A Guantanamo convict files a lawsuit to stop a US plan to send him to prison in Iraq

An Iraqi who pleaded guilty to leading insurgents who committed war crimes in Afghanistan filed suit in federal court on Friday, seeking to stop his transfer from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a prison in Iraq.

The petition filed by his lawyers led to public negotiations that had been underway for some time for his transfer Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi63, was taken into Iraqi government custody despite protests from him and his lawyer that he might be exposed to abuse and inadequate medical care.

Mr. Hadi, who says his real name is Nashwan al-Tamir, is the oldest and most disabled prisoner at the marine detention site as a result of a paralyzing spinal disease and six surgeries at the base. In 2022, plead guilty To accusations of committing war crimes, and accepting responsibility for the actions of some forces under his command, in a deal concluded His sentence expires in 2032. The deal included the possibility that he would serve his sentence in the custody of another country more suitable for providing him with medical care.

His lawyers said the US plan was to house the Iraqi government in Karkh prison outside Baghdad, the former site of a US detention operation called Camp Cropper that held hundreds of prisoners in the years before it was returned to Iraqi control in 2010.

“Because of his conviction here and the numerous problems plaguing the Iraqi prison system, Mr. Al-Tameer cannot be safely housed in an Iraqi prison,” the lawyers said in their 27-page filing. “Furthermore, he does not believe the Iraqi government is capable of providing the medical care he needs for conditions exacerbated by inadequate medical care while at Guantanamo.”

The lawsuit seeks to thwart a deal that is part of the Biden administration’s effort to reduce the number of detainees at the prison before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. Four prisoners among them Two Malaysian men Those, like Mr. Hadi, who admitted to committing war crimes were repatriated in less than a month. Unlike Mr. Hadi, none of these four men, including A Tunisian citizen and a Kenyan Citizens oppose their extradition to their homelands.

It is not known when the Pentagon intends to extradite Mr. Hadi to Iraq. But the Department of Defense notified Congress of the plan on December 13. If the administration adheres to the legal requirement of providing 30 days’ notice to Congress, he could be transferred from Guantanamo the week of January 12.

Government lawyers agreed to an expedited process on the challenge. They told Judge Emmett J. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that they would like to answer the preliminary injunction question by Wednesday.

Spokesmen for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice declined to discuss the case.

Mr. Hadi was represented in the petition by Benjamin C. McMurray and Scott K. Wilson, Federal Public Defenders of Utah. It was also signed by Susan Hensler, an attorney who works for the Department of Defense and has represented him since 2017.

Lawyers A State Department Report 2023 regarding concerns about human rights violations in Iraq which specifically mentioned “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.” They asked the court to temporarily block his transfer while the case was pending. “The lasting harm justifies a preliminary injunction against the immediate transfer of Mr. Al-Tameer to an Iraqi prison to serve his sentence.”

Mr. Hadi was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1961. He fled Iraq in 1990 to avoid conscription into Saddam Hussein’s army in what became the first American invasion of Iraq, and then settled in Afghanistan. In 2003 and 2004, early in the US invasion, Taliban and al-Qaeda forces under his command illegally used civilian cover in attacks that killed 17 US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. For example, his forces had a fighter pretend to be the driver of a taxi loaded with explosives.

At Guantanamo, he relied on a wheelchair and a four-wheel walker, and was held for years in a cell equipped with accommodations for people with disabilities.

His lawyers said in their filing that US officials informed them of the plan to return Mr. Hadi “a week before Christmas,” adding that “government officials informed defense counsel that they had concluded that Iraq was the ‘only’ option.”

The file stated that the prisoner and lawyers objected to the transfer, citing the United States’ obligations under international and constitutional law not to send someone to a country where they might be exposed to mistreatment.

Scott Roem of the Center for Victims of Torture, an advocacy group, said that to his knowledge, “senior State Department officials had previously determined that Mr. Altmir could not be sent to an Iraqi prison without violating the ban on torture.”

He said: “The State Department’s human rights reports, which are consistent with this determination, find that Iraqi prisons are rife with serious human rights violations, including torture.” “If the government now has a different view, it should explain why, by making its analysis public.”