September 2004, his "enemy combatant" status was confirmed by Tribunal panel 6. 2005 on: release and post-release On 11 January 2005, the day before his charges were scheduled to be laid by the military commission, Dana Priest at The Washington Post published a front-page article of Habib's account of his experiences, including his extraordinary rendition to Egypt and torture there and at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Later that day, the United States government announced that it would not be charging Habib, and would release him to Australia. The Australian Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock announced that Habib would be repatriated within days. The Australian government chartered a special plane (for approximately $500,000) to fly Habib home because the US would not allow him to travel on a regular commercial flight. US officials insisted he be shackled during the flight. Habib returned to Australia on 28 January 2005. Return to Australia After his return, in January 2005, Habib filed suit against the Australian government for its cooperation with the United States, alleging that he was beaten and humiliated in Pakistan after his arrest. He also alleged that an Australian official was present at some of these interrogations, but the Australian Government denied this. Habib claims to have been suspended to a ceiling by his arms, standing atop a barrel drum, and that when he gave an answer his Pakistani interrogators didn't believe, they would jolt him with electricity until he fainted. Habib also alleged that at Guantanamo, he suffered both mental and physical abuse: for instance, interrogators told him that his family had been killed, and he was tied to the ground while a prostitute threw menstrual blood on him. (Note: It is now known that in August 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice, issued three documents of legal opinion to the CIA, which have come to be called the Torture Memos, narrowly defining torture and authorizing certain enhanced interrogation techniques, and another in March 2003 to DOD. Such techniques, commonly classified as torture, were adopted by the CIA and DOD.) At the time, the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, publicly challenged Habib's claims, saying "no evidence has been found to prove that torture has been used at the camp." Since that time, there have been numerous allegations and documentation of torture by former detainees at Guantanamo. In addition, in the spring of 2004, the Abu Ghraib prisoner