Abdul Salam Zaeef

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Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef was the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan before the US invasion of Afghanistan. He was crippled during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He was detained in Pakistan somewhere in the winter or spring of 2001/2002 as an "unlawful combatant" in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps and was kept there as of June 2004.

Zaeef was a minister of transportation until he became the Taliban's envoy to Pakistan. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Zaeef was seen around the world when he held news conferences for the regime. While he condemned the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he said that Osama bin Laden was not responsible and he would not be given up. He also reportedly consulted with Taliban leader Mullah Omar on ways to avert war.

After the U.S. invasion, Zaeef ended his news conferences and moved to Pakistan, where authorities handed him over to the U.S. on January 2, 2002. He spent his time in detention on an American warship, bases in Afghanistan, and finally in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.^[1] The Pajhwok Afghan News has reported that Zaeef has been freed from Guantanamo Bay.^[2]

An article in the September 18, 2005 Daily Times Zaeef is quoted as saying that his release was "due to the effort of some friends".^[3] He did not attribute his release to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal or his 2005 Administrative Review Tribunal. He described the actions of these two bodies as illegal.

Zaeef released a book "A Picture of Guantanamo" detailing his claims of mistreatment at Guantanamo.

[edit] Letter for Wali Mohammed

Zaeef wrote a letter on behalf of Wali Mohammed, an Afghani businessman whose case he considered when he sat on the Economic Council of Afghanistan.^[4] Zaeef didn't meet Mohammed until they were both sent to Afghanistan.