Abdullah Khan

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Abdullah Khan is an Afghani held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Khan's Guantanamo ISN is 950. The Department of Defense estimates he was born in 1956.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Classification
3 References

[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 his 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.

Khan chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. For unexplained reasons the Guantanamo intelligence analysts who managed his case file separated the five pages that recorded the allegations and Khan's response to them from the rest of his testimony. ^[2]^[3]

[edit] Allegations

The allegations Khan faced were:^[2]

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban:

The detainee was a Taliban cook for about two and one half months.
The detainee fought for two years in the jihad against the Soviets.
The detainee was in charge of ammunition distribution during the Russian jihad.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition:

The detainee is alleged to have been a Taliban airfield commander.
The detainee may have information regarding attacks against the United States and coalition forces ^[sic].
The detainee is suspected of moving weapons.
The detainee discussed plans to conduct attacks against the United States and/or Coalition Forces ^[sic].
United States Forces arrested the detainee with two other detainees in Kandahar Province.

[edit] Response

In response to the allegatios:^[2]

Khan denied being a member of the Taliban, or having any sympathy for their ideas.
Khan acknowledged serving as a cook for the Taliban. He offered the following account of how he came to be a cook:

I came from the province of Oruzgan, Kandahar ^[sic] for labor type work. There were fifty people harvesting the grapes. They came and surrounded us and the handcuffed us, like the draft, and took us with them. I had no choice and I had no power because that was their government. Just like how the Americans brought me, it was exactly the same thing they did to me. When they took us to their center, they asked me to take a weapon and fight for them. I told them I was scared, I cannot fight and I don't have the ability to fight. They said that I had to do something for them. They would not leave me alone like that. I said okay I could be a cook for them. I was very scared and I thought that if I didn't accept the job they would kill me.

Khan acknowledged fighting the Soviet invaders. He couldn't remember whether he fought the Soviets for two years or two months. Khan acknowledged that he had been responsible for distributing bullets to other anti-Soviet fighters.

Khan said the anti-Soviet commander he fought under was Neymatullah.

Khan offered a long account of his capture and hand-over to American forces. Khan had worked in the area where he was captured prior to the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. A year after the Karzai administration took over the administration of Afghanistan Khan returned to that area, for the first time since the Taliban took power, to sell produce at a large open-air market. At the market he met Haji Shahzada, a well off landowner he had worked for in his youth, who invited him to spend the night at his house. Khan also described meeting two men he described as the murderers of two of his family members, who he felt were trying to intimidate him. Khan believed that these men played a role in the false denunciations that lead to his capture.
Khan denied having any information regarding attacks on the United States.
Khan responded to the allegation that he was suspected of moving weapons:

When and where? Once they told me it was the time of the Russians. I don't know when and where. Where did this come from.
Khan denied discussing plans to attack the United States. He had spent the evening prior to his capture having dinner and playing cards with his host Shahzada and some friends of his.

[edit] Testimony

The caption to this poster, distributed by the CIA in Afghanistan, reads: “You can receive millions of dollars for helping the Anti-Taliban Force catch Al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. This enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

Khan explained that he was not Khirullah Khairkhwa, the Governor of Herat. The bounty hunters who sold him to the US said he was Khairkhwa, in order to get a higher price for him.
Khan explained that he was a shop-keeper. He said he had a limited association with Haji Shahzada, a prominent landowner. Shahzada was also held in Guantanamo, but in another compound. Khan had done a day of grape picking for Shahzada, years prior to 9-11. More recently he had sold Shahzada a dog.
Khan was arrested while staying at Shahzada'a house in Kandahar, while on a trip ot buy supplies for his shop. He said that this kind of hospitality, among acquaintances, who were from the same area, was not unusual in Afghan culture.
One of the allegations against Khan was that he was an airfield commander and pilot. Khan replied that he was illiterate, and didn't even know what a pilot was.
Shahzada submitted a written statement, which Khan's Personal Representative said confirmed Khan's account. When the Department of Defense partially complied with Judge Jed Rakoff's court order they did not include Shahzada's statement. His Personal Representative said he filed a polygraph]] report that he said confirmed Khan's account.

[edit] Classification

When the Department of Defense released the official list of all Guantanamo detainees the Washington Post put up a list of the names of 31 of the 38 detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined that they had not been enemy combatants after all. Shahzada, Khan's host when he was captured, was determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all.