The Taliban’s former ambassador to Spain remains detained by U.S. immigration officials at Dulles International Airport after a federal judge declined his petition for immediate release on Monday.
The Afghan diplomat, Mohammad Rahim Wahidi, is a lawful permanent U.S. resident living in Sterling, Virginia with his wife, Mary Shakeri-Wahidi, a U.S. citizen, according to a court filing by his lawyer, who expressed fears his client was caught up in a Trump administration crackdown on immigrants deemed to be at odds with U.S. foreign policy. He was detained at Dulles on Saturday after arriving on a flight from Turkey.
However, Wahidi’s case appears distinct from some of the other cases in which lawful residents and visa holders have been targeted for deportation over their political advocacy.
A petition filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria links Wahidi’s detention to criminal charges his brother-in-law, Farhad Shakeri, faces in a New York federal court accusing him of involvement in a plot to assassinate a U.S.-based journalist critical of Iran’s government. Two men connected to the Russian mob were convicted on March 20 of a second Iran-backed attempt to assassinate that journalist, Masih Alinejad.
Wahidi’s petition says that after his arrival at Dulles “he has been interrogated by an unclear number of officers believed to be from the FBI regarding his brother in law.” The petition indicates he was accompanied by his wife, who was eventually released from detention.
Further complicating the tale: Spain reportedly stripped Wahidi of his diplomatic immunity earlier this month following allegations of sexual assault. No criminal charges have been filed against Wahidi.
After Wahidi’s lawyer filed the petition Sunday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema immediately blocked authorities from moving Wahidi out of the judicial district, and she ordered Wahidi brought to court in Alexandria Monday morning for a hearing.
Following that hearing, Brinkema declined to order Wahidi’s release, but left in place the order prohibiting his transfer and reminded officials of their obligations to abide by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s detention standards.
“At this point the Court cannot offer any relief,” Brinkema, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote in the order.
Wahidi’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brinkema’s brush with Trump administration immigration emergencies doesn’t end there. The judge also last week ordered the release of a Venezuelan couple targeted for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after what she described as a woefully inadequate case that they had gang ties.
Wahidi’s lawyer, Ahmad, is also representing Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher who is fighting the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him over alleged links to Hamas. Suri denies any involvement with Hamas and suggests the government’s allegation stems from his U.S. citizen wife’s father, a former adviser to the Hamas-led government in Gaza.
Ahmad indicated that both Wahidi and his wife were questioned to an “unclear” extent.
“Eventually, Ms. Shakeri-Wahidi was released at approximately 12:15 A.M. (after being held for nearly 12 hours) and allowed to go home,” Ahmad wrote. “However, Mr. Wahidi remained detained and locked in a room with a thin mattress overnight.”
Ahmad said he traveled to Dulles Sunday night to try to visit with Wahidi but was denied permission by an agent who cited “border search authority” and “standard operating procedures.”
“The serious nature of the allegations against Mr. Wahidi’s brother in law, the extensive detention … and lack of freedom to leave unquestionably renders the interrogation ‘custodial,’” Ahmad argued.
The court filing does not directly respond to the sexual assault allegations against Wahidi, although it attributes them to an activist in Spain who has campaigned for the closure of the Afghan embassy there. The embassy also reportedly issued a statement calling the claims baseless.
“No criminal charges were ever filed by the Spanish authorities, and Mr. Wahidi, though stripped of his title, was allowed to leave the country,” the U.S. court filing says.