Judge halts transfer of Guantanamo detainee (to Tunisia and Torture)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: USA Today

A U.S. federal judge in Washington blocked the Pentagon from transferring a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia, where he allegedly faces torture, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday that marked a milestone in the treatment of detainees.

The order by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was unprecedented as a direct intervention in the case of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where some 330 men accused of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban are held, according to a human rights group and the detainee's lawyers.

"This is the first time since Congress tried to strip court jurisdiction over detainees that a court stepped in and said to the administration, 'Hey wait. You can't do what you say you want to do,"' said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Kessler said that detainee Mohammed Abdul Rahman, who has a heart condition, was convicted in absentia in Tunisia, sentenced to 20 years in prison and allegedly would face torture there, demonstrating "the devastating and irreparable harm he is likely to face if transferred."



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-09-gitmo-transfer_N.htm

[Nite Owl]

1. A Clinton appointee

Gladys Kessler is an United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia.<1> She was nominated to the court by President Clinton, a Democrat, and is known as one of the most liberal judges in the D.D.C. Judge Kessler was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1994.

After receiving her B.A. from Cornell University and LL.B. from Harvard Law School, she was hired by the National Labor Relations Board. She worked as a Legislative Assistant to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman, worked for the New York City Board of Education, and then opened a public interest law firm. In June 1977, she was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and from 1981 to 1985, served as Presiding Judge of the Family Division. She was President of the National Association of Women Judges from 1983 to 1984, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the ABA’s Conference of Federal Trial Judges and the U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Court Administration and Management. From 1983 to 1984 she was also the President of the National Association of Women Judges.

Kessler is the first judge to consider an appeal that the Executive branch is violating the new Detainee Treatment Act.<2> Lawyers for Mohammad Bawazir argued that the measures Camp Delta authorities instituted to break a six-month hunger strike were abusive, cruel and unusual. Department of Defense spokesmen argued that the Detainee Treatment Act didn't apply to suspects held captive in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Kessler

[maseman]

2. How long until

O'Leilly calls her an anti-American, unpatriotic lesbian or something?

[Nite Owl]

5. Less than 24 hours

my bet.

[Gregorian]

3. I want to see more of this intervention. Good news.

I can't believe how far we've sunk, and so quickly. Damn. I wouldn't treat flies this way.

[Xipe Totec]

4. I want to reassure the American people,

that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain’t bad.

- President James Dale (after Martians vaporize a large portion of Congress)

For all the good our Congress has been so-far, that's how I feel.

[Beerboy]

6. I don't know that Judge Kessler did Mr. Rahman any favor

with this order if he has to stay @ Gitmo.