Ex-Guantanamo Inmate Accused of Assaulting Uruguayan Wife

A former Guantanamo inmate resettled in Uruguay has been issued a restraining order for allegedly assaulting his wife, a local woman who converted to Islam to marry him, media reported Sunday.

Syrian national Abdelhadi Faraj, who spent 12 years at the U.S. military prison before being sent to Uruguay in 2014, is under investigation for physically abusing his wife of seven months, who accuses him of treating her like a Guantanamo inmate, according to newspaper La Republica.

The couple testified Sunday before a special domestic violence court, where the judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to jail Faraj but ordered further investigations, said reports.

Authorities issued Faraj with a four-month restraining order pending further investigations.

The woman, Fatima Posadas, said Faraj had kept her "locked up" after they married in June.

"I lived through the worst nightmare. I experienced the 'One Thousand and One Nights' with this person. Ugly things. I was the Guantanamo prisoner and he was the free man," she told La Republica.

Faraj, 39, was one of six Guantanamo inmates resettled in Uruguay in December 2014, part of U.S. President Barack Obama's push to close the prison set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The men -- four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian -- were never charged or tried, and had been cleared for release but could not be sent to their home countries because of unrest there.

Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica agreed to take them as refugees -- a status Faraj could reportedly lose if convicted.

"If he goes on trial and is convicted, we would have to analyze whether he keeps his refugee status. At this time he hasn't lost it," Christian Mirza, a Uruguayan government liaison with the former prisoners, told La Republica.

The former inmates have had a rocky transition to Uruguay, whose government they accused of breaking its promises to them.

In May they camped outside the U.S. embassy in Montevideo for three weeks in protest.

Mediators from the United Nations refugee agency finally brokered a deal in which the men agreed to end the protest in return for increased living allowances.

Faraj is known for publishing an open letter in newspaper El Pais when he arrived in Uruguay.

He said he was already a fan of Uruguay's beloved football team and thanked the country for taking him in.

"If it hadn't been for Uruguay I would still be in that black hole," he wrote, via his lawyers.