Emad Abdalla Hassan

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Emad Abdalla Hassan (born June 26, 1979) is a Yemeni citizen, who was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and transported to extrajudicial detention in the United States Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.^[1] Hassan's Guantanamo ISN was 680. The Department of Defense reports that Hassan was born on June 26, 1979, in Aden, Yemen.

[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

Hassan agreed to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

[edit] Witnesses

Hassan requested five witnesses, who he said would testify that he was a University student, not a jihadist. The Tribunal President ruled that the witnesses were irrelevant, because they covered the period June 2000 to February 2001. When Hassan was informed of the President's decision he replied that he was only in Pakistan for seven months, because he was then captured.

[edit] Allegantions against Hassan

The allegations against Hassan were:

a. The detainee is an Al Qaeda fighter:

1. The detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the Jihad.
2. The detainee avowed he would follow a fatwa that declared Jihad and would not quesiton the guidance of his leader.
3. The detainee affirmed that if a leader of his tribe ordered an attack on America, he would be bound by duty to obey.
4. While in Afghanistan, the detainee received training at the Al-Farouq training camp.
5. The detainee traveled to both the Khandahar and the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan.
6. The detainee was arrested by Pakistani Authorities in Faisalabad, Pakistan, along with several oter living in the same house, who were from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Libya, Russia and Pakistan.

[edit] Hassan's testimony

Hassan replied to each allegation.

1. Hassan testified that he spent the seven months preceding his capture in Pakistan.
2. Hassan said the allegation that he would follow a fatwa had no foundation.
3. Hassan denied that he ever said that he would follow the leader of his tribe in an attack on America;
   • He is not a member of a tribe, his part of Southern Yemen has no tribes -- he has no tribal leader
   • He remembers his interrogators asking whether a tribal member would follow his tribal leader's orders to fight, that he answered, in theory, that those who lived in a tribal area were ordered they would obey -- but this statement did not apply to him.
4. He denied training at the Al Farouq camp, repeating that he had never even been in Afghanistan.
5. He repeated, again, that he had never traveled to Afghanistan.
6. In reply to the allegation that he was arrested in a house with others from around the world he replied: "This is true, but let me make this clear. It is a University dorm, so we have international students from all over the world, so it makes sense that we have so many different nationalities."

Hassan was asked by the Tribunal if he had his passport with him, when he was captured. When he replied that he did, he was then asked if he knew what had happened to it following his capture. Hassan replied that he had been shown a copy of his passport since he had arrived in Guantanamo.

The Tribuanl memebers then asked first Hassan's Personal Representative and the Tribunal's Recorder whether they knew that Hassan's passport was in the control of the U.S. government in Guantanamo. They both professed ignorance of the whereabouts of Hassan's passport.

A Tribunal member asked Hassan about what he had told interrogators:

Q: Have you told them the same thing that you are telling us? You have never been to Afghanistan.

A: Yes.

Q: They why do you believe you are here?

A: (Laughter) How can you ask this question? This question should be asked to you.

Q: You've been here almost 3 years. Surely the interrogators have given you an idea of why they believe you should be here.

A: In Bagram, they told me I was definitely going to go home. They told us we were captured by mistake. We're still under the error.

Hassan assured them that he had told his interrogators, and that he had told them that various other American officials had assured him that his capture was a mistake and that he would soon be released. The Tribunal member then asked him whether he hadn't gotten some kind of idea why

[edit] References

1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ documents (.pdf), from Emad Abdalla Hassan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, US Department of Defense - mirror pages 106-112