Nazargul Chaman

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Nazargul Chaman is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 1037. American intelligence analysts estimate the Chaman was born in 1980, in Manikhel, Afghanistan.

[edit] Identity

On April 20, 2006 the Department of Defense released an official list of the names of the Guantanamo detainees whose classifications had been reviewed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2] On that list detainee number 1037's name is listed as Nazargul Chaman. Twenty-five days later, on May 15, 2006 the Department of Defense released an official list of the names of all the Guantanamo detainees, who had been held in military detention.^[1] On this second official list detainee number 1037's name is listed as Nasser Gul Chaman.

In the Combatant Status Review Tribunal testimony transcript of detainee number 1037, the detaineehe describes traveling from his home in Tajikistan across Afghanistan to visit his son, at school, in Pakistan. The official lists of names says Chaman was a citizen of Afghanistan, not Tajikistan, and says that he was born in 1980 -- too young to have a son at school in Pakistan. Detainee 1037 describes being captured by bounty hunters in Kunoz before Ramadan, in 2001.

In the Administrative Review Board hearing testimony transcript of detainee number 1037, one of the allegations against the detainee, which he acknowledges is correct, is that he moved from Pakistan to Gardez, Afghanistan, to work for Hamid Karzai's government as a security guard.

[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

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

[edit] witness requests

Chaman requested the testimony of two witnesses from Tajikistan, Saidaharaad Sharipov and Ziyarat Khojaev. He was told that the US State Department had been requested to request Chaman's embassy to request his country's civil service to help locate his witnesses. The Tribunal President told Chaman they had waited about a month, and now the Tribunal was going to rule that his witnesses were "not reasonably available".

[edit] Testimony

The allegations against Chaman were not recorded in his transcript.

Chaman gave a detailed account of leaving his home in Tajikistan to visit his son in Pakistan. He described crossing Afghanistan, overland, on his way to Pakistan. He described taking a bus from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Karachi, and a train from Karachi to Madras, where his son lived.

Then Chaman described his return journey. He arrived at the river that forms the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan around June 27, 2001. But he wasn't able to sneak across the river. So he was still in Afghanistan when:

"The month of September arrived and this tragedy happened in the United States and it became even more impossible to cross over into my country. People were saying that any foreigner who was in that area were going to be arrested and handed over to the Russian government. I was really afraid and escaped from that area and went to Kudoz.

Kudoz was full of refugees. Two men, with accents he didn't recognize, captured him. They wanted him toaccept a very old AK-47. When he wouldn't they beat him up. They then made him board a crowded truck. The truck delivered him to a "house".

He and his fellow prisoners were made to enter the cellar of this house, where they were given some food. But this was quickly followed by explosions. And Chaman found himself in the middle of a prison uprising that went on for seven or eight days.

Main article: Riot at Mazari Sharif

Chaman described how he and his fellow prisoners were allowed to exit from the cellar, one at a time, where their shoes were removed and their hands were bound behind their backs. Other prisoners were let out, bound, and made to lie face down on the ground. Then there were some more explosions nearby. Everyone scattered, even the bound men. Chaman ran into the cellar, where he was trapped for the next seven or eight days.

People on the surface poured gasoline into the cellar, and tried to set it on fire. Then water was poured in flushing everyone out.

The survivors were given some food, blankets, and shoes that he believed came from the Red Cross. They were shown to General Dostum, who crammed them into a crowded jailhouse.

Then, during Ramadan, Americans came. He was flown to Kandahar, where there was more room, better food, clean water, and medicine, if you needed it.

Chaman did not describe any of his interrogations. He was not asked why he thought he was in custody.

Most of the Tribunal officers questions concerned what he did with the very old AK-47 he was handed when his captors made him board the truck. He said he dropped it on the floor, and didn't touch it again.

[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.

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

[edit] Factors for and against continued detention

• The detainee was captured with an identified long-time Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin [sic] (HG) [sic] member.
• Gulbuddin Hekmatyar found Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin [sic] (HIG) as a faction of the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin party [sic] in 1977. It was one of the major mujahedin groups fighting the Soviets. Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin has long-established ties with Bin Laden. In the early 1990s, Hekmatyar ran several terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. He pioneered sending mercenary fighters to other Islamic conflicts.
• In April 2003, the detainee moved from Pakistan to Gardez, Afghanistan, to work as a security guard at a fuel depot. The guards also manned vehicle checkpoints on the road from Khost, Afghanistan, to Gardez, Afghanistan.
• The detainee was captured 5 May 2003 in a suspected Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin safe house.
• The detainee denied any association with Taliban, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, or any other terrorist groups. He also denied being contacted for recruitment to any type of organization.
• The detainee stated his only reason for coming to Afghanistan was to work for the Karzai government.

[edit] Opening statement

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
3. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Nazargul Chaman'sCombatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 30-34
4. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Nazargul Chaman's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 51