Mohammad Nechle

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Mohammad Nechle is a Bosnian citizen held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] Nechle's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 10003.

Nechle was born in Algeria and immigrated Bosnia in the 1990s. Nechle became a Bosnian citizen, and married a Bosnian woman. Nechle was working for the Red Crescent at the time of al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.

Contents

[edit] Arrest and trial by Bosnian authorities

Nechle and five other Bosnians of Algerian extraction fell under the suspicion of local US intelligence authorities. The Americans believed these six men, all charity workers, were merely using their charity works as a cover for a plot to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo.

The six were arrested, charged, tried, and acquitted by the Bosnian legal authorities.

Main article: Algerian Six

[edit] Extrajudicial capture and transportation by US authorities

When they were released by the Bosnians, following their acquittal, they were apprehended by a combined force of Americans and Bosnians. They weren't charged. They were transported to Guantanamo Bay, where all six remain four years later.

[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.
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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.

Nechle chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

The Associated Press acquired the unclassified portions of the dossiers of one tenth of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Nechle's dossier is available there.[2]

Nechle's unclassified dossier is 54 pages long. The "Summary of Evidence" memo within his dossier contains the following allegations:[3]

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida:
  1. Detainee is a suspected terrorist with ties to the Algerian Islamic Group (GIA) and is suspected of having links to al Qaida.
  2. Detainee is a former employee of the Red Crescent Society and attended meetings in Sarajevo for Algerians working for non-government organizations in Bosnia.
  3. The detainee is an associate of a known al Qaida operative in Bosnia.
  4. The detainee is also known as Sharfuldin or Sharuldin.

[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.

Nechle chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  2. ^ documents (.pdf), from Mohammed Nechle's Combatant Status Review Tribunal
  3. ^ Allegations from the "Summary of Evidence" (.pdf), from Mohammed Nechle's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - page 32
  4. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Mohammed Nechle's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 83
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