By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Kilmar Abrego, the accused gang member whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, on Tuesday said criminal charges against him should be dismissed because he had been “vindictively and selectively” prosecuted.
In a 35-page motion, Abrego’s lawyers asked a judge in Tennessee to dismiss federal charges accusing him of unlawfully transporting migrants living illegally in the United States.
Federal law allows for the dismissal of criminal charges if a judge determines they were brought to punish someone for exercising their due process rights. Such requests rarely succeed.
“Even as government officials recognized both publicly and privately that Mr. Abrego’s removal to El Salvador had been a serious mistake, the government responded not with contrition, or with any effort to fix its mistake, but with defiance,” the motion stated.
“A group of the most senior officials in the United States sought vengeance; they began a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation that led to the charges in this case.”
Justice Department representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abrego, a native of El Salvador who had been living in Maryland, was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador in March despite a 2019 judicial ruling that he could not be sent there because of a risk of gang persecution.
Abrego then challenged that deportation in a civil lawsuit before a federal judge in Maryland. The U.S. Supreme Court in April upheld an order from the Maryland judge that the Trump administration facilitate Abrego’s return.
In June, U.S. officials brought Abrego back to the U.S. after securing an indictment accusing him of transporting migrants in the U.S. illegally as part of a smuggling ring. Abrego has pleaded not guilty and has disputed that he was a gang member.
Abrego is currently being detained in a Tennessee jail. He won a ruling last month that he could be freed from custody while awaiting trial, but his lawyers asked the judge to delay his release because of concerns that the Trump administration might deport him to a third country.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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