WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- A man who his attorney says was the youngest prisoner sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention center -- captured in Pakistan at 14 -- was ordered freed by a federal judge Wednesday. A guard keeps watch from a tower at the military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The judge ruled Mohammad el-Gharani was not an enemy combatant and directed the military "to take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate the release" of el-Gharani from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. El-Gharani, now 21, was among the first terrorism suspects and enemy fighters sent to the U.S. military prison camp. His arrival in 2002 came after he was seized by Pakistanis at a mosque and transferred to the U.S.-led coalition. He has been in custody since.
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Mohammad el-Gharani, now 21, not an enemy combatant, U.S. judge rules
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El-Gharani was 14 when he was captured in Pakistan, detained at U.S. base in Cuba
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Judge notes questions raised about a detainee who implicated el-Gharani
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El-Gharani was accused of being al Qaeda courier, Tora Bora battle participant
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Leon said that given the "substantial and troubling uncertainties regarding petitioner's conduct and whereabouts prior to his detention by Pakistani forces, the [@placeholder] government has failed to establish a preponderance of the evidence" that el-Gharani was an al Qaeda agent.
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Under @placeholder and international policy, he could not be sent to a country where he might face torture or severe physical mistreatment.