Saddiq Ahmad Turkistani

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Saddiq Ahmad Turkistani is an ethnic Uyghur born and raised in Saudi Arabia and an opponent of the Taliban. A prisoner of the Taliban, he was briefly freed when the they were overthrown, but was then promptly captured by the Americans and shipped to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.^[1]

In a list of the names of detainees the Department of Defense released on May 15, 2006 Turkistani's place of birth was given as Saif, Saudi Arabia.^[2] Unusually, his date of birth was given as "UNKNOWN". His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 491.

Turkistani was imprisoned by the Taliban for four and a half years, because he was alleged to have been involved in a plot to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Turkistani admits being opposed to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but he denies that he was involved in any plots.^[1]

Main article: American prisoners who were previously Taliban prisoners

1 Read into the Senate records
2 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
3 Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant
4 Turkistani's Garden
5 Transfer to Saudi Arabia
6 References

[edit] Read into the Senate records

During a debate on Senator Lindsey Graham's motion to prevent detainees having access to the US courts Senator Jeff Bingeman had several Washington Post articles on the plight of the Uyghur detainees read into the Senate Record.^[3] One of the articles focussed on Turkistani's plight.^[1]

No official American sources have said why Turkistani was captured, why he was held, or why he was shipped to Guantanamo Bay.

[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's 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. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Christopher Mobley

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.

No record of Turkistani's Combatant Status Review Tribunal has been made public.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Turkistani was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[4] They report that Turkistani is one of several still not released.

On May 10, 2006 Radio Free Asia quoted from an interview with Abu Bakker Qassim, one of the five Uighurs who had been transported to Albania on May 5, 2006.^[5] Qassim said he left four innocent detainees behind at Camp Iguana: a Russian, an Algerian, a Libyan, and a man who had been born in Saudi Arabia to Uighur exiles.

[edit] Turkistani's Garden

Turkistani is reported to have told his lawyer, Sabin Willett, that he and fellow prisoners had planted a garden with seeds saved from their rations.^[6] ^[7] Turkistani and the other men in Camp Iguana had to cultivate their clandestine garden with plastic spoons.

[edit] Transfer to Saudi Arabia

On June 25, 2006 14 men were transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia. While some press reports described these men as 14 Saudis, others described them as 13 Saudis, and a Turkistani who had been resident in Saudi Arabia.^[8] Turkistani was the only Guantanamo detainee from Turkestan who had been resident in Saudi Arabia.