Mahmoud Khalil: US student detained by immigration officials over pro-Palestinian protests released
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been released after 104 days in immigration detention in the US.
A judge ruled the Columbia University graduate student should be released on Friday.
He has become a symbol of Donald Trump’s crackdown on protests on university campuses after being arrested by the US immigration agency ICE on 8 March.
“Whether you are a US citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn’t mean that you are less of a human,” he said after being released from detention in Louisiana.
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil after leaving detention in Louisiana. Pic: Reuters
Mr Khalil is a legal US resident and isn’t accused of breaking any laws during pro-Palestine protests, where he served as a spokesperson for student activists.
He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his wife, who is a US citizen, and his baby son, who was born while Mr Khalil was in detention.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We don’t want troublemakers here’
“Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue,” he said. “This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in the protests.
However, Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
During an hour-long hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Could social media deny students entry to US?
The government is appealing Mr Khalil’s release, and an immigration judge, Judge Jamee Comans, has ordered the student to be “removed”.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr Khalil should be released or detained,” wrote the Department of Homeland Security in a post on X.
Read more from Sky News:
US warplanes transit through UK amid Iran tensions
Putin says ‘Ukraine is ours’ and threatens nuclear strike
The US secretary of state Marco Rubio is pushing for Mr Khalil to be expelled from America because he says his continued presence could harm foreign policy.
The Trump administration argues that noncitizens who take part in pro-Palestinian protests should be deported, as it considers the protests to be antisemitic.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Friend reacts after student detained by ICE
Civil rights groups, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which is suing the administration, argue this conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence dissent.
Judge Farbiarz ruled the government can’t deport Mr Khalil on the basis that his presence could undermine foreign policy, but it can continue deportation over allegations that he lied on his green card application.
Mr Khalil disputes these allegations.
He had to surrender his passport but will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
Judge Farbiarz’s decision comes after several other students targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
Read more:
Trump announces 30% tariff on EU imports
Trump threatens to revoke US comedian’s citizenship
Two women killed after shooting at US church
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
UK aims to build relationship with Syria
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more from Sky News:
UK restores diplomatic ties with Syria
Church in Syria targeted by suicide bomber
Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike