Salih Uyar

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Casio F91W -- a model of watch that U.S. intelligence officials tie to terrorism. Uyar was detained, in part, because he was wearing one of these watches when he was captured.

Salih Uyar is a citizen of Turkey, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1]^[2] His detainee ID number is 298.

1 Casio watch
2 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 2.1 allegations
- 2.2 testimony
3 Press reports
4 Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant
5 References

[edit] Casio watch

When the Department of Defense was forced to comply with US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff's court order to release the documents from the Guantanamo detainees's Combatant Status Review Tribunals Uyar's name came to light.^[2]'

One of the reasons he was detained was that he was captured wearing a Casio F91W digital watch.^[2]

Uyar asked his Tribunal: "If it's a crime to carry this watch, your own military personnel also carry this watch, too, Does that mean that they're just terrorists as well?"^[2]

[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.

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

[edit] allegations

The allegations that Uyar faced during his Tribunal were:^[3]

The detainee traveled to Afghanistan from Turkey via Iran and Pakistan in 2000.
The detainee lived with a known al Qaida member for two months just before the raids began in Kabul.
The detainee claims to have lost his passport while traveling by foot across the Pakistani border.
The detainee was captured with a Casio watch; a model that has been used in bombings linked to al Qaida and radical Islamic terrorist improvised explosive devices.
The detainee stated that he had been in Afghanistan for a period of 14 months, however, he could only account for seven months.
The detainee traveled in and out of Turkey multiple times, including multiple trips to Syria under the guise of Arabic language studies.
The detainee is a known associate of Turkish radical religious groups.

[edit] testimony

Uyar acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan, and various other countries, as part of an informal independent study program. One of the things he was trying to teach himself was Arabic. He acknowledged losing his passport when he tried to leave Afghanistan on foot, after the US started bombing Afghanistan, and Pakistan closed the border crossings. He acknowledged owning a Casio watch, but he only carried it to tell time. He wasn't aware that terrorists used it to build bombs. He also pointed out that the Guantanamo guards wore the same model, and asked if that made them terrorists. Uyar said he believed he had accounted for all fourteen months he spent in Afghanistan. Uyar denied that the person he had stayed with prior to the US attacks was an al Qaida member.

A Tribunal member asked for further details about his host, and, in particular, his occupation. Uyar said that his host was a refugee from Iran, and, so far as he could tell, he didn't have a job.

[edit] Press reports

On July 12, 2006 the magazine Mother Jones provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantanamo detainees.^[4] The article informed readers:

More than a dozen detainees were cited for owning cheap digital watches, particularly “the infamous Casio watch of the type used by Al Qaeda members for bomb detonators.”

The article quoted Uyar, and three other watch owners:

"If it is a crime to carry this watch, your own military personnel also carry this watch. Does this mean they’re just terrorists as well?"

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

According to the Washington Post Uyar was one of the detainees who was determined not to have been an "enemy combatant" after all.^[5] They report that Uyar has been released.