7.12.2005
U.S. Says It Will Release American Held in Iraq (NYTimes.com)
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: July 10, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 9 - Military officials have agreed to free Cyrus Kar, an aspiring American filmmaker who has been imprisoned without charge for nearly two months at a United States military detention center in Iraq, lawyers and relatives of Mr. Kar said Saturday.
The news of the planned release came as government lawyers prepared for a hearing on Monday afternoon in federal district court in Washington, where they had been ordered to show cause for his continued detention.
Last week, after his lawyers sued the government for his release through a petition for habeas corpus, Defense Department officials said Mr. Kar, 44, had been detained on May 17 with his Iranian cameraman, Farshid Faraji, on suspicion of involvement with the Iraqi insurgency.
The two men, who relatives said were in Iraq working on a historical documentary, were arrested after a search of a taxi they had taken from a Baghdad hotel turned up dozens of washing-machine timers of a type sometimes used by Iraqi insurgents to make improvised explosive devices, the officials said.
Spokesmen for the Defense Department and the United States military forces in Iraq said Saturday that they could not confirm that Mr. Kar's and Mr. Faraji's release was imminent. But his relatives said a consular official at the United States Embassy in Baghdad had telephoned them Saturday to tell them that the two would be freed within two days, and his lawyers said the embassy official later told them the same thing.
(More ... U.S. Says It Will Release American Held in Iraq - New York Times) ¶ 19:54
Published: July 10, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 9 - Military officials have agreed to free Cyrus Kar, an aspiring American filmmaker who has been imprisoned without charge for nearly two months at a United States military detention center in Iraq, lawyers and relatives of Mr. Kar said Saturday.
The news of the planned release came as government lawyers prepared for a hearing on Monday afternoon in federal district court in Washington, where they had been ordered to show cause for his continued detention.
Last week, after his lawyers sued the government for his release through a petition for habeas corpus, Defense Department officials said Mr. Kar, 44, had been detained on May 17 with his Iranian cameraman, Farshid Faraji, on suspicion of involvement with the Iraqi insurgency.
The two men, who relatives said were in Iraq working on a historical documentary, were arrested after a search of a taxi they had taken from a Baghdad hotel turned up dozens of washing-machine timers of a type sometimes used by Iraqi insurgents to make improvised explosive devices, the officials said.
Spokesmen for the Defense Department and the United States military forces in Iraq said Saturday that they could not confirm that Mr. Kar's and Mr. Faraji's release was imminent. But his relatives said a consular official at the United States Embassy in Baghdad had telephoned them Saturday to tell them that the two would be freed within two days, and his lawyers said the embassy official later told them the same thing.
(More ... U.S. Says It Will Release American Held in Iraq - New York Times) ¶ 19:54
