A federal judge has found that a former Afghan, Asadullah Haroon Gul, has been held unlawfully at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, the first time in 10 years that a detainee has won such a case against the U.S. government, his lawyers said.
“This is a landmark victory for the rule of law and a much-needed reminder to the US government that there are limits on what it may do in the name of national security,” Gul’s attorney, Tara Plochocki, said in a written statement.
Gul’s counsel Mark Maher, with the nonprofit group Reprieve, said the judge’s ruling this week “affirmed what Asad has known for so long.” “He should be home with his family, and his detention is unlawful,” Maher said.
Gul, 40, was captured in 2007 by Afghan forces, turned over to the United States, and remains one of the last 39 detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He is also one of only two Afghans who remain out of 219 sent there after the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. President Biden formally ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan in August. Read the full story in the Washington Post.
