U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia became the trial-level forum for Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s challenge to his detention at Guantánamo. Its March 2010 order granting his habeas corpus petition and directing his release was a major judicial finding in his case, but an appeal sent the matter back for rehearing, and Slahi remained detained.

Habeas Proceedings

From August through December 2009, Judge James Robertson heard Slahi’s habeas corpus petition. The dispute concerned whether the government could continue to detain him as someone who was part of al-Qaeda. The government’s position, as later described by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, rested on his oath of allegiance, associations with members, and assistance to the organization—not on a claim that he had fought against the United States or its allies. In the district-court habeas cases of the period, the central question was whether the government could establish that a petitioner was an active member of al-Qaeda when detained.

Release Order and Appeal

On March 22, 2010, Judge Robertson granted Slahi’s petition and ordered his release. The ruling came after the court had heard the case in 2009; it was not, however, the end of the proceedings. Four days after the order, the administration filed a notice of appeal. On November 5, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sent the case back to the district court for rehearing. The record describes the case as still pending after the remand.

Role and Limits

The district court’s ruling offered Slahi a route to challenge the legal basis for his confinement, but the appellate remand interrupted the effect of that relief. By the time the manuscript was cleared for public release in 2012, the judge’s release order was two years old and the case had returned to the district court, while Slahi remained in Guantánamo. The court’s significance in this account therefore lies both in the relief it ordered and in the unresolved process that followed: a favorable judgment had not brought his detention to an end.