US judge says government must release Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil
US judge says government must release Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil/node/2604216/world
US judge says government must release Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil
Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, in New York City, U.S., June 1, 2024. (REUTERS)
US judge says government must release Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil
US District Judge Michael Farbiarz had ruled earlier that expelling Khalil from the US on those grounds was likely unconstitutional
Updated 12 June 2025
AP
NEW YORK: A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot use US foreign policy interests to justify its detention of Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, but said his order would not take effect until Friday.
Khalil was arrested on March 8 after the State Department revoked his green card under a little-used provision of US immigration law granting the US secretary of state the power to seek the deportation of any noncitizen whose presence in the country is deemed adverse to US foreign policy interests.
He has since been held in immigration detention in Louisiana.
Khalil was the first known foreign student to be arrested as part of Trump’s bid to deport foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that swept US college campuses after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military assault.
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
Updated 2 sec ago
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday. The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters. “Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP. He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital. Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district. Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance. The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk. Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy. Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said. Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation. A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka. “The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington. India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems. The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week. “I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday. The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday. “A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
