WASHINGTON — Alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia should receive another court hearing, a federal judge ruled Friday, after the US Department of Justice likely engaged in a “vindictive” human trafficking prosecution in an effort to deport the Salvadoran national.

Nashville US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw ordered an additional hearing after determining a motion from Abrego Garcia’s lawyers presented “evidence of vindictiveness” in the DOJ’s decision to bring the deportee back from El Salvador to the US to face trafficking charges in June.

A Maryland federal judge had ordered Abrego Garcia’s return to the US after he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador on April 4, but DOJ attorneys in subsequent court filings argued they had complied with portions of the ruling upheld by

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