Ibrahim al Qosi
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| Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi | |
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| Born: | July 3, 1960 Khartoum, Sudan |
| Detained at: | Guantanamo |
| ID number: | 054 |
| Conviction(s): | One of the ten captives to originally face charges before a military commission. |
Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi (إبراهيم أحمد محمود القوسي) (born 1960) is a Sudanese citizen and alleged paymaster for al-Qaida.[1] He was captured in December, 2001 in Afghanistan. Qosi is held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[2] Qosi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 54. The Department of Defense reports that Qosi was born on July 3, 1960, in Khartoum, Sudan.
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[edit] Background
Al Qosi has a brother named Abdullah.
[edit] Charged before military commissions
On February 24, 2004, he was named in documents for the first military commissions to be held for detainees.[3] The U.S. alleges that he joined al-Qaida in 1989 and worked as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, as well as working as a quartermaster for al-Qaida. He is also alleged to have been the treasurer of a business which was an al-Qaida front.
He was indicted along with Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul. The indictment should allow them access to defense lawyers to prepare their defenses. He is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, including attacking civilians, murder, destruction of property and terrorism.
Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Shaffer USAF was appointed Qosi's lawyer on February 6, 2004.[4]
On August 27, 2004 Shaffer complained that she was not being provided with information she needed for her defense of Qosi, that Qosi had informed her that the quality of translation at his military commission was insufficient for him to understand what was happening.[5] She told the Tribunal that she had to resign as Qosi's attorney.
According to the Voice of America, Chief Prosecutor Colonel Robert L. Swann assured the commission that:
- "...all resources will be devoted to obtaining the most accurate translations possible.[5]"
On November 9, 2004 legal action against Qosi was suspended,[6] US District Court Justice James Robertson of the US District Court's had ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that the military commissions violated International agreements to which the United States was a signatory. This ruling applied to all four of the detainees who had been charged by the military commission.
On July 15, 2005 a three judge appeal panel over-turned Robertson's ruling, setting the commissions back in motion.
On November 7, 2005 the US Supreme Court announced that they would be reviewing Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Qosi's case was stayed, pending the outcome of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.[7]
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in July 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to set up the military commissions. Only Congress had the authority to set up military commissions. Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But,
On February 9, 2008 Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi and Ali Hamza Suleiman Al Bahlul were charged before the Congressionally authorized Guantanamo military commissions authorized by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.[8][9]
[edit] Phoning home
On May 22, 2008 Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Paul, the Presiding Officer of his Commission ordered, that Ibrahim al Qosi be permitted his first phone call home.[10][11] He has declined to leave his cell to meet with Commander Suzanne Lachelier his assigned legal counsel, and the Camp's security rules do not permit her going to his cell to talk to him -- so they have never discussed his case. During a preliminary hearing Ibrahim Al Qosi told Paul he does not want to be represented by an American lawyer. He said that he had been unable to hire the lawyer of his choice because he had been isolated in Guantanamo, and had been unable to contact his family.
Later that day Commander Pauline Storum, a Guantanamo spokesman, reported that the call had been completed, and that he had spoken with his family for an hour.[10][12][13]
On May 23, 2008 Storum sent an apology by e-mail to reporters to retract her claim the phone call had been completed.[12][13]
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- I misspoke when I confirmed that al Qosi's call was complete. In clarifying the current status of the detainee phone program, I misunderstood the information I was given, and inaccurately conveyed that al Qosi's call was completed.
- I apologize for the error.
Ibrahim Al Qosi's appointed counsel, Suzanne Lachelier, told Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, that she was surprised to learn, through press reports, that the call had been completed.[12] She said she had only begun to initiate the co-ordination with the Red Cross to arrange for his family to be set up to receive the call when she learned the call had already been completed. According to Rosenberg:
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- The original statement Thursday struck some observers as extraordinary -- for both its speed and the coordination between the separate bureaucracies of the prison camp and the war court.
The Department of Defense has until July 1, 2008 to arrange the phone call.[13]
[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal
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.
[edit] Summary of Evidence memo
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 14 September 2004.[14]:
- a. The detainee is a member of al Qaeda:
- The detainee admitted he traveled from Sudan to Afghanistan to train for and fight the Jihad in 1990.
- The detainee attended Al Farouq training camp and trained on the following weapons: Makarov 9mm pistol, Seminov, AK-47, AKSU-74, RGD-5 [sic] Offensive Hand Grenade, F-1 Antipersonnel Grenade, and M-43 120mm Mortar.
- The detainee was deployed to the Mujahadin front line in Afghanistan in 1990.
- The detainee was asked to work as an accountant for Usama Bin Ladin in Khartoum, Sudan in December 1991.
- The detainee met Usama Bin Ladin at a guesthouse in Khartoum, Sudan and worked for Bin Ladin's Taba Commercial Company in 1992, as the treasurer-accountant.
- The detainee wrote to Usama Bin Ladin requesting to go to Chechnya to fight the Jihad in 1995, where he used the M-43 120mm Mortar.
- The detainee joined Usama Bin Ladin in the Tora Bora Mountains in September or October of 1996.
- The detainee resided at the Star of Jihad compound with Usama Bin Ladin from 1996 through part of 1997, where he was in charge of the kitchen.
- b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition.
- The detainee traveled back and forth between the front lines of Kabul and Kandahar, Afghanistan around the time of the 1998 U.S. Embassay bombings, and 2001.
- The detainee fought the Jihad in Kabul because Massoud's forces threatened the city.
- The detainee fled to Tora Bora after September 2001.
- The detainee fled Tora Bora with his Kalishnikov rifle for the Pakistani Border, where he was captured by Pakistani tribes and turned over to Pakistani officials.
[edit] Transcript
There is no record that Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
[edit] References
- ^ On Trial At Gitmo: Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, CBS News, August 24, 2004
- ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
- ^ 2 Gitmo Prisoners To Stand Trial, CBS News, February 24, 2004
- ^ Two Guantanamo Detainees Assigned Legal Counsel, US State Department, February 6, 2004
- ^ a b Week of Hearings for Accused Terrorists Wraps Up in Guantanamo, Voice of America, August 27, 2004
- ^ Guantánamo: Military commissions - Amnesty International observer’s notes, No. 3 -- Proceedings suspended following order by US federal judge, Amnesty International, November 9, 2004
- ^ Pentagon moves ahead in trial of Canadian teenager, Reuters, December 1, 2005
- ^ Jane Sutton. "US military charges two more Guantanamo captives", Reuters, February 9, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
- ^ J. Treanor. "Charge Sheet: Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi", Office of Military Commissions, February 8, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25. mirror
- ^ a b Carol Rosenberg. "Terror suspect phones Sudan to hire own lawyer", Miami Herald, May 22, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25. "Within hours of a judge's order, an accused al Qaeda conspirator from Sudan got a call from home Thursday to consult with his family on how they might hire him a lawyer, at their own expense." mirror
- ^ "Guantanamo judge orders military to allow detainee phone call home to Sudan", International Herald Tribune, May 22, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b c Carol Rosenberg. "Guantánamo: Detainee didn't get call from home", Miami Herald, May 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25. "A military spokesman erred last week by telling journalists that an alleged al Qaeda conspirator at Guantánamo received a Red Cross-assisted telephone call from home." mirror
- ^ a b c Jane Sutton. "Guantanamo phone report was in error, U.S. says", Reuters, May 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-25. mirror
- ^ OARDEC (September 14, 2004). Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- Al Qosi, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud pages 65-66. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2007-10-06.
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