Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin identity card
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Several Guantanamo captives had their continued extrajudicial detention justified by the allegation that they possessed Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin identity cards.[1][2][3]
[edit] Hekmatyar Gulbuddin and the Hezbi-e-Islami Gulbuddin
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin is an Afghanistani political party and militia, lead by former Afghan President and Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The group was an informal ally of the United States during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The group was an opponent of the Taliban regime, prior to their ouster by the United States. Unlike most of the groups opposed to the Taliban it forged an alliance with the ousted rump of the Taliban to oppose the Hamid Karzai government and its American allies.
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin acquired a reputation for brutality during the five years of civil war that Afghanistan went through between the ouster of the communists in 1991 and the capture of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996.
[edit] The Hezbi-e-Islami Gulbuddin and Afghanistan's refugees
Many militias, both local and national opposed the communists during the decades of warfare that started with the Soviet occupation and was followed by civil war, and then the Taliban's attempts to assert control over a reluctant populace. According to Guantanamo captives, like Dr Said Mohammed Ali Shah the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin had a formal presence in the nations that surrounded Afghanistan, most notably Iran and Pakistan.[1][2]
According to several Guantanamo captives, refugees living in Iran, and to a lesser extent Pakistan, needed to carry some kind of official or semi-official identity papers, if they were to try to travel or work outside the refugee camps. They describe how it was routine for refugees from Afghanistan to go to the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin offices, and pay a fee for the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin officials to give them an identity card that satisfied Iranian and Pakistani police officials that they were legitimate refugees from Afghanistan.
According to Mohammed Aman it was routine for refugees from Afghanistan to pay for identity papers issued by the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin -- even if they had no other ties to the group.[1] [2]
Abdul Majid Muhammed, the only Guantanamo captive to describe himself as a Christian, described going to a Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin office to buy identification falsely identifying him as a refugee from Afghanistan so he could travel to Afghanistan to try to buy a large quantity of illicit drugs.[3] He said a confederate who was an Afghan refugee went to the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin office and paid 5,000 in Iranian currency, and swore an oath that they were brothers, in order for him to acquire the false identity papers.
When Akhtiar Mohammad asked for the HIG ID card he was alleged to own to be produced as evidence at his Combatant Status Review Tribunal his Tribunal's President told him:[4]:
"We have attempted to find it but have exhausted our resources here. Essentially even if we find it, it does not seem to provide us a lot of additional information. If at a later point its production becomes meaningful to your enemy combatant status, we will examine your request."
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mohammed Aman's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 31-41
- ^ a b c Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Mohammed Aman's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 113-125
- ^ a b Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Abdul Majid Muhammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 107-121
- ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Akhtiar Mohammad'sCombatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 43-52
