Mesh Arsad Al Rashid

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Mesh Arsad Al Rashid is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] Al Rashid's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 074.[2] American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Rashid was born in 1980, in Sana'a, Yemen.

On March 3, 2006, the Department of Defense released 5,000 pages of documents about the detainees, in partial compliance with a court order from US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff.[3] Transcripts from Al Rashid's Combatant Status Review Tribunal were among those documents.

Contents

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a trailer the size of a large RV. The captive sat on a plastic garden chair, with his hands 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. The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a trailer the size of a large RV. The captive sat on a plastic garden chair, with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[4][5] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.[6]
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

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.

Al Rashid chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[7][8] For some reason the Department of Defense released Al Rashid's transcript twice.

[edit] Press reports

When the Department of Defense first release its thousands of pages of transcripts most transcripts were only identified by a detainee ID number. A few transcripts contained the detainee's name in the body of the transcripts. Initial press reports focussed on the cases of those detainees. Al Rashid was one of those detainees.

According to an Associated Press story Al Rashid told his Combatant Status Review Tribunal he: "went to Afghanistan to help Muslims fight against Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former northern warlord now the Afghan army chief of staff, and Ahmed Shah Massoud, an anti-Taliban Afghan military commander slain September 9, 2001.[9]

Al Rashid told his Combatant Status Review Tribunal:

  • "I did not know my training would be considered al-Qaeda training. I was trying to help Muslims,"[1]
  • "I never had a weapon. I never carried a weapon with me and I've never been in any kind of armed fight ... I always knew America as a democratic country and always heard positive things about America. I believe that after 9/11 America became very aggressive and that's probably the only reason I'm here."[10]
  • "I am not from the Taliban. I'm just a person, a helper."[9]

[edit] allegations

Most detainee's transcripts incorporate the unclassified allegations against the detainee, and their responses, if any, to the allegations. The allegations against Al Rashid are incomplete:[11]

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban.
  1. -- absent from the transcripts --
  2. Detainee trained for approximately 1 month with approximately 30 students at the Al Farouq training camp.
  3. Detainee received training on the Kalashnikov rifle, hand grenades, and PK machine gun [sic] while at the Al Farouq training camp.
b. -- absent from the transcripts --
  1. -- absent from the transcripts --
  2. Detainee surrendered to Rashid Dostum's forces.
  3. Detainee was on the secondary line near Kabul, Afghanistan when the 11 September 2001 attacks occurred.

[edit] Repatriated on December 29, 2007

A captive named "Mishaal Saad Al-Rasheed" was repatriated on December 29, 2007, with nine other men.[12]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Suit leads to disclosure of 5,000 pages of transcripts from secret hearings, The Scotsman, March 5, 2006
  2. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  3. ^ Pentagon releases documents naming Guantanamo detainees, Lexur
  4. ^ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror
  5. ^ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mesh Arsad Al Rashid's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 1-8
  8. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf) from Mesh Arsad Al Rashid's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 22-29
  9. ^ a b Details of Some Guantanamo Hearings, Las Vegas Sun, March 4, 2006
  10. ^ Guantanamo - Inmates' testimonies, The Independent, March 6, 2006
  11. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mesh Arsad Al Rashid's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 1-8
  12. ^ P.K. Abdul Ghafour. "10 More Return From Guantanamo", Arab News, December 29, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.