Jawad Jabber Sadkhan

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Jawad Jabber Sadkhan is a citizen of Iraq, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.[1] Sadkhan's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 433.

Contents

[edit] Identity

Captive number 433 wrote a letter on behalf of Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely, to his Administrative Review Board. He signed himself Abu Fatima Al Iraqi.

[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.
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 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.

Sadkhan chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[2]

[edit] Witness and evidence requests

  • Sadkhan made requests for the testimony of three off-Island witnesses, on his behalf.
  • He requested a document from an Afghan police station.
  • And he requested an United Nations document that he knew should already have been in the Guantanamo evidence locker, because his interrogators had it in their possession during his interrogations. UN officials had issued him this document in 1998.

Sadkhan's Tribunal's President informed him that requests were made, through the US State Department, on November 9, 2004 November 22, 2004 and November 30, 2004. There ws no reply, so, the witnesses were ruled "not reasonably available".

Main article: Denbeaux study

Sadkhan's Personal Representative informed him he could not locate the documents he had seen in the possession of his interrogators.

Sadkhan's Tribunal's President informed him that a fourth witness, who was also a Guantanamo captive, had been contacted, and had declined to testify on his behalf.

Sadkhan told the Tribunal that this witness had agreed to testify, and explain about the animosity between Shiite and Sunni moslems in Afghanistan. Sadkhan said he was a Shiite.

[edit] Allegations

a. -- The general summary of the allegations that establish an association with terrorism were missing from the transcript. --
  1. The detainee was a Taliban Group Commander.
  2. The detainee recruited soldiers for the Taliban.
  3. The detainee conscripted fighters.
  4. The detainee was the Director of Intelligence for the Taliban at Mazar-e-Sharif [sic] Afghanistan.
  5. The detainee was the chief of the Taliban's Interrogation Office at Mazar, Afghanistan.

[edit] Witness detainee 758

Sadkhan had a statement from detainee 758 submitted as evidence at his Tribunal.[2] In his statement detainee 758 identified himself as "Shaker Al Iraqi (Abass Abdou Erromi)". The official record identifies him as Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely.[1] He testified that he suspected the accusation against him and detainee 433 were the result of animosity from detainee 111, Ali Abdul Motalib Awayd Hassan Al Tayeea. who he identified as "Ali Abdou Ahtaleb Al Iraqi" and detainee 252, who he identified as "Yassin Basro Al Yamani". The official record shows detainees 111 and 262 as Ali Abdul Motalib Awayd Hassan Al Tayeea and Yasim Muhammed Basardah.[1] Al Naely says he knew Sadkhan in Afghanistan, and he knew him as a good, peaceloving, family man. Al Naely said that the two men he identified as Sadkhan's accusers did not know him in Afghanistan, and their accusations were complete fabrications.

[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.

Sadkhan chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[3]

[edit] Letter of testimonial for Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely

Sackhan wrote a letter for Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely, an Iraqi refugee.[4] Sadkhan's letter confirmed Al Naely's account that he had to rely on charity during his time in Afghanistan.

“I know this man from Afghanistan when he visited me in my own home begging me for some help. I did not have anything to offer [him]. But when I looked at his overall look and his dirty clothing he had on, he looked so miserable. So I went to another friend of mine and asked him for money. That person gave me about $3 and I gave it to ISN 758. I have invited him to stay at my house for that particular night, byt he refused. This person came back to me again (meaning ISN 758) asking me for more money that I didn’t have to give him. I also learned from other people that this person was addicted to Hash, he smokes grass. This was a reason that made me decide not to help him because every time I would help him he would spend it on Hash. To me he was not a political person, a religious person, or a military person. I have never heard once that he hated America or it’s [sic] allies. I never heard that he really served with the Taliban. He received some help from the Taliban like other Iraqi refugees, and I am one of them. I am one of them and I have received help from the Taliban. They only gave me food for my family and me. They gave me a house to stay with my family. In regards to 758, they did not give him a house because he was not married. They only gave [one] to me. He is a peaceful man and he does not pose a threat on nobody and he has parents that need him. Anything that happened between him and me, like some kind of animosity was a result of the investigators here on this facility. So they can create animosity between the two of use [sic]. I was exposed to a lot of abuse, psychological abuse from the investigators and God only knows what happened. This person ISN 758 is innocent from any allegations and God knows everything. This is what I have and peace be upon [you].”

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  2. ^ a b Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Jawad Jabber Sadkhan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 91-98
  3. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Jawad Jabber Sadkhan's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 136
  4. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely's Administrative Review Board hearing - pages 175-176