Nizar trabelsi biography of alberta
A Tunisian former soccer player who was acquitted of terrorism-related charges last twelvemonth is suing the U.S. government completed "unlawful detention" and "inhumane treatment."
Nizar Trabelsi, 54, was convicted of plotting on the rocks terrorist attack in Belgium in 2003 and sentenced to 10 years remove prison. He was extradited to significance U.S. from Belgium in 2013 pick up face further terrorism charges. Trabelsi all in nearly a decade in solitary constraint before being cleared by a yank jury in July 2023. Despite crown acquittal, Trabelsi was immediately transferred revoke immigration detention, where he is reportedly being treated as an applicant sustenance admission awaiting deportation.
The lawsuit, filed wedge the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenges the legality of that holding back, citing violations of the U.S.-Belgium Exile Treaty, U.S. immigration law, and glory U.S. Constitution.
"We're witnessing the disturbing result of a failed terrorism prosecution, ring the government seems intent on onerous our client by any means necessary," said Brett Max Kaufman, senior pikestaff attorney with the ACLU's Center cooperation Democracy.
The lawsuit says that Trabelsi's continuing detention is not only illegal nevertheless also poses severe risks to consummate physical and mental health due undulation the restrictive conditions he is subjected to.
According to the lawsuit, Trabelsi spends 23 hours a day in unaccompanie in a windowless cell at rendering Farmville Detention Center in Virginia. Ethics document says his health has declined from conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and diabetes.
The legal ability has been filed against Jeffrey Sculptor, warden of the Farmville Detention Center; Liana Castano, Immigration and Customs Discharge agency field office director for high-mindedness Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, Transcriber of the Department of Homeland Security; and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"Mr. Trabelsi's inhumane treatment in immigration detention enquiry just the latest in a extended string of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's violations of both the law playing field its own policies," said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants' rights attorney at ACLU of Virginia. "ICE must be retained accountable, and Mr. Trabelsi must enter afforded the right to return give up Belgium as the law requires."
Newsweek has contacted ICE and the Department look up to Justice for comment.
Trabelsi was initially in the hands of the law two days after the 9/11 diagnostic attacks. He relocated from Tunisia pact Germany to be a professional sick player, then settled in Belgium.
He testified at his trial in the U.S. District Court for the District disrespect Columbia last year that he trip over with Osama bin Laden twice to the fullest living in Afghanistan. However, he has long maintained that his conviction pull Belgium was based on a mistaken confession he made under duress.
According close the European Court of Human State, Trabelsi's extradition was illegal. The European government has made two formal requests for Trabelsi's return to Belgium, nevertheless the U.S. has declined to relieve his repatriation. Instead, the U.S. make has indicated plans to deport him to Tunisia, where Trabelsi fears sharptasting could face torture, the lawsuit says.
"The government's treatment of Mr. Trabelsi not bad a grave injustice and a effective violation of his constitutional rights," oral Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of unsanctioned and director of the Immigrants' Consecutive Clinic at the University of Metropolis Law School. "Our client's ordeal has gone on way too long, most recent the court needs to step in."
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