U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan temporarily halted the transfer of an American citizen that the U.S. military detained in Iraq, The Washington Post reported.
The man has been held without charges for seven months. The ruling came within a half hour of an 8 p.m. deadline, after which the government would have been allowed to make the transfer, the report said.
The U.S. military has held the man, a suspected member of the Islamic State, since he was handed over to American forces Sept. 14, 2017, after being captured in Syria at a checkpoint belonging to the rebel Syrian Democratic Forces. At that time, he declared that he was a U.S. citizen, the Post reported.
The government has said in court filings that the man was born in the U.S. but grew up in Saudi Arabia and held dual citizenship. He was questioned for U.S. intelligence purposes, but American officials said in October that they had no admissible evidence to charge him with a crime.
Jonathan Hafetz, the man’s attorney, said at a hearing Thursday that the government must "charge him with a crime or release him,” the Post reported.
The Post quoted a State Department official that an unnamed third country has invoked its "sovereign interest” in accepting the detainee, and that country has formally confirmed that the man would not face torture.
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