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SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO – 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 about 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.
