Mohammed Ayub

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Haji Mohammed Ayub (born April 15, 1984) is a citizen of China, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.[1] Ayub's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 279. The Department of Defense reports Ayub was born on April 15, 1984, in Toqquztash, China.

Ayub is one of approximately two dozen detainees from the Uighur ethnic group.[2]

Contents

[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.

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

[edit] Allegations

The allegations against Ayub were:

  1. The detainee traveled from China to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001.
  2. The detainee went to Afghanistan to receive weapons training.
  3. The detainee stayed at a Uighur training camp in the Tora Bora Mountains in Afghanistan.
  4. The training camp was destroyed by coalition air strikes in October 2001.
  5. The detainee was in Afghanistan during the U.S. bombing campaign.
  6. The detainee was traveling with a group of armed Arabs from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
  7. The detainee was captured in a mosque in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities.

[edit] Witness

Ayub had previously received permission to have a witness, Hamid Mohammed Hamid. But during the course of his questioning he changed his mind.

[edit] Testimony

  • Ayub denied traveling to Afghanistan for weapons training.
  • Ayub said he traveled in the fall, not the summer.
  • Ayub denied staying at the training camp. He said when he got there it was being destroyed by the American bombing.
  • Ayub denied traveling with a group of armed Arabs. He traveled with fellow Uighurs.
  • Ayub said he didn’t no who arrested him, whether it were Pakistani authorities, of the local tribal people.
  • Ayub denied carrying any weapons in Afghanistan.
  • Ayub denied ever being a member of a political group or party.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Ayub was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[4] They report that Ayub has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

[edit] Asylum in Albania

On May 5, 2006 the Department of Defense announced that they had transferred five Uighurs who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, to Albania.[5][6] Seventeen other Uighurs continue to be held at Guantanamo, because their CSRTs determined they were enemy combatants.

The five men had a lawsuit scheduled for argument on May 8, 2006 before the US District Court where their lawyers would argue for their release.[7]

The Department of Justice filed an "Emergency Motion to Dismiss as Moot" on May 5, 2006.[8][9] Barbara Olshansky, one of the Uighur's lawyers, characterized the sudden transfer as an attempt to: "...avoid having to answer in court for keeping innocent men in jail,[10]"

[edit] References

  1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  2. ^ China's Uighurs trapped at Guantanamo, Asia Times, November 4, 2004
  3. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Haj Mohammed Ayub'sCombatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 49-55
  4. ^ Guantanamo Bay Detainees Classifed as "No Longer Enemy Combatants", Washington Post
  5. ^ detainee release announced, Department of Defense, May 5, 2006
  6. ^ Albania accepts Chinese Guantanamo detainees, Washington Post, May 5, 2006
  7. ^ Albania Takes 5 Ethnic Chinese From Gitmo, Houston Chronicle, May 5, 2006
  8. ^ Emergency Motion to Dismiss as Moot, Department of Justice, May 5, 2006
  9. ^ Making Justice Moot, Alternet, May 6, 2006
  10. ^ Albania takes Guantanamo Uighurs, BBC, May 6, 2006