Mustafa Ibrahim Mustafa Al Hassan

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Mustafa Ibrahim Mustafa Al Hassan is a citizen of Sudan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Hassan's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 719. American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Hassan was born in 1957, in Al-Manakil, Sudan.

[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.

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

[edit] Allegation

The allegations Al Hassan faced during his Tribunal were:

a. The detainee supported the Taliban.

1. The detainee departed Sudan to Pakistan en route to fight the jihad in Afghanistan.
2. The detainee supports the Taliban.
3. The detainee is associated with the Dawa wa Irshad ^[sic] non-governmental organization.
4. Dawa wa Irshad is a terrorist organization.

[edit] Testimony

• Mahmoud testified that he knew practically nothing about Afghanistan, other than it had been ruled by Islamic law. He had not traveled to Pakistan in order to slip into Pakistan.His profession in Sudan is a clothing trader, and he had traveled to Pakistan for trade and study.
• Mahmoud pointed out that his passport would show that he had entered Pakistan after the war had ended, at the end of December 2001, or early January 2002.
• He said he traveled to Pakistan on legitimate travel documents. His visa was initially for 15 days. When his visa expired he went to the visa office to get an extension. But they wouldn’t give him an extension. They told him: “We are having a lot of problems with foreigners in or ^[sic] country. We can't give you an extension on your visa.”
• Mahmoud testified he tried to leave Pakistan, because Pakistan was arresting all Arabs. He contacted a people-smuggler named Abo Bakar ^[sic]. The language barrier made it very difficult to understand where the smuggler planned to take him. He wanted to be taken to Iran.^[3]
• Mahmoud testified he had never heard of the Dawa wa Irshad, this group does not exist in Sudan.
• Mahmoud testified he was tortured in Bagram, by interrogators who kept insisting he was lying. He said his interrogators said the people he was staying with had denounced him. He said he believed they denounced him while being interrogated under torture, as he was.
• Mahmoud said he was tortured with electricity, by being made to walk on sharp objects, and with many beatings.
• Mahmoud testified he paid for his travel from his own funds.
• Mahmoud explained that it was not unusual to travel to Pakistan on just a fifteen day visa, and then, once a University had accepted the traveler as a student, it was normally easy to get a visa extension.
• Mahmoud repeated that he had never heard of Dawa Irshad prior to his capture. He had never been a member of any organization.
• Mahmoud assured the Tribunal that he had never had any military or weapons training, and he had never bought or sold weapons.
• Mahmoud said he was captured in the street, with his driver, and one other traveler, who also ended up in Guantanamo.

[edit] References

1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mustafa Ibrahim Mustafa Al Hassan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 53-62
3. ^ Mahmoud seems unaware that Pakistan does not border Iran.