Abdul Baqi (Guantanamo detainee 656)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abdul Baqi is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Abdul Baqi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 656. American intelligence analysts estimate that Abdul Baqi was born in 1942, in Tark Itmak, Afghanistan.

[edit] Identity

There is another Guantanamo detainee with a very similar name, Abdul Bagi, who was captured near a skirmish outside the village of Lejay, Afghanistan, on February 10, 2003.

Since Baqi's name is not on the list of detainess whose classification was reviewed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal he was released before July 2004 when the Tribunals started working.^[2]

New York Times writer Elizabeth Rubin, in a long article, described meeting several senior Taliban leadership, including an individual named Abdul Baqi.^[3] She described him as being in his early twenties, whereas the DoD estimates the Guantanamo detainee was in his sixties.

The United Nations list of senior Taliban members lists two senior Taliban members named Abdul Baqi.^[4] It links Maulavi Abdul Baqi, with the Taliban's Consulate Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It states that Mullah Abdul Baqi was the Taliban's Vice-Minister of Information and Culture.