Bilal Hussein To Be Released — Maybe… (UPDATED)

Finally, some good news out of Iraq:

An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released nearly two years after he was detained by the U.S. military.

Hussein, 36, remained in custody Wednesday at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention facility near Baghdad’s airport.

A decision by a four-judge panel said Hussein’s case falls under a new amnesty law. It ordered Iraqi courts to “cease legal proceedings” and ruled that Hussein should be “immediately” released unless other accusations are pending.

The U.S. military referred the case in December to an investigating judge, who reviewed the evidence and submitted his findings to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq to determine whether the case should go to trial.

In February, however, parliament approved a law providing amnesty to those held for insurgency-related offenses — including detainees such as Hussein who have never been convicted.

The committee from the Iraqi Federal Appeals Court ruled Monday that allegations against Hussein were covered by the Anti-Terrorist Law and were subject to the amnesty law.

I have previously discussed the Bush administration’s shameful attempts to engineer Hussein’s conviction, as has — in far more depth — Scott Horton. It will be interesting to see what the administration does now; as the article notes, Hussein is actually in U.S. military custody. As the AP article notes, it may not let him go without a fight:

U.S. military authorities have said a U.N. Security Council mandate allows them to retain custody of a detainee they believe is a security risk even if an Iraqi judicial body has ordered that prisoner freed. The U.N. mandate is due to expire at the end of this year.

Also, the amnesty committee’s ruling on Hussein may not cover a separate allegation that has been raised in connection with the case.

[snip]

In response to a question from the AP, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it “will be up to officials in Iraq” on whether to release Hussein. The decision, he said, will be “based upon their assessment as to whether he remains a threat.”

Under Iraq’s 2-month-old amnesty law, a grant of amnesty effectively closes a case and does not assume guilt of the accused.

Hussein has been held by the U.S. military since being detained by Marines on April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. Throughout his incarceration, he has maintained he is innocent and was only doing the work of a professional news photographer in a war zone.

The amnesty committee’s decision covers various allegations by the U.S. military against Hussein, including claims he was in possession of bomb-making material, conspired with insurgents to take photographs synchronized with an explosion and offered to secure a forged ID for a terrorist evading capture by the military.

The committee may still be reviewing a separate allegation that Hussein had contacts with the kidnappers of an Italian citizen, Salvatore Santoro, whose body was photographed by Hussein in December 2004 with two masked insurgents standing over Santoro with guns.

[snip]

The amnesty committee — or any Iraqi institution — cannot force the U.S. military to release or turn over any of the estimated 23,000 detainees it holds in Iraq. But a provision in the amnesty law states that the Iraqi government “is committed to take the necessary measures to move the arrested people” from U.S. control.

More later, as additional information becomes available…

UPDATE: Scott Horton provides some background on the separate allegation involving Santoro, which turns out — not surprisingly — to be as baseless as the other ones:

Other than the terrorism charges, the military had questioned the photographer’s presence on the scene following the abduction and killing of an Italian, Salvatore Santoro. I worked as Bilal Hussein’s counsel in 2006, and during this time I conducted a comprehensive review of the very vague allegations surrounding Santoro’s death, reviewing the documentary evidence with experts and interviewing the available witnesses. The AP photographer had been stopped with others at a check point and asked to take “trophy photos” of Santoro, who had been killed earlier in the day. A study of the photos and examination of other witnesses bore out the account, and military investigators also acknowledged off the record that there was no real basis for charges. But they continued to raise them nonetheless — apparently because they were under relentless pressure to come up with some charges.