US plans to move American detained without charge in Iraq to third country

ACLU to challenge ‘forcible rendering’ of unnamed US citizen, held by US military in Iraq for seven months after capture by Syrian rebels

Ed Pilkington in New York
Tue 17 Apr 2018 22.04 BST

An American citizen who has been held without charge in Iraq since last September by the US military now faces being moved to an unidentified foreign country under government plans that his lawyers are scrambling to challenge.

A heavily redacted court document, released on Tuesday at the orders of a federal judge in Washington, reveals the intention of the defense secretary, Gen James Mattis, to move the detainee to a third country, having kept him captive for the past seven months in Iraq.

The name of the receiving country is being kept secret, though reports have suggested it is Saudi Arabia.

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The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge the transfer, which it argues is unlawful. The detainee – whose identity is also being kept secret and who is referred to in legal papers only as John Doe – was held for the first four months with no access to any lawyer until the ACLU waged a fierce court battle and won the right to represent him.

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