A federal judge in Washington has blocked the government from immediately transferring to another country an American ISIS member who was detained by the US military in Iraq after being captured in Syria by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
The Washington Post did not name the man who is of Arab origin. Nor did it say to which country he could have been transferred.
The government has said in court filings that the man was born in the United States but raised in the Middle East. He attended college and studied electrical engineering in Louisiana, is married and has a 3-year-old daughter whom he tried to register as an American citizen on two trips to the US, according to court filings.
But when the civil war in Syria erupted in 2011, he moved there and joined ISIS.
He is being held by the US military in Iraq without charges for seven months.
“Petitioner’s motion for a preliminary injunction is hereby granted,” the US District Judge wrote in a one-paragraph order, enjoining the Defense Department “from transferring petitioner from US custody.”
The Justice Department appealed Friday to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
The hearing is the latest development in a case that has tested whether US citizens captured on a battlefield as suspected ISIS militants have the right to challenge their detentions.
