Juma Din

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Juma Din is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Din's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 941. American intelligence analysts estimate Juma Din was born in 1973, in Alinghan, Afghanistan.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 1.1 Witness request
- 1.2 Allegations
2 Administrative Review Board hearing
- 2.1 The following primary factors favor continued detention:
- 2.2 The following primary factors favor release or transfer:
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 U.S. could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunal 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.

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

[edit] Witness request

Juma Din requested the testimony of his uncle, Mohammed Rasol. The Tribunal ruled that his uncle’s testimony would be “relevant”, and requested the US State Department to request the Afghanistan embassy to request the Afghan civil service to locate Rasol “on or about October 28, 2004”. After waiting approximately one month the Tribunal’s President ruled Rasol’s testimony “not reasonably available”.

[edit] Allegations

The allegations Juma Din faced during his Tribunal were:

a. -- The general summary of the allegations that establish an association with terrorism were missing from the transcript. --

The detainee reportedly was a main advisor to a Hezb-e-islami Gulbuddin (H1G) leader.
HIG is a designated terrorist group with long-established links to Usama Bin Laden.
Detainee is associated with an al Qaida facilitator.
The detainee lived in the same house with his brother in law, who is the al Qaida facilitator.
The detainee used a vehicle owned by the al Qaida facilitator.
The detainee was captured at the suspected al Qaida safehouse in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The Detainee was arrested with four counterfeit 100 USD bills.

[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.

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

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

As of mid-November 2002, the local commander for the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, Haji Abdul Ghafour, had a bodyguard identified as the detainee.
Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin was one of the major mujahedin groups in the war against the Soviets. Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin has long-established ties with Bin Laden. Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin has staged small attacks in its attempt to force U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, overthrow the Afghan Transitional Admininstration (Afghan Transitional Administration) ^[sic], and establish a fundamentalist state.
In addition to his brothers, the detainee was a main advisor ^[sic] to Ghafour in the Kantiwa ^[sic].
The detainee was trained on the AK-47.
The detainee’s brother-in-law has been identified as an al Qaida operative.
The detainee lived with is sister and brother-in-law three months prior to the time of his capture.
The detainee was captured in the house associated with a known al Qaida operative.
The detainee was arrested with $400 USD.

[edit] The following primary factors favor release or transfer:

The detainee was never interested in the Taliban. He would like to return to his home country of Afghanistan someday.
When asked about al Qaida the detainee denied any knowledge.

The factors favoring continued detention were always broken out into subcategories, like "Intent", "Training", "Hostile activities", and the factors under those subcategories were always numbered. The subcategories and the numbering was not recorded in the transcript.