A federal judge is ordering the release of Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz indicated during a hearing Friday that he will issue an order requiring that Khalil be released today.
He denied a motion by the government to stay the ruling for seven days.
During the hearing, Farbiarz said the government made no attempt to prove that Khalil’s release would irreparably harm them in some way, and that Khalil represented a flight risk.
“What all that evidence adds up to is a lack of violence, a lack of property destruction, a lack of anything that might be characterized as incitement to violence,” the judge said of Khalil, who helped lead Columbia’s encampment protests against the war in Gaza over the spring.
An attorney for Khalil, Alina Das, reasserted Khalil’s belief that he is being punished for speech that should be protected by the First Amendment.
“The government’s latest actions confirm what we’ve alleged in this petition all along, that retaliatory detention is the government’s goal, that the purpose of every step that the government has taken in this case has been to ensure that Mr. Khalil remains locked away until he is deported as retaliation and punishment for his speech and viewpoint,” she said.
Read the full ABC News report.