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US moves toward releasing young Guantanamo detainee
07 Aug 2009 20:31:35 GMT
 Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - One of the youngest detainees held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay moved a step closer to freedom when the Obama administration notified Congress of his upcoming release, a Justice Department official said on Friday.

Mohammed Jawad was accused of throwing a grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter in Kabul in 2002 but judges barred his confessions from being used because they said he made them while being tortured.

While the notification sent to Congress on Thursday starts a 15-day waiting period before he can be sent to Afghanistan, the Justice Department is still considering a criminal case against him in U.S. court, citing new evidence.

Jawad's defense lawyers say the evidence is not new and have pressed the administration to send him home.

His transfer would be the first since Congress set strict limits on moving any of the 229 detainees at the prison after President Barack Obama pledged to close the controversial facility by January 2010.

Congress banned releasing Guantanamo detainees into the United States and set waiting periods before they could be jailed in the United States or transferred abroad.

The Justice Department was ordered by a judge last week to release Jawad and send by Aug. 6 the required notification to Congress, which includes classified information about any risk his release may pose and how it would be mitigated.

"The administration complied with the court order in submitting to Congress information required," said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

"The Justice Department continues to review the case to determine whether or not evidence exists to support a criminal case against Jawad in federal court," he said.

Jawad is one of the youngest detainees. His lawyers say he was about 12 when he was arrested in 2002 but the Pentagon has said bone scans indicated he had turned 18 when he was sent to Guantanamo in early 2003. (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Philip Barbara)


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