Abu Bakker Qassim

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Abu Bakker Qassim
Left to Right: Ahmed Adil, Adil Abdul Hakim, Abu Bakr Qassim
Born:	May 13, 1969(1969-05-13) Ghulja, China
Detained at:	Guantanamo
ID number:	283
Conviction(s):	no charge, held in extrajudicial detention
Status	Determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all. Transferred to an Albanian refugee camp.

Abu Bakker Qassim is a Uyghur from China's western frontier, Uyghur Xinjiang Autonomous Region (also known as East Turkistan) who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo Internee Security Number is 283.

After being classified as "no longer enemy combatant" (NLEC) by the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) he continued to be held in Cuba, in Camp Iguana. He has been transferred to Albania.^[2]. On September 17, 2006 he published an op-ed on The New York Times to ask the American lawmakers and people not to eliminate habeas corpus.^[3]

[edit] Background

In late 2001, Qassim was captured along with his compatriot A'Del Abdu al-Hakim by Pakistani bounty hunters.^[4][5] Qassim and al-Hakim were transferred to U.S. custody by the Pakistani forces and held in Afghanistan for approximately six months, and were transferred to "Camp Delta," on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where they were detained as "enemy combatants." President Bush had ruled that the detainees were "illegal combatants" by administrative fiat. Following legal challenges, the Bush administration was forced to provide a mechanism to review the Guantanamo detainees status.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive sat with his hands cuffed and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.^[6] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.^[7]

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.

[edit] Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Abu Bakr Qasim's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 29 October 2004.^[8] The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee was associated with the Taliban:

1. In 2001, the detainee traveled from Kyrgyzstan, through Pakistan, then on to Jalalabad, Afghanistan to attend a training camp.
2. The detainee attended a training camp in the Tora Bora Mountains that had been given to the Uighers by the Taliban for the purpose of training to fight the Chinese.^[9]
3. The Detainee was at the camp for three months and spent two months learning the Koran and one month shooting an AK-47.
4. After the U.S. bombing started, the Detainee and the other Uighurs went to the caves and stayed there until the Northern Alliance came to the camps.
5. An afghani man sent the Detainee with approximately one hundred Arabs and twenty Uighurs to Pakistan, where they were captured.

[edit] Transcript

Qassim chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[10] On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a ten page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[11]

[edit] Information paper: Uighur Detainee Population at JTF-GTMO

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Information paper: Uighur Detainee Population at JTF-GTMO

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Allegations against the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, from Nag Mohammed, captive 102's Tribunal

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Excerpt from the Terrorist Organization Guide, devoted to the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)

Documents released in response to the writ of habeas corpus Hassan Anvar v. George W. Bush contained a memo entitled: "Information paper: Uighur Detainee Population at JTF-GTMO".^[12] This memo, dated 30 October 2004, provides one paragraph biographies of 22 Uighur captives. The memo asserts that all 22 captives are suspected of membership in the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement". The memo describes the Uighur camp as an "ETIM training camp".

The portion of the document devoted to Abu Bakr Qasim states:

Abu Bakr Qasim is a 35-year-old ethnic Uighur and a Chinese citizen, born in 1969, in Ghulja, China. He claims to have fled China in an effort to escape Chinese oppression of the Uigher people. After fleeing China, the detainee traveled to Afghanistan. He was last interviewed in mid 2004. He has no reported incidents of violence in his discipline history. Qasim is suspected as being a probable member of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). He is suspected of having received training in an ETIM training camp in Afghanistan.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Patel was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[13][14] The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

[edit] reclassification

In March 2005, the CSRT finalized its determination that they were NLECs. Qassim and Hakim were not informed of this determination until May 2005. The United States did not release the men, but did not return them to China because to do so would be a violation of US law prohibiting the deportation of individuals to countries where they would likely be tortured. The U.S. refused to admit them to the United States. Qassim, Hakim and other non-enemy combattants who could not be repatriated were transferred from the general prison population to Camp Iguana in August 2005.

Qassim was one of the 38 detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal concluded he had not been an "illegal combatants". Some of those detainees were repatriated, once they were determined NLECs. Others, like, Qassim, and Sami Al Laithi, face possible torture if they are returned.

[edit] Seeking asylum

In March 2005, attorneys for Qassim challenged his continued detention by filing a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in federal district court in Washington DC in the case of Qassim v. Bush. In December Judge James Robertson reviewed the detention of Qassim and A'Del Abdu al-Hakim.^[15] Robertson declaraed that their "indefinite imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay is unlawful," but also ruled on separation of powers grounds that he did not have the power to order their release into the United States.^[16] Qassim and Hakim immediately appealed.

A February 18, 2006 article in the Washington Times reported that Abu Bakker Qassim and A'Del Abdu al-Hakim had received military training in Afghanistan.^[17] It said they were not classified as "illegal combatants" because they intended to go home and employ their training against the Chinese government. Some earlier reports had described them as economic refugees, who were slowly working their way to Turkey.

On April 17, 2006 the US Supreme Court rejected Qassim's request to hear his appeal.^[18] His appeal was scheduled to be heard by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on May 8, 2006.

[edit] Asylum in Albania

On May 5, 2006 the Department of Defense announced that it had transferred five Uighurs who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, to Albania.^[2][19] Seventeen other Uighurs continue to be held at Guantanamo, because their CSRTs determined they were enemy combatants.

Two of 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.^[20]

The Department of Justice filed an "Emergency Motion to Dismiss as Moot" on May 5, 2006.^[21][22] 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,^[23]"

On May 24, 2006 Abu Bakr Qasim told interviewers that he and his compatriots felt isolated in Albania.^[24] Qasim described his disappointment with the United States, who the Uyghurs had been hoping would support the Uyghurs quest for Uyghur autonomy.

In an interview with ABC News in May, 2006, Qasim said that members of the American-Urghur community had come forward and assured the American government that they would help him and his compatriots adapt to life in America, if they were given asylum in America.^[25]

To the BBC he said in January 2007 that "Guantanamo was a five-year nightmare,[] We're trying to forget it." ^[26]"

Main article: Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo

[edit] References

v • d • e Captives held at Guantanamo Bay before being exonerated and found to not be "enemy combatants" Afghanistan Abdul Rahman, Mohammad Gul, Gul Zaman, Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, Qalandar Shah, Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah, Rasool Shahwali Zair Mohammed Mohammed, Abdul Qudus, Shahzada, Hammdidullah, Mohammad Nasim, Kako Kandahari, Feda Ahmed, Nasibullah, Habib Noor, Jalil, Hukumra Khan Algeria Ahmed Adil, Akhdar Qasem Basit, Mohammed Ayub, Abu Bakr Qasim, Adel Abdulhehim, Sadik Ahmad Turkistani Egypt Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy, Allah Muhammed Saleem France Mustaq Ali Patel Jordan Khalid Mahomoud Abdul Wahab Al Asmr Maldives Ibrahim Fauzee Pakistan Fazaldad, Shed Abdur Rahman Saudi Arabia Saleh Abdall Al Oshan Sudan Hammad Ali Amno Gadallah Tajikistan Maroof Saleemovich Salehove Turkey Salih Uyar Uzbekistan Zakirjan Asam Yemen Karam Khamis Sayd Khamsan