Palestinian-American wife of detained Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri calls for justice

Judge demands more details from US government concerning his arrest

Mapheze Saleh, wife of arrested Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, speaks at a news conference following her husband's hearing at Federal District Court in Virginia. AP

The wife of Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher detained because of his views on Gaza, is speaking out as the legal battle surrounding her husband intensifies.

Mr Suri, an Indian citizen studying in the US, was detained in March by Department of Homeland Security agents at his home in Virginia.

His wife, Mapheze Saleh, said he is a man of peace.

“The Trump administration says Badar is a threat to the foreign policy of the United States. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” said Ms Saleh, a Palestinian American.

“He is a scholar who loves books and teaching … I miss Badar. Our three children are missing their father. All we want, all we are praying for, is justice and freedom.”

DHS claims Mr Suri “has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas”, and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that the scholar's activities “rendered him deportable”.

Ms Saleh's comments came in a statement from the ACLU of Virginia, one of several entities assisting with Mr Suri's litigation against the US government.

The evidence behind the DHS claims is unclear and, to an extent, shrouded in mystery.

A March statement to The National from Georgetown conveyed that the university was not aware of Mr Suri engaging in any illegal activity.

Days later, Georgetown Dean Joel Hellman issued a lengthier statement, saying he was deeply concerned about Mr Suri's detention.

“Like many in our community, Dr Suri has been exercising his constitutionally protected rights to express his views on the war in the Middle East. Georgetown has consistently protected such freedoms within the context of our long-standing Speech and Expression Policy,” he said.

Media reports following Mr Suri's detention indicated his legal team alluded in court to the “Palestinian heritage of his wife”, Ms Saleh, a US citizen who is listed as a member of Georgetown's class of 2026, as the possible motive for DHS detaining Mr Suri.

Ms Mapheze, a first-year student from Gaza, earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and information at the Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine, and a master’s degree in conflict analysis and peace-building from the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India, according to her biography on Georgetown's Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies website.

In February, however, the Israeli embassy in Washington posted on X that Ms Saleh was “the daughter of a Hamas senior adviser”.

The ACLU of Virginia, however, called those allegations fanciful.

“Both he and his wife Ms Mapheze Saleh, who is Palestinian American, were doxxed by the extremist blacklisting websites Canary Mission and CAMERA, which cited social media posts and Ms Saleh’s family ties to Gaza,” the ACLU said.

Courts have not acquiesced to Trump administration requests to deport Mr Suri, instead demanding more evidence from the DHS, State Department and officials about their motives behind his arrest.

In the months since Mr Suri's detention, he has been transferred to five different prisons and detention centres in three different states.

He is incarcerated in Texas, where US officials are seeking to get his case moved permanently, essentially taking Mr Suri's place of residence, Virginia, out of the litigation picture.

Mr Suri's lawyers have since countered those moves by demanding that he be released, and are pushing for his case to be heard in Virginia.

Based on legal filings disclosed in federal court in Virginia last week, Judge Patricia Giles seemed sceptical of the US government's request to move Mr Suri's entire case to Texas, and demanded that officials answer questions about his detainment and subsequent transfers out of Virginia.

As for his legal team's strategy, in April Mr Suri officially challenged the constitutionality of his arrest and detention, and recently submitted a video showing his initial apprehension by DHS agents.

A ruling from Judge Giles is expected soon.

Meanwhile, demonstrations in support of Mr Suri have been held on Georgetown's campus and outside the Virginia court.

“The Trump administration is targeting Mr Suri – like they have targeted Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi and many other students and scholars – for opposing and speaking out against Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” said Samah Sisay, a staff attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights. “But as we have seen over the past few months, their tactics will not work."

His case has attracted global media attention and his legal team has grown to accommodate the increasingly important trial.

As a result, Mr Suri is now represented by the ACLU of Virginia, Centre for Constitutional Rights, HMA law company, CUNY School of Law and the Immigrants and Non-Citizens Rights Clinic.