Video: Ex-Guantanamo inmate to sue
Freed Guantanamo prisoner returns to Afghanistan, seven years after his detention.
An Afghan man detained for six-and-a-half years in Guantanamo Bay, the US military detention centre in Cuba, is to sue the US government, his lawyer has said.
Major Eric Montalvo, the US military lawyer representing Mohammed Jawad, said the former detainee’s family will be suing for compensation in US courts.
Jawad was released after his confession to throwing a hand grenade that wounded two US soldiers was rejected as having been coerced out of him through the use of torture.
Jawad, who was released to members of his family on Monday, has said he was 12-years-old at the time of his arrest in Kabul, the Afghan capital, in December 2002.
But the Pentagon has said a bone scan showed he was about 17 when he was taken into custody.
‘Subjected to torture’
Montalvo said he had been deeply upset “with the resistance of the US government to recognise the error of their ways”.
He said his client was subjected to various types of torture, including sleep deprivation and beatings and would find it hard to adapt to normal life.
But Montalvo added there were “signs of hope here and I believe this case has precedent in that the Obama administration has recognised that there are errors”.
“There are problems and they have decided to correct one of these problems,” Montalvo said.
Mantalvo is to retire from the military at the end of this month, but he says he will keep working on the case in an effort to get his client compensation for the miscarriage of justice.
Death threats
Jawad, who described widespread abuse at Guantanamo, said after his release: “I am released and I have joined my family – and it is thanks to the help of Allah.”
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, welcomed Jawad home in a private meeting at his palace.
A military judge at Guantanamo last October found that Jawad had initially denied throwing the grenade, but changed his story after Afghan authorities threatened to kill him and his family.
US district judge Ellen Huvelle ordered his release nine months later.
Ellen Huvelle, a US district judge, ordered him released nine months later.