Hozaifa Parhat

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Hozaifa Parhat is a citizen of China, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 320.

Parhat is one of approximately two dozen detainees from the Uighur ethnic group.^[2]

Main article: Uighur detainees in Guantanamo

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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.

Parhat chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[3]

[edit] allegations

The allegations against Parhat were:

a. -- The general summary of the allegations that establish an association with terrorism were missing from the transcript. --

1. The detainee departed China in May 2001 and traveled to Tora Bora, Afghanistan via Pakistan.
2. The detainee received training on the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and other light weapons at a Uighur training camp in Tora Bora, Afghanistan.
3. The training camp was provided to the Uighurs by the Taliban.
4. The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) operated facilities in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in which Uighur expatriates underwent small arms training. The camps were funded by Bin Laden and the Taliban.
5. The detainee lived at the Uighur training camp from early June through mid-October 2001 until the United States bombinb campaign that destroyed the camp.

b. -- The general summary of the allegations of hostile activity were missing from the transcript. --

1. The detainee stated that the Uighur training camp was destroyed during the first night of the United States bombing campaign.
2. The detainee fled along with others farther into the mountains of Tora Bora with the initiation of the United States bombing campaign.
3. The detainee was captured in Pakistan fleeing Afghanistan with other Uighur and Arab personnel in 2001.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/detainee_list.pdf list of prisoners (.pdf)], US Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
2. ^ China's Uighurs trapped at Guantanamo, Asia Times, November 4, 2004
3. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Hozaifa Parhat'sCombatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 43-54