“A suspected al Qaeda organizer [Mohamedou Ould Slahi] once called ‘the highest value detainee’ held at Guantanamo Bay was ordered released by a federal judge Monday [March 22, 2010]. …Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Mr. Slahi’s petition for habeas corpus, effectively finding that the government lacked legal grounds to hold him. …Plans to try him by military commission were derailed after prosecutors learned Mr. Slahi had been subjected to a ‘special interrogation plan’ involving weeks of physical and mental torment, including a death threat and a threat to bring Mr. Slahi’s mother to Guantanamo Bay where she could be gang-raped, officials said. Although the treatment apparently induced Mr. Slahi’s compliance, the military prosecutor, Marine Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, determined that it constituted torture and that evidence it produced couldn’t lawfully be used against Mr. Slahi.”
– Jess Bravin, “Key Gitmo Detainee Ordered Released,” The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2010