Mohammed Rafiq (Guantanamo detainee 495)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mohammed Rafiq is a citizen of Pakistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba.^[1] Rafiq's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 495. American intelligence analysts estimate Rafiq was born in 1980, in Kabal, Pakistan.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 References

[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.^[2]^[3] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.^[4]

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.

[edit] Allegations

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef was one of those 169 detainees.^[5]

The allegations Rafiq faced, during his Tribunal, were:

a. Detainee is a member of the Taliban.

Detainee joined the Taliban to fight against the Northern Alliance and United States.
Detainee stated that he attended an anti-western rally and then joined the jihad against the Americans.
Detainee claims to be connected with the Tarik Nafaz SharIati Muhammed Molakand Organization (TNSIMM) or Tarik Nafaz Shariati Muhammedi Molakan Danija (TNSMMD) which brought over five thousand people to Mazer-E-Sharif ^[^sic] from Pakistan for Jihad in November of 2001.
The Tarik Nafaz Shariati Muhammedi Molakan Danija is a Pakistan based Islamic militant group that is based in the Northeast portion of Pakistan that was sent to Mazer-E-Sharif ^[^sic] to fight with the Taliban forces.