Mohommad Zahir

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Mohommad Zahir is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Zahir's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 1103. American intelligence analysts estimate that Zahir was born in 1953, in Ghazni, Afghanistan.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 1.1 Allegations
- 1.2 Opening statement
2 Administrative Review Board hearing
3 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]

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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.

Zahir chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[5]

[edit] Allegations

All of the detainees were supposed to have the allegations against them read aloud at the beginning of their Tribunals. Most of the detainees were offered an opportunity to hear the allegations read out a second time, when they were usually offered an opportunity to hear them again, so they could respond to each one of them in turn. When detainees chose to respond to each allegsation in turn, the allegations were usually included in the transcript.

Zahir's transcript doesn't record the allegations against him, and it doesn't record whether he was offered an opportunity to respond to each of the allegations in turn.

[edit] Opening statement

Zahir told his Tribunal he doesn't understand why he is being detained.

Zahir told his Tribunal that, in the dying days of the Taliban regime, he was working in Iran, when a senior fleeing Taliban operative's car got stuck in the mud in front of his house. He said that the Taliban operative talked his wife into accepting some papers. He was angry with her when he got home, and told his Tribunal if he was home he would never have accepted the papers.

He went to the Governor, who arranged for the car and its weapons to be taken into custody. But no one picked up the papers. The Governor told Zahir not to worry about the papers, because the Taliban was finished.

Zahir said he when Russians left he sold all his weapons. The only fighting he had done was against the Russians. He acknowledged that he served as a cook for them, for three months, in the final year of their regime. They wanted him to be a fighter. He was forcibly conscripted. He didn't want to fight, so he told them he didn't know how. He said they told him if he couldn't be a fighter he would have to be a cook. He got out of his military service by paying a 100,000 Rupee fine.

Zahir pointed out that it didn't make sense to imagine he was a Taliban sympathizer. After the Taliban fell, and the Karzai government came into power, he opened a secular school -- something the Taliban would hate.

[edit] Administrative Review Board hearing

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

The factors for and against continuing to detain %s were among the 121 that the Department of Defense released on March 3, 2006.^[6]

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment

Detainee confessed to knowing and working with people involved in Taliban/Anti-Coalition Movement activities and offered to lead soldiers directly to weapons/arms caches.

b. Connections/Associations

Detainee was captured in July 2003 because of his association with the Taliban. Detainee possessed information associated with weapons caches, arms dealings and Taliban personalities.
Detainee admitted he worked for the Director of Intelligence for the Taliban government.
Detainee was employed by the Taliban in the Secret Information Office in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Detainee also performed as a servant to the commanders in Ghazni, Afghanistan, until the fall of the Taliban.
Detainee was captured in the same raid as another detainee.
The other detainee, with whom the detainee was captured, was the Chief of Logistics for a Taliban owned cooperative company. The company provided logistical support directly to the Taliban government and was closely associated with Taliban Intelligence.
The detainee went to Iran when the Taliban were exiled and the new government was getting organized.
Detainee was captured with a fax from a newspaper in Iran. The fax was requesting that Qari ((Ahmedullah)) interview Usama Bin ((Laden)) and included a list of questions related to the September 11,2001.
Qari Ahmadullah was the former Chief of Intelligence for the Taliban.

c. Intent

Detainee was captured with a map of San Manuel, Cuba, phone books with entries of personnel in a U.S. government terrorist tracking cell, business cards, passports and pictures.

[edit] The following primary factors favor release or transfer:

a.	The detainee stated he has not been associated with the Taliban since his conscription first ended.
b.	The detainee stated he never plotted against coalition forces, or the new government in Afghanistan.

[edit] Transcript

Zahir responded to the factor presented to his Administrative Review Board hearing with a memorandum.^[7]

[edit] Zahir's responses to the factors favoring his continued detention

Zahir wrote:

"I had no knowledge of weapons caches."
"I'm not Talib and had no affiliation with Taliban."
"I waa a schoolteacher and I graduated from school."
"I never dealt with intelligence and I have never been a spy."
"Prior to ^[sic] Taliban occupation, I was a civil servant in the Province of Gazni, working for the police department. During the Taliban I left my job and when Karzai took power I resumed my old job."
"I was the only one arrested at my home. No Chief of Logistics was living at my house."