Abdullah Khan

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Abdullah Khan is an Afghani held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Khan's Guantanamo ISN is 556. The Department of Defense estimates he was born in 1956.

Khan first language was Uzbek.^[2] The Taliban were almost all Pashtun speakers.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Administrative Review Board hearing
- 2.1 Factors for and against continued detention
3 Classification
4 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Khan chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. For unexplained reasons the Guantanamo intelligence analysts who managed his case file separated the five pages that recorded the allegations and Khan's response to them from the rest of his testimony. ^[3]^[4]

[edit] Allegations

The allegations Khan faced were:^[3]

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban:

The detainee was a Taliban cook for about two and one half months.
The detainee fought for two years in the jihad against the Soviets.
The detainee was in charge of ammunition distribution during the Russian jihad.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition:

The detainee is alleged to have been a Taliban airfield commander.
The detainee may have information regarding attacks against the United States and coalition forces [sic].
The detainee is suspected of moving weapons.
The detainee discussed plans to conduct attacks against the United States and/or Coalition Forces [sic].
United States Forces arrested the detainee with two other detainees in Kandahar Province.

[edit] Response

In response to the allegatios:^[3]

Khan denied being a member of the Taliban, or having any sympathy for their ideas.
Khan acknowledged serving as a cook for the Taliban. He offered the following account of how he came to be a cook:

I came from the province of Oruzgan, Kandahar [sic] for labor type work. There were fifty people harvesting the grapes. They came and surrounded us and the handcuffed us, like the draft, and took us with them. I had no choice and I had no power because that was their government. Just like how the Americans brought me, it was exactly the same thing they did to me. When they took us to their center, they asked me to take a weapon and fight for them. I told them I was scared, I cannot fight and I don't have the ability to fight. They said that I had to do something for them. They would not leave me alone like that. I said okay I could be a cook for them. I was very scared and I thought that if I didn't accept the job they would kill me.

Khan acknowledged fighting the Soviet invaders. He couldn't remember whether he fought the Soviets for two years or two months. Khan acknowledged that he had been responsible for distributing bullets to other anti-Soviet fighters.

Khan said the anti-Soviet commander he fought under was Neymatullah.

Khan offered a long account of his capture and hand-over to American forces. Khan had worked in the area where he was captured prior to the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. A year after the Karzai administration took over the administration of Afghanistan Khan returned to that area, for the first time since the Taliban took power, to sell produce at a large open-air market. At the market he met Haji Shahzada, a well off landowner he had worked for in his youth, who invited him to spend the night at his house. Khan also described meeting two men he described as the murderers of two of his family members, who he felt were trying to intimidate him. Khan believed that these men played a role in the false denunciations that lead to his capture.
Khan denied having any information regarding attacks on the United States.
Khan responded to the allegation that he was suspected of moving weapons:

When and where? Once they told me it was the time of the Russians. I don't know when and where. Where did this come from.
Khan denied discussing plans to attack the United States. He had spent the evening prior to his capture having dinner and playing cards with his host Shahzada and some friends of his.

[edit] Testimony

The caption to this poster, distributed by the CIA in Afghanistan, reads: “You can receive millions of dollars for helping the Anti-Taliban Force catch Al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. This enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

Khan explained that he was not Khirullah Khairkhwa, the Governor of Herat. The bounty hunters who sold him to the US said he was Khairkhwa, in order to get a higher price for him.
Khan explained that he was a shop-keeper. He said he had a limited association with Haji Shahzada, a prominent landowner. Shahzada was also held in Guantanamo, but in another compound. Khan had done a day of grape picking for Shahzada, years prior to 9-11. More recently he had sold Shahzada a dog.
Khan was arrested while staying at Shahzada'a house in Kandahar, while on a trip ot buy supplies for his shop. He said that this kind of hospitality, among acquaintances, who were from the same area, was not unusual in Afghan culture.
One of the allegations against Khan was that he was an airfield commander and pilot. Khan replied that he was illiterate, and didn't even know what a pilot was.
Shahzada submitted a written statement, which Khan's Personal Representative said confirmed Khan's account. When the Department of Defense partially complied with Judge Jed Rakoff's court order they did not include Shahzada's statement. His Personal Representative said he filed a polygraph]] report that he said confirmed Khan's account.

[edit] Administrative Review Board hearing

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

Khan chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[2]

[edit] Factors for and against continued detention

The detainee fought for the Northern Alliance against the Russians.
In 2001, the detainee was arrested in Peshawar during a raid by local police and released when authorities determine he was not an Arab.
The detainee was arrested along with two Arabs, Musa, a 25-28 year old Syrian, and Abdul Rashad, a 25-30 year old Saudi, during a raid of Musa’s house.
When the detainee was captured, his hands tested positive for explosive residue. Authorities were looking for an explosives expert named Abdul Latif Al Turki.
The detainee told Pakistani authorities his name was Abdullah Mohammed Khan, but he was identified as Abdul Latif Al Turki, the name printed on his Turkish passport.
The detainee became good friends with Musa and would sometimes stay with Musa and his family at their house in Peshawar.
Musa (aka Abd Al-Hamid Al-Suri) is an al Qaida suspect.
Musa (aka Abd Al-Hamid Al-Suri) is also known as Baha’Bin Mustafa Muhammad Jaghal, Musa Muhamat Julaq Augol, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Sharif and Musa Uglo.
An al Qaida detainee identified the detainee in a still photograph as Abdul Latif Al-Turki.
A Lybian Islamic Fighting Group member identified the detainee in photo as Abdul Latif Al-Turki. The member said he saw the detainee several times at the Al-Ansar guesthouse in Pakistan.
An Iraqi detainee identified the detainee in a photo and reported he had seen the detainee at the Khana Gulam Bacha guesthouse on the Taliban front lines in Kabul, Afghanistan during late 1999-2000.
The detainee interrupts and monopolizes the interpreter constantly to disrupt interrogations
The detainee manipulates interrogations by using linguistic differences as his excuse.
When the detainee was arrest in January 2002, police confiscated his counterfeit passport, as well as numerous additional forged passports from the house that was raided.
When the detainee was arrested in January 2002, a compact disk (CD) containing 19 English-language manuals covering manufacture of improvised explosives, poisons, timers, firing devices and other bomb initiating/delivery systems were discovered on the hard drive of a computer during the raid of the safehouse where [sic] detainee was arrested.
When the detainee was arrested in January 2002, a Kuwaiti telephone number was found, registered to a Pakistani national who transferred money from Kuwait to Pakistan for large numbers of Pakistanis. He had dealings with villagers of Peshawar.
Detainee argues that he is innocent of all the charges brought before him other than he was associated with Musa (an al Qaida suspect) upon his capture.
The detainee stated he never owned a valid passport. His previous travels between Afghanistan and Pakistan only required a small bribe to the border guards to allow him to cross the borders.

[edit] Classification

When the Department of Defense released the official list of all Guantanamo detainees the Washington Post put up a list of the names of 31 of the 38 detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined that they had not been enemy combatants after all. Shahzada, Khan's host when he was captured, was determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all.