelle advised the government to consider the case’s troubled history, and Jawad’s status as a minor at the time of the attack, before bringing charges.