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Associated Press - April 7, 2010 7:35 PM ET
SEATTLE (AP) - Lawyers for a Sudanese aid worker say his case against U.S. government officials over his treatment while detained in Guantanamo Bay is the first such suit filed outside Washington, D.C.
Federal courts in the nation's capital have dismissed similar cases, saying they're barred by the Military Commissions Act.
But, lawyers for Adel Hassan Hamad, who owns property in Washington state, say they hope filing at a U.S. District Court in Seattle will help keep the case alive. Ninth U.S. Circuit judges are historically less hostile to claims brought by foreigners than the D.C. Circuit.
Hamad claims he was arrested and tortured in Pakistan before being shipped to Guantanamo, where he spent five years. Before he was released in 2007, his lawyers learned he had been cleared to return home two years earlier.