Adel Fattough Ali Al Gazzar

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Adel Fattough Ali Al Gazzar
Born: October 12, 1965 (1965-10-12)
Cairo, Egypt
Detained at: Guantanamo
ID number: 369
Conviction(s): no charge, held in extrajudicial detention
Status Lost a leg due to American bombing. Repatriated in 2005.

Adel Fattough Ali Al Gazzar is a citizen of Egypt, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] Al Gazzar's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 369. The Department of Defense reports that Al Gazzar was born on October 22, 1965, in Cairo, Egypt.

Contents

[edit] Background

Al Gazzar is one of five detainees that Egypt sought to have sent home on November 19, 2004.[2]

He stood accused of training and fighting in Kashmir.

He claimed he worked for the Saudi Red Crescent, and was injured during his one and only visit to Afghanistan to deliver humanitarian aid. He claimed sympathetic Pakistani dignitaries visited him in the Pakistani hospital where his wounds were treated, but that he was nevertheless falsely denounced and sold to the USA for a bounty.

[edit] Identity

On January 6, 2007 the director of the Egyptian human rights group Human Rights Society for Helping Prisoners, Muhammad Zari, released the names of two recently released former Guantanamo captives.[3] One of the names he released was: Adil Fattuh al-Jazzar. Zari said Guantanamo medical authorities amputated al-Jazzar's left leg in November 2005.

[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. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.
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.[4] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.[5]

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 Adel Fattough Ali AlGazzar's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 20 September 2004.[6] The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is a terrorist fighter:
  1. Detainee became a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) in 2000.
  2. The LT is the armed wing of the Pakistan based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad. LT is also an anti-U.S. terrorist organization.
  3. The detainee admitted being present at the LT-controlled major training facility in Northern Pakistan referred to as "Al Aqsa" in January 2001. Al Aqsa was created to facilitate the training and movement of Pakistani Muslim guerilla fighters.
  4. Detainee voluntarily traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.
  5. The Egyptian government has stated that detainee is a member of the Egyptian terrorist organization Al Wa'ad and was part of the plot to assassinate President Mubarak in 1995.)
b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition.
  1. The detainee was injured during a U.S. bombing campaign. He was wounded by shrapnel in the leg.
  2. While being treated for his leg wound, the detainee was captured by the Pakistani Intelligence Service, then turned over to U.S. forces.

[edit] Transcript

Al Gazzar chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[7] On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[8]

[edit] Testimony

In response to the allegations against him in the “Summary of Evidence” Al Gazzar replied:

[edit] Training at the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba camp

  • He denied he had ever been a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, or that he had ever said he was a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
    • He acknowledged meeting some people who were members. He argued that it made as much sense to state that meeting Lashkar-e-Tayyiba members made him a member as it would to say meeting the Tribunal members made him a member of the US Army.
    • He pointed out that the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba only accepted members who were from Pakistan, and that he was from Egypt.
  • Al Gazzar said that the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba was supported by and tied to Pakistan Government.
  • The Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is composed of believers from the one of the branches of Islam that was opposed by, and opposes, the believers who compose the Taliban and al Qaeda. This makes it very unlikely the groups would be allies. Members of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba who traveled to Afghanistan could expect to be immediately discharged.
  • Al Gazzar acknowledged paying a two day visit to the Al Aqsa facility. He didn’t train there. As an Egyptian officer he didn’t need any training.
“...I visited the camp for two days. I didn’t train there. I was an Egyptian Officer. I don’t need any kind of training. I visited the camp after I was invited by the LT. It is not actually a camp it is a joke. It’s not a camp it is several tents on the top of a mountain. They take people from the streets and give them training on the Kalashnikov AK-47 then send them to Kashmir to fight. About 95% of them are killed crossing the border by India. If you want to visit this camp you can go to Pakistan and ask anybody and they will tell you where it is. It is not a secret camp. Anybody can visit there it is an open camp.”

Al Gazzar's Personal Representative added some details from their interview:

  • The Al Aqsa camp was sponsored by the ISI.
  • He would not have been allowed to train there, because he was not a Pakistani.
  • Al Gazzar cut short his visit to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba camp when he heard it described as a terrorist group on the BBC.

[edit] Wounded during the US bombing campaign

Al Gazzar acknowledged traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan during Ramadan, around the end of November 2001. He was working for the Saudi Red Crescent. He was working at a Saudi Red Crescent refugee camp on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The camp provided refugees with medicine, tents, food and clothes. He made a brief crossing to help refugees, and was caught in an Americn air raid two hours later, and woke up in a Pakistani hospital in Quetta.

While he was in the hospital in Quetta he received visits from the Governor, and other Pakistani big-wigs. When he tried to talk to them about the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba they warned him not to rock the boat. After 25 days in the hospital in Quetta he was told that he was going to be moved to a more modern hospital, where the surgeons would be able to take better care of his leg. Instead he was transferred to American custody. The Americans took him to Cuba, where he lost his leg.

[edit] The Mubarek assassination allegation

Al Gazzar responded to the allegation that he was involved in the assassination attempt as follows:

“This has got to be a very big joke. I was in Egypt from 1995 to 2000. I didn’t leave Egypt until August 2000. The attempt occurred in 1995, which means I stayed there for five years after this attempt. Do you think I would stay there for five years if I were involved in such a thing? Besides that in January 2004, the Egyptian Government sent a delegation to Guantanamo. They met me twice here. After the interview they sent a report to the CIA. They mentioned in the report that I am not a member of any organization either in Egypt or outside Egypt and that I was not involved in the assassination attempt. They daid I should be released at once because I was innocent. This report is in my file. I was told about the report from the Egyptian delegation and from my interrogator Big Jim. After the delegation left the island, Big Jim, stood up when I entered the room, shook my hand, said thank you and said I would be released.

Al Gazzar pointed out that the assassination attempt occurred in Ethiopia, while he was at home in Egypt.

[edit] Concluding statement

Al Gazzar pointed out that he was given a polygraph test in April 2004, which he passed with flying colors.

[edit] Response to questions from the Tribunal's officers

Al Gazzar confirmed the two hour excursion he made the day he was wounded was his only visit to Afghanistan.

Al Gazzar said he had his ID papers with him when he made his excursion.

Al Gazzar said he traveled from the refugee camp, into Afghanistan, to drive to a village near the border for religious work.

When Al Gazzar was asked why he thought the Pakistanis turned him over to the Americans. He responded that he believed he was sold for a bounty of $10,000.

[edit] Adel Fattough Al Algazzar v. George W. Bush

A writ of habeas corpus, Adel Fattough Al Algazzar v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Adel Fattough Al Algazzar]]'s behalf.[9] In response the Department of Defense published 37 pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

On October 29, 2004 Tribunal panel 15 confirmed his "enemy combatant" status.

[edit] Press reports

On July 12, 2006 the magazine Mother Jones provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantanamo detainees.[10] Al Gazzar was one of the detainees profiled. According to the article his transcript contained the following exchange:

algazzar: I am disappointed with this tribunal because if I am in a court and you accuse me of anything I should be allowed to know what the accusations are and to see the evidence. You tell me that these accusations are unclassified but there are other classified accusations. How can I defend myself if I don’t know what the evidence is about the other accusations?...
tribunal member: If I can clarify a little bit before you start. These are all the accusations. What we will get in the classified session is in theory evidence to support these accusations, but there are no other accusations against you besides what is listed here.
algazzar: I understand that but what I mean is if you say I am an enemy combatant and you say you have evidence, I don’t get to see it. Then I will stay here….
tribunal member: Do you have any theories about why the government and the Pakistani intel folks would sell you out and turn you over to the Americans?
algazzar: Come on, man, you know what happened. In Pakistan you can buy people for $10. So what about $5,000?
tribunal member: So they sold you?
algazzar: Yes.

Canadian journalist, and former special assistant to US President George W. Bush, David Frum, published an article based on his own reading of the transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, on November 11, 2006.[11] It was Frum who coined the term "Axis of evil" for use in a speech he wrote for Bush. Al Gazzar's transcript was one of the nine Frum briefly summarized. His comment on Al Gazzar was:

“A former Egyptian army officer acknowledged that he had undergone training in Afghanistan at a camp run by the Kashiri group, Lashkar-i-Taibi. However, he said, he had been listening to the BBC in February 2001 and heard an announcer describe LiT as a terrorist organization. After that, he said, he quit the group and had never had anything to do with them again. How had he supported himself in Afghanistan over the following year? He had, he said, relied on charity from his fellow Muslims.”

Frum came to the conclusion that all nine of the men whose transcript he summarized had obviously lied.[11] He did not, however, state how he came to the conclusion they lied. His article concluded with the comment:

"But what’s the excuse of those in the West who succumb so easily to the deceptions of terrorists who cannot invent even half-way plausible lies?"

On March 28, 2008 Al Ahram reported on two Egyptian captives: "Sherif El-Mashad" and "Adel El-Gazzar".[12] The two men remained in detention in Guantanamo.

[edit] References

  1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  2. ^ Egypt wants Guantanamo releases, BBC, November 19, 2004
  3. ^ Essam Fadl. "Egypt: Human Rights Activist Identifies 2 Former Egyptian Guantanamo Detainees", Asharq Alawsat, January 6, 2007. Retrieved on January 6. 
  4. ^ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  5. ^ Annual Administrative Review Boards for Enemy Combatants Held at Guantanamo Attributable to Senior Defense Officials. United States Department of Defense (March 6, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-09-22.
  6. ^ OARDEC (20 September 2004). Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- Algazzar, Adel Fattough Ali pages 91-92. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
  7. ^ OARDEC (date redacted). Summarized Statement pages 22-30. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
  8. ^ "US releases Guantanamo files", The Age, April 4, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-03-15. 
  9. ^ Adel Fattough Al Algazzar v. George W. Bush pages 49-76. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
  10. ^ "Why Am I in Cuba?", Mother Jones (magazine), July 12, 2006
  11. ^ a b David Frum. "Gitmo Annotated", National Review, November 11, 2006. Retrieved on April 23. 
  12. ^ Gihan Shahine. "Lost behind bars", Al Ahram, March 28, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.  mirror