THE NATION - News from June 23, 2009
A federal judge ordered a Guantanamo detainee released after chastising prosecutors for claiming that a man who had been tortured, imprisoned and abandoned by Al Qaeda and the Taliban could still be working with them.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon emphatically rejected the claims against Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak.
“I disagree!” the judge wrote, adding that the U.S. is “taking a position that defies common sense.”
Leon said the government and the media initially mistook Rassak, a Syrian, as a suicide martyr based on videotapes captured at an Al Qaeda safe house. Further investigation found the tape actually showed Al Qaeda torturing him.
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