Judge's Ruling Classified: Another Tortured HVD Released

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pentagon to release a long-held Mauritanian captive held at Guantanamo Bay who was once considered such a high-value detainee that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated him for "special interrogation techniques."

U.S. District Judge James Robertson's ruling was classified, so there was no immediate explanation for why he granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamedou Slahi, 39. A notation in court files said an unclassified version of the ruling would be made available, but didn't say when.

Slahi is the 34th Guantanamo detainee ordered freed since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees could challenge their incarceration in federal court, but his name was already well known because of investigations into detainee abuse.

Those probes found that Slahi had been subjected to sleep deprivation, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, moved around the base blindfolded, and at one point taken into the bay on a boat and threatened with death. Investigators also found that interrogators had told him they'd his mother and have her jailed as the only female detainee at Guantanamo if he did not cooperate.

The interrogations were so abusive that a highly regarded Pentagon lawyer, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, quit the case five years ago rather than prosecute him at the Bush administration's first effort to stage military commissions.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/22/90862/detainee-abused-at-guantanamo.html#ixzz0j0xUyk0L