Judge says US held Afghan man unlawfully at Guantanamo Bay | Courts News

Asadullah Haroon Gul was denied access to a lawyer who had been detained without charge in Guantanamo for 14 years; now ordered free.

A US judge has ruled that the United States has no legal basis to detain an Afghan in the infamous Guantanamo Bay US detention center in Cuba to prepare for his possible release, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.

Asadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan national, has been held in Guantanamo since June 2007 after he was arrested by Afghan forces and handed over to the US military in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

The US District Court judge Amit Mehta, who ruled on a habeas corpus motion, has dismissed the US government’s arguments about continuing to detain Gul in Guantanamo.

“The result of the petition was that it was granted,” said Tara Plochocki, Gul’s attorney, who said she was “pleased” with the judge’s verdict.

Gul was detained in Guantanamo for 14 years without charge and denied access to a lawyer for the first nine years of his detention, according to Reprieve, a US law firm. In 2016, his attorneys petitioned Washington DC federal court arguing that his detention was unlawful.

Details of the judge’s verdict are classified as secret for the time being, but Gul’s attorney said the outcome was clear.

“The judge has ruled that his detention is illegal. And as with any other court order against the US government, there is a constitutional obligation to obey that order. And so it should mean that he will be released immediately, ”Plochocki told Al Jazeera.

Sehar Bibi holds a photo of son Asadullah in Shamshatu refugee camp near Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar [Abdul Majeed/AFP]

Habeas corpus is a centuries-old British and US common law principle that allows people wrongly imprisoned to contest the basis of their continued imprisonment.

While the US Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Guantanamo inmates have the right to apply for a habeas corpus order, Judge Mehta’s ruling marks the first time in 10 years that an inmate has filed a habeas corpus application won, said Plochoki.

Gul was a member of a group called Hezb-e-Islami, or the Islamic Party of Afghanistan, which reached a peace agreement in Kabul in 2016 with the western-backed Afghan government.

His lawyers had argued that he should be released because the US forces in Afghanistan had been suspended, but the judge dismissed these arguments.

Gul was never part of the Taliban or al-Qaeda or any group close to al-Qaeda and did not fight against the United States. In court records, he alleged that he was on a business trip to Afghanistan when he was arrested from the refugee camp in Pakistan, where he lived with his family.

The judge’s verdict suggests that government lawyers have failed to suggest that Gul may remain detained for an al-Qaeda connection.

“We were the first case to deal with what the law actually means and how the government interprets it” and whether the US “is extending its warrant by any means necessary,” said Plochocki.

Importantly, prior to the judge’s verdict, a US military control committee ruled on October 7th that it was safe to release Gul and no longer need to be imprisoned, citing a “lack of leadership in extremist organizations” and “lacking one.” clear ideological basis for “his previous behavior”.

“The panel’s recommendation is welcome, but we should remember that Asadullah spent more than 14 years of his life in prison without charge or trial,” US attorney Mark Maher said in a statement in Reprieve.

“Asadullah missed his daughter’s entire childhood. He should be reunited with his family as soon as possible, but there is no way to restore what has been taken from them. “

Any attempt by Justice Department attorneys defending the government’s authority to detain Gul to appeal the district judge’s judgment would be undermined by the selection board’s decision to release him.

Haroon Gul is one of 39 men still held in Guantanamo and now one of 13 men cleared for release by the Military Control Committee. Some men have been cleared for years and are still languishing in prison.

President Joe Biden has promised to close Guantanamo, where more than 740 men were detained between 2002 and 2017 – often without formal charges and in some cases tortured.