Another Gitmo Detainee Freed

A federal judge vigorously ordered the release of Guantánamo detainee Abd al Rahim Abdul Rassak on Monday. According to the Associated Press, the Syrian Rassak ended up at Gitmo after a Kafka-esque series of mishaps: in 2000 Rassak spent a few days at a Taliban guesthouse, then attended a terror-training camp for three weeks. Al Qaeda suspected him of spying for the U.S. and tortured him for 18 months. The U.S. arrested Rassak after mistaking him for a suicide martyr in an Al Qaeda videotape of his own torture, then imprisoned Rassak "when he tried to provide information to us about his torturers," according to his lawyer. Of government claims that Rassak maintained allegiance to his torturers, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote, "I disagree!" adding that officials were "taking a position that defies common sense," and explaining, "surely extreme treatment of that nature evinces a total evisceration of whatever relationship might have existed!"