In a hearing last week, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ruled that Mohammed Jawad's confession to Afghan officials was inadmissible because it had been extracted through torture. She also questioned whether the Justice Department had any evidence to proceed with a trial to determine whether he can be held as an enemy combatant.
Huvelle called the case an "outrage" and told Justice Department lawyers that their case against Jawad had been "gutted."
"They're simply trying to manufacture new ways to prolong his detention," he said.
The Justice Department's case against Jawad, whom Afghan officials say was captured when he was just 12 years old, underscores the difficulties the U.S. government faces in justifying its continued imprisonment of Guantanamo detainees.
The Obama administration has moved to grant political asylum to foreign women who suffer severe physical or sexual abuse from which they are unable to escape because it is part of the culture of their own countries.
Scientists say they have found a new way to mend damage to the heart. When cells turn into fully-formed adult heart muscle they stop dividing, and cannot replace tissue damaged by disease or deformity.
Buried near the end of a bizarre Time article which compares Obama administration debates about whether to probe torture allegations with President Bush’s struggle to decide whether or not to pardon a former aide who obstructed a leak investigation are two paragraphs which reveal something new about L ‘affaire Plame.
Hours before they were to leave office after eight troubled years, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney had one final and painful piece of business to conclude. For over a month Cheney had been pleading, cajoling, even pestering Bush to pardon the Vice President's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
