A judge has paused a defamation suit filed by Roy Moore against women who accused him during his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid of past misconduct.
Circuit Judge Albert Johnson ruled last month case will be held on the administrative docket until a related defamation case against Moore by one of the women is resolved.
During Alabama's 2017 special Senate race, several women accused Moore of having pursued relationships with them decades ago when they were teens and he was in his 30s. Leigh Corfman said Moore sexually touched her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old prosecutor.
Moore denied the allegations.
Moore said Friday he went to court to clear his name and the court's decision is "very unfair."
"Nothing that's happened to me has been fair in court. Nothing," Moore said.
Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore last year. Four months later, Moore later countersued her and other accusers.
Johnson says Corfman's case will proceed first.
Moore is a former Alabama chief justice who has a strong following among some evangelical voters. He was twice removed from the bench for defying, or urging defiance, of court orders regarding same-sex marriage and the public display of the Ten Commandments in a state court building.
Support from evangelical voters helped Moore secure the GOP nomination to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate, but Moore lost the 2017 Senate race to U.S. Sen. Doug Jones amid the accusations against the ex-justice.
Moore is running for the Senate again. He is part of a crowded Republican primary field competing for the GOP nomination and the right to challenge Jones in 2020.
BEIRUT (AP) — The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.
The repatriation was the largest Washington has carried out from the camps to date, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Five of the 11 citizens brought back were children, and one non-U.S. citizen child -- the 9-year-old sibling of one of the other children -- was also brought with them.
As part of the same operation, the U.S. facilitated the repatriation of 11 other camp residents, eight of them children, to Canada, the Netherlands and Finland, the statement said.
Although the pace of repatriations has picked up -- neighboring Iraq recently returned hundreds of its citizens -- many countries remain reluctant to bring back citizens from the al Hol and al Roj camps, which now hold about 30,000 people from more than 60 countries, most of them children.
The camps are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
Human rights groups have regularly reported on what they describe as inhumane living conditions and abuses in the camps and in detention centers where suspected IS members are housed.
“The only durable solution to the humanitarian and security crisis” in the facilities “is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing,” Blinken said in the statement.
FILE - Kurdish forces patrol al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, on April 19, 2023. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)
FILE - Women shop in the marketplace at al-Hol camp, home to families of Islamic State fighters, in Hasakeh province, Syria, on March 31, 2019. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
