Federal court blocks transfer of Guantanamo convict to prison in Iraq
WASHINGTON (NYT) — A federal judge on Saturday temporarily prevented the U.S. government from transferring a disabled prisoner to Iraq from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while the judge considered the prisoner’s claim that he would be at risk for abuse and inadequate health care there.
The prisoner, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, 63, is the oldest of the 15 detainees at Guantanamo and has a paralyzing spine disease that has required six surgeries at the base. He is serving a sentence on a war crimes conviction, and the United States had negotiated an agreement for him to finish it in Iraqi custody at a prison in Baghdad.
On Jan. 3, Hadi filed a lawsuit to stop the transfer, invoking his rights to humane treatment. He used his birth name, Nashwan al-Tamir, not the alias under which the United States has held him, Hadi the Iraqi.
In a three-sentence order Saturday night, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of U.S. District Court in Washington wrote that the government was “hereby enjoined from transferring al-Tamir to Iraq without his consent until the pending claims are resolved.”
Israeli delegation arrives in Qatar for ceasefire negotiations
TEL AVIV, Israel (TNS) — Hopes of a ceasefire deal to end the bombardment of Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages were once again rising with the arrival of a high-ranking Israeli delegation in Qatar on Sunday to join negotiations with Hamas.
The delegation includes the head of the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad, David Barnea, as well as the head of the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, according to people involved in the negotiations.
Indirect negotiations in Doha between Israel and Hamas, in which Egypt and the U.S. are mediating alongside Qatar, are seeking the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in return for Hamas-held captives in Gaza.
Of the 250 people abducted during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, a total of 98 are said to still be in Gaza, but at least a third of them are thought to be dead.
Romanian protesters demand cancelled presidential election should go ahead
BUCHAREST (Reuters) — Tens of thousands of Romanians angered by the cancellation of a presidential election marched through Bucharest on Sunday to demand that the ballot should go ahead and that outgoing centrist President Klaus Iohannis should resign.
In a move that polarised voters, Romania’s top court voided the presidential election on Dec. 6, two days before the second round.
The cancellation came after state documents showed frontrunner Calin Georgescu, a critic of NATO, had benefited from an unfair social media campaign likely to have been orchestrated by Russia, accusations Moscow has denied.
The court ordered that the election be re-run in its entirety. The pro-European coalition government has yet to approve a calendar for the election, although party leaders agreed to hold the two rounds on May 4 and May 18.
Iohannis, whose term expired on Dec. 21, will stay on until his successor is elected.