Administrative Review Board

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For the board of U.S. Labor Department, see Administrative Review Board (Labor).

The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the suspects held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The purpose of the Board is to review whether the suspects still represent a threat. American authorities initially classified the suspects as "illegal combatants." But they silently changed their classification to "enemy combatant". From July, 2004 through March, 2005 military authorities conducted a one-time Combatant Status Review Tribunal for each suspect.

The Combatant Status Reviews were criticized by human rights workers because the suspects were not entitled to legal counsel, and did not know what allegations they had to defend themselves against, and the suspects had no presumption of innocence. The ARB was created in an attempt to mitigate the harsh results of potentially indefinite detention by allowing an annual review to determine whether the enemy combatant should still be detained.

The Combatant Status Reviews determined that 38 suspects were not illegal combatants after all. They determined that the rest of the suspects had been correctly classified as "enemy combatants" during their original, secret, classifications.

As of September 2005 there were approximately 500 suspects in Camp Delta.

The first set of Administrative Reviews took place between December 14, 2004 and December 23, 2005. The Boards met to consider the cases of al 463 eligible detainees. They recommended the release of 14 detainees, and the repatriation of 120 detainees to the custody of the authorities in their home countries.

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) was under a court order from United States District Court Judge Jed Rakoff to release the names of all the detainees by 6:00 p.m. EST on March 3, 2006. The Department of Defense ("DOD") did not meet this deadline. They delivered a CDROM with approximately 5,000 pages of documents at 6:20 pm. DoD had to take that CDROM back and issue a second copy that with redacted files that DoD decided not to release.

Contents

[edit] Factors for and against continued detention

As part of this release of documents the DoD released three portable document format files containing summaries of the factors for and against the release of some of the detainees.[1][2][3] These documents summarized the factors for and against the continued detention of 120 detainees. These documents contain the detainee's names. The DoD has not explained why they did not comply with Rakoff's court order and release the factors for and against the other 343 detainees.

Some of the factors listed in favour of continued detention for some detainees were repetitions of allegations that had already been refuted during the detainee's Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

[edit] Summarized Transcripts of Administrative Review Board hearings

The DoD also released an incomplete set of four portable document format files containing summarized transcripts from administrative review board hearings. [4][5][6][7] Over the next six weeks the DoD released 15 more portable document format files containing transcripts.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Most of these transcripts do not contain the detainees names. However, almost all the transcripts bear the detainee's Guantanamo ID number on the lower right hand corner of each page, and on April 20, 2006, and on May 15, 2006, the DoD released lists of the detainees, with their associated detainee IDs.[23][24]

[edit] Releases

According to an article from the International Herald Tribune from April 22, 2006 the ARB had determined three detainees could be released and 107 detainees could be repatriated to the custody of their home country, yet they still remained in Guantanamo.[25] U.S. officials said their continued detention was due to concerns the detainees might be tortured or killed if they were returned or repatriated.

[edit] References

  1. ^ ARB_Factors_Set_1_944-1045.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  2. ^ ARB_Factors_Set_2_1046-1160.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  3. ^ ARB_Factors_Set_3_1161-1234_Revised.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  4. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_1_395-584.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  5. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_2_585-768.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  6. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_3_769-943_FINAL.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  7. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_4_1431-1455.pdf, Department of Defense, March 3, 2006
  8. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_5_20000-20254.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  9. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_6_20255-20496.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  10. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_7_20497-20750.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  11. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_8_20751-21016.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  12. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_9_21017-21351.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  13. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_10_21352-21661.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  14. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_11_21662-22010.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  15. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_12_22011-22244.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  16. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_13_22245-22523.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  17. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_14_22524-22682.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  18. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_15_22683-22733.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  19. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_16_22734-22821.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  20. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_17_22822-23051.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  21. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_18_23052-23263.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  22. ^ ARB_Transcript_Set_19_23264-23359.pdf, Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  23. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  24. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  25. ^ Stuck in Guantánamo, International Herald Tribune, April 22, 2006

[edit] External links

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