The consequences of that unlawful decision have been devastating.
A.M.A.S. has shown breathtaking courage throughout what followed. After being sent to Equatorial Guinea, he spoke publicly about the conditions he and many others were experiencing—confinement, beatings, threats at gunpoint, and the fear and uncertainty of being stranded indefinitely under one of the world’s most repressive authoritarian regimes. Those dangers were hardly unforeseeable: Equatorial Guinea has a long-documented history of arbitrary detention, torture, and violence by security forces. Even when speaking out jeopardized his personal safety, A.M.A.S. persisted. He said that he was not speaking only for himself; he believed Americans needed to know what was happening to the people transferred as he was, in the name of the U.S. government.
In early September, A.M.A.S. was violently arrested and subjected to treatment that eyewitnesses described as torture. He has now been held incommunicado for weeks and denied access to legal counsel. His family is here in the United States, and Arizona is his home. They have been left waiting, without any assurance that he is safe—or even still alive.
The Court has now ordered the United States government to take affirmative steps to facilitate A.M.A.S.’s release and return to the United States, and to report regularly to the Court on those efforts. That is a critical step toward remedying the consequences of the government’s unlawful decision to send him there.
But an order is not the same thing as a homecoming.
The United States retains its appellate rights and may seek a stay. It should be clear what that would mean in human terms: A.M.A.S. would remain imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea, beyond the reach of his family and counsel, after a federal court has held that the United States violated his constitutional rights by sending him there in the first place.
The government now has an opportunity—and, under the Court’s order, an obligation—to take meaningful steps to secure his release and bring him safely home.
His legal team is prepared to continue this fight for as long as necessary. A.M.A.S. had the courage to speak out when doing so placed him at extraordinary personal risk. He spoke because he wanted Americans to know what was being done in their government’s name. The job now is to make sure that courage is answered with action, and to hold the government accountable until he is safely home.
Green Evans-Schroeder, PLLC
About the legal team: A.M.A.S. is represented by attorneys Jesse Evans-Schroeder, Dana Camilleri, Kate O’Donnell, and Ami Hutchinson. The firm is grateful to the entire team whose work has contributed to this litigation.
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