A U.S. District Court judge had sharp words for the Obama administration and the Justice Department over its handling of a habeas corpus case that the judge said was “riddled with holes” and accused the government of “dragging [the case] out for no good reason” once it became clear that it “fell apart.”

During a hearing last week, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle gave the Obama administration until Friday to decide whether it will continue to challenge the imprisonment of Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, who was arrested in December 2002 in Afghanistan when he was believed to have been 12 years-old and tortured by interrogators at the facility. The Department of Defense claims Jawad was as old as 17 when he was arrested, but other accounts have said he was younger.

Jawad was arrested for allegedly throwing a grenade at an unmarked jeep that wounded two U.S. soldiers. He was then taken to an Afghan police station where he was coerced into signing a confession written in Farsi, a language Jawad could not speak, much less read or write. In fact, Jawad was functionally illiterate even in his native language of Pashto.

Once transferred to U.S. custody, Jawad was rendered to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated at least 11 times.

“Typically, beatings by guards preceded interrogation sessions,” according to court papers filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Jawad in his habeas challenge against the Obama administration. “Interrogators often placed Mr. Jawad in a position along the wall where he was sitting without a chair and with his arms outstretched.”

Judge Huvelle noted that there “are 11 statements attributed to Afghanistan officials and to the Americans,” but “the Americans did not see anything and there may or may not be an Afghani who saw something. You can’t prevail here without a witness who saw it. I mean, let’s be frank. You can tell your superiors that. You can’t. There is no evidence otherwise.”

Judge Huvelle said if the Obama administration can’t produce any witnesses to testify as to why Jawad should continue to be detained or confirm that he threw the grenade she would likely rule that he be returned to Afghanistan.

“This is a case unlike every other case,” Judge Huvelle said, according to a transcript of the proceedings just released. “You have an eyewitness account. You can’t rely on the petitioner. So, either there is a witness who is going to put this guy there subject to real cross examination like a real case instead of all of this intelligence and attributing it to people who are either cooperators, unknown, unidentified.

“The real people can show up. You can bring them to me in whatever form. If you have to go to Afghanistan to take a deposition, fine.  But seven years and this case is riddled with holes. And you know it. I don’t mean you. The United States Government knows it is lousy. If you can’t rely on the guy’s statements, you have lousy case.”

Last week, the Justice Department said in a federal court filing that it would not rely upon evidence or testimony obtained through torture in Jawad’s case. The filing was made in response to a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union who accused the Obama administration of relying on statements obtained through torture to support Jawad’s indefinite detention. The ACLU is defending Jawad.

In a 37-page legal brief dated July 1, portions of which are redacted, the ACLU asked a U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the case to suppress all statements obtained against their client through torture.

Last Wednesday, the DOJ said it would not challenge the ACLU’s motion, but it needs until Aug. 3 “to determine how [the Obama administration] will proceed in connection with this habeas action.

Judge Huvelle declined that request and set July 24 as the deadline for the Obama administration to say whether it will fight to keep Jawad detained.

“I’m not putting it off,” Judge Huvelle said. “[Jawad] has been there seven years — seven years. He might have been taken there at the age of maybe 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. I don’t know what he is doing there. Without his statements, I don’t understand your case. I really don’t. You cannot expect an eyewitness time of account to rely on the kind of hearsay you have here.

“You’d better go consult real quick with the powers that be, because this is a case that’s been screaming at everybody for years.

“This case is an outrage to me. I’m sorry. This is an outrage. I’m not going to sit up here and wait for you to come up with new evidence at this late hour. There is only one question here, did the guy throw a grenade or didn’t he throw a grenade. That’s the issue. Right? If he didn’t do that, you can’t win. If you can’t prove that, you can’t win. I’m not going to have people running around trying to figure out a way to get this case out of the Court’s jurisdiction for some other reason. You have to come to grips with your cases.”

In response, Justice Department attorney Daniel Barish tried to explain to Judge Huvelle that Jawad’s habeas challenge was a special case because of the “immense burdens involved.”

“Your Honor, this is a war time habeas proceeding,” Barish said. “So it is not a normal situation where you call live witnesses…there are immense burdens involved. These are intelligence reports we rely on. We don’t want to argue the merits here. But I think you under estimate, with all due respect, the burdens involved in having to call witnesses, remove people off the battlefield and from Afghanistan.”

“There is nobody on the battlefield,” Judge Huvelle retorted. “The only people that you can dredge up here are Afghanistan people. There is nobody else. I’m not aware of you having an American that could conceivably offer real testimony. Maybe I’m missing something.”

“I’m telling you to discuss this case quickly among your superiors. There is a problem with this case. You’ve known about it for years. You’ve known about it since — when was the military commission?  If that didn’t wake anybody up there…the case is in shambles.”

Judge Huvelle had been referring to last October’s military commission proceedings, where statements Jawad made to Afghan and U.S. officials following his arrest for allegedly throwing the grenade at U.S. soldiers were suppressed because they were obtained through torture and were made after Afghan authorities threatened to kill his family. However, prior to last week’s filing by the Justice Department, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, continued to rely on those same statements in arguing that Jawad should be held indefinitely.

Last year, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, the former lead prosecutor in Jawad’s military commission case, resigned because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with the case based on testimony obtained through torture and the lack of any eyewitness account. Vandeveld signed a declaration in support of the ACLU’s position.

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project who is one of the lawyers representing Jawad, said his client should be released because there is now no credible evidence that can be used against his client to justify his indefinite imprisonment.

“We commend the government for halting its reliance on evidence obtained through torture and other abuse in Mr. Jawad’s habeas case,” Hafetz said. “Now it is time to send Jawad home to Afghanistan because there is no credible evidence against him. Nearly seven years of unlawful detention is long enough.”

In his July 1 legal brief, Hafetz said, “U.S. personnel at Bagram [Air base in Afghanistan, where Jawad was detained after his arrest] subjected Mr. Jawad to beatings, forced him into painful ’stress positions,’ deprived him of sleep, forcibly hooded him, placed him in physical and linguistic isolation, pushed him down stairs, chained him to a wall for prolonged periods, and subjected him to threats, including threats to kill him, [his family], and other intimidation,” the ACLU’s legal brief states.

“While in an isolation cell, Mr. Jawad remained hooded and restrained with handcuffs. Guards made him stand up and, if Mr. Jawad sat down, he was beaten. Guards also kicked Mr. Jawad and made him fall over, as he was wearing leg shackles and was unable to take large steps. Sometimes guards fastened Mr. Jawad’s handcuffs to the door of his isolation cell so that he was unable to sit down. At one point Mr. Jawad became so sick from his treatment in the isolation cell at Bagram that he was taken to the hospital and was treated for pain in his chest and problems with urination.

The U.S. later transported Jawad to Guantanamo; where he was subjected to the notorious “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program as well as the Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) interrogation methods recently exposed in a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report. Eventually, Jawad tried to commit suicide in his cell by slamming his head repeatedly against the wall. The Afghan government recently sent a letter to the U.S. government demanding Jawad’s return and suggesting he was as young as 12 when he was captured nearly seven years ago.