Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil to be allowed private calls in detention

A US judge ordered on Wednesday that the detained Palestinian Columbia University graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested on Saturday night, would be allowed to have private phone calls with his lawyers.

Judge Jesse Furman’s ruling came at a court hearing in Manhattan federal court, where Khalil’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem said the Palestinian activist had been only allowed to make one call with his legal team during detention, which was cut off and recorded by the authorities.

Khalil and his lawyers are now allowed to make one call on Wednesday and Thursday without any government monitoring their conversations.

A federal judge temporarily blocked his deportation, and Khalil is currently awaiting proceedings in a federal jail in Louisiana.

On Monday, in a post on Donald Trump's Truth Social platform, the US president described Khalil as a "Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student" and announced that his arrest was "the first arrest of many to come".