Trump Administration Wants to Release U.S. Citizen Enemy Combatant In Syria
The unnamed person’s attorneys, who are scheduled to fight his detention in court later this month, call the potential release a ‘death warrant.’
Spencer Ackerman
06.07.18 10:44 AM ET
Nearly nine months after it first detained an American citizen as an enemy combatant, the Trump administration has quietly conceded both that holding the still-anonymous man without charge is untenable and that it lacks the evidence to charge him.
The downside, from his lawyers’ perspective, is that the administration’s latest solution is to release the man into Syria.
His attorneys consider the administration’s gambit, revealed in court filings late on Wednesday, a sick, unfunny joke that effectively condemns the man to death.
“What the government is offering our client is no release – it's a death warrant. This is a disgraceful way to treat an American citizen. Now, our fight for our client's right to due process has also become a fight for his right to life,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents a man known only as John Doe.
In its two-page unclassified filing, the Justice Department said it intends to release Doe to a town in Syria that it identified in a classified annex. It told the court that it intends the transfer to occur Saturday night. Doe is a captive of the U.S. military somewhere in neighboring Iraq.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-wants-to-release-us-citizen-enemy-combatant-in-syria?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon
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