Captured in Iraq in September and accused at the time of fighting for ISIS, the Pentagon now says they plan to release a detained US citizen within the next 72 hours. The man and his legal team are arguing against his release.
That’s because despite being a US citizen, and having been caught in Iraq, the Pentagon says they intend to release him in some unnamed town inside Syria. The ACLU, which has been challenging his detention, says this release is not safe.
“Instead of offering a safe release, they want to dump an American citizen onto the side of the road in a war-torn country without any assurances of protection and no identification,” noted ACLU attorney Jonathan Hafetz, who referred to the plan as a “death warrant.”
The detention of the man, who has never been publicly named, has been controversial, with the Pentagon admitting they’d recorded his phone calls with his attorneys, and “regrets” having done so. The Pentagon concedes there is no reason to continue detaining the man, and the question now is where he’s going to be released, and more importantly, if it’s going to be someplace where he’ll be killed almost immediately for putative ISIS ties.
Uncle Warbucks version of public execution. And if he somehow manages to survive, he’ll get droned for having ties to the I.ranians or Eyesis fighters.
Why is he released if he, the American citizen, has been found guilty of fighting with ISIS. On the other hand, if he has not been proven guilty of anything, and will be released, why not allow him to come home to US? The issue here is — the rights iIF US citizen.
Similar thing happened to a German citizen, who was wrongfully accussed, shipped around black sites, and then US did not know what to do with him. We releaseed him by the roadside somewhere in Albania, in the night. He managed to walk to a nearby village, came to a pub if sorts, and contacted German embassy. He was lucky. He planned to sue US, but suddenly he is declared to have suffered a nervous breakdown, so the thing is dropped.
Thus, and others are precedents for finding various ways to deny US citizens their rights.
The next thing will probably be taking someone from home, shipping overseas, “catching” him, and then releasing in a crossfire.