U.S. Says It Will Release American Held in Iraq
By TIM GOLDEN
NYT: 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.
Mr. Kar's relatives said they understood why he might have been questioned or even detained. But they could not fathom why Mr. Kar - a veteran of the United States Navy and the Naval reserves who supported the war in Iraq - was held almost incommunicado by the military and continued to be held for weeks after an F.B.I. agent had told the family that he had been cleared.
The Whole Story?

R

PS - On the other hand how many dozen washing-machine timers do you expect us to believe you needed?

[ July 09, 2005, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: ITJock ]