Va. man back in U.S. after deportation questioned

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A northern Virginia man who says he fears torture at the hands of Israeli authorities is back in the U.S. after a judge’s order forced immigration authorities to reverse his deportation and bring him back from Israel before he ever got off the plane.

Abdelhaleem Ashqar recently served 11 years in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the Palestinian militant group Hamas. In 2005, he ran to succeed Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian National Authority, all while confined to his Alexandria home on house arrest as he awaited trial. He finished fourth in a field of seven.

According to court papers and interviews, U.S. authorities arrested Ashqar on Tuesday and quickly deported him on a chartered flight after misleading him about his need to report to an immigration office to process paperwork.

By Thursday, though, Ashqar, 60, was back in the U.S. He’s now at a detention facility in Bowling Green, Virginia, as his case awaits an expedited ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

The turnaround followed a latenight emergency hearing Tuesday in federal court in which the judge inquired about turning around the plane carrying Ashqar mid-flight.

Ultimately, though, the plane landed in Israel, where U.S. officials say they planned to make arrangements to turn him over to Palestinian authorities.

But deportations to Palestinian territory must be conducted through Israel, said Ashqar’s immigration lawyer, Patrick Taurel. So Israel could either intercept and interrogate Ashqar before handing him over to the Palestinians, or the Palestinians might simply hand Ashqar over to the Israelis, Taurel said.

Abdelhaleem Ashqar