Federal judge orders release of U.S. military detainee abuse photos

Abu Ghraib
(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled on Friday that the government must release photographs depicting abuse of detainees at sites in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press reports.

The Defense Department now has two months to consider an appeal before it must release the photos. The American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. government have been locked in a battle over whether or not to make the images public for more than a decade; the ACLU argues that the photographs' release is "manifestly important to an ongoing national debate about governmental accountability for the abuse of prisoners." The government has countered that releasing the images could incite attacks both in America and against U.S. troops abroad.

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Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.