Detainee ordered released

WASHINGTON –Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko was tortured by al-Qaida and imprisoned by the Taliban for 18 months because the groups’ leaders thought he was an American spy.

Abandoned by his captors in late 2001, he was picked up by U.S. authorities, who shipped him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on suspicion that he was a member of the two groups.

Monday, a federal judge ordered al-Janko’s release, saying the government’s legal rationale for continuing to detain him “defies common sense.”

In a 13-page opinion that he read from the bench, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find a country that would host the 30-year-old detainee. It is unlikely that he will be sent to his native Syria.

The government alleged that al-Janko went to Afghanistan in 2000 to join the Taliban or al-Qaida. He is purported to have spent about five days at an al-Qaida guesthouse and then about three weeks at an al-Qaida training camp.

But al-Qaida leaders suspected him of spying for the United States and tortured him for three months until he confessed falsely to the charges, Leon said. Al-Janko then spent 18 months in a Taliban prison in Kandahar, the judge said.

The Taliban fled the prison in late 2001, leaving al-Janko behind, Leon said. U.S. authorities then picked up al-Janko.