Padsha Wazir

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Padsha Wazir is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 631. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1972, in Kundai, Afghanistan

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 1.1 allegations
- 1.2 testimony
2 Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant
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 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.

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

[edit] allegations

Most transcripts repeat the allegations against the detainee. The allegations against Wazir can only be guessed at by interpolation from the issues he addressed in his opening statement.

One of the allegations seems to be that he secured villages for a renegade named Padsha Khan.

[edit] testimony

Wazir denied all the allegations.

Wazir said that as the Taliban fell he and his brother joined a local informal militia, that welcomed the Americans. His brother was shot in the leg. But it was part of a local feud, not due to the Taliban. Wazir took his brother to a hospital, in Pakistan. The car he and his brother were traveling in was stopped at the border. There was an American soldier there. He believes that one of the Afghan guards was affiliated to the other side in the local feud, and that he denounced him to the American with a false allegation.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Wazir was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[3] They report that Wazir has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.