The US government has released Wednesday ISIS member, with dual nationalities, who was detained for more than eight months in a military base in Iraq, following cases in courts and protests from humanitarian organizations.
The US government didn’t disclose the man's name.
He was fighting with ISIS in Syria and got arrested by Kurdish forces loyal to the US. However, humanitarian organizations criticized the US government’s plan in releasing him in Syria, stating that this is equal to a death sentence and demanded transferring him to the US given that he holds its nationality.
The release decision was an unexpected reversal, as ever since his capture in September, the government spent months defending its power to hold him indefinitely, on grounds that he had been an "enemy combatant" in Syria; fighting for ISIS, reported AFP.
The incident raised questions about whether Trump administration would introduce his case into the US justice system, hand him over to to his home country, or, as Trump had in the past threatened, send him to the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba.
US Justice Department proposed releasing him in a third country or in Syria or outside a Syrian refugees camp in another state.
In a statement, ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz called the move "a disgraceful way to treat an American citizen.”
He added that "the government has effectively admitted that it has no reason to continue detaining our client and that he does not pose any threat. But, 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."
