A court in Rotterdam will decide on Monday whether Wesam al D., a Dutch citizen convicted to 25 years imprisonment by the US for conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq, would be released from prison.

 
“We ask for his immediate release,” said Al D.’s lawyer Victor Koppe, pointing out that his client has already served sufficient jail time based on Dutch rules.

Iraqi born Wesam al D. was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment by a Federal court in Washington DC in April last year, accused of planting roadside bombs in Iraq. The court also gave an 18-month sentence to the defendant for assaulting a jail guard in December 2007.

Wesam al D. was arrested in the Dutch city of Amersfoort, his place of residence, in 2005. Two years later he was extradited to the US, under an agreement that he would be tried in a civilian court and that he can return to the Netherlands to serve his sentence. He was returned to the Netherlands two months ago, and is now held in a Dutch prison.

Koppe said his client suffered inhumane treatment during his imprisonment in the US. “He was confronted with mental as well as physical torments.” These inhumane treatments include shards of glass in his food, locked up naked in a damp cell, and being forced to witness rape.

The court in Rotterdam on Monday afternoon will decide on Koppe’s demand of Al D.’s release, a spokeswoman for the court said. The same court will also decide how Al D.’s US sentence would be translated into Dutch law. “But this will most likely be decided in a subsequent hearing as some documentation is still missing,” the spokeswoman said.