Naqeebyllah Shaheen Shahwali Zair Mohammed

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Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah
Born: 1976 (age 31–32)
Khowst, Afghanistan
Detained at: Guantanamo
ID number: 834
Conviction(s): no charge, held in extrajudicial detention
Status Determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all

Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 834. Khowst, AF6/1/1976 The Department of Defense reports that he was born on June 1, 1976, in Khowst, Afghanistan.

Contents

[edit] Identity

Guantanamo captive 834's name was spelled differently by the Department of Defense:

  • His name was spelled Naqeebyllah Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen on the list released on April 20, 2006.[1]
  • His name was spelled Shaheen Naqeebyllah Shahwali Zair Mohammed on the list released on May 15, 2006.[2]

[edit] Summary

Naqeebyllah and his brother were brought, by their parents, to Pakistan, when they were children. They attended Pakistani schools, went to college, and became lab technicians. Naqeebyllah then worked his way through medical school. When the USA ousted the Taliban Naqeebyllah and his brother moved back to the area of Afghanistan where they were born, and set up a modern medical practice. Naqeebyllah felt that a doctor needed the support of a modern lab, with a well qualified lab technician, to provide proper medical care, and they had borrowed money to equip their lab, including purchasing an expensive X-ray machine.

Two of the allegations against Naqeebyllah concern notes he wrote the commander of a local American base.

When an American base was established nearby Naqeeblyllah said the first commander had relied heavily on Naqeebyllah, because he was well-educated, spoke English, and was respected the elders at the nearby villages. Naqeebyllah visited the local village councils with the officer. And, having done so, the village elders approached him to convey their requests to the local American commanding officer. Naqeebyllah got in to the habit of writing the local American commanding officer notes, in his less than perfect English.

When the first local American commanding officer was replaced, Naqeebyllah said he continued to write his replacement the same kind of notes he wrote the first officer. He didn't realize his notes weren't appreciated, and, instead, were triggering fear or resentment in this officer.

When the American base underwent a night-time rocket attack the officer said the rockets were fired from near Naqeebyllah's house, so he captured Naqeebyllah, and his brother, and they were sent to Guantanamo, where they remained for three years. Naqeebyllah and his brother were among the 38 captives whose Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined they had never been "enemy combatants" in the first place. So they were released two and a half to three years later, officially cleared of suspicion, but with no compensation for being held without charge, and with no idea what had happened to expensive lab equipment they had borrowed money to equip their modern lab.

Naqeebyllah is one of four physicians swept up in the search for terrorist suspects that filled the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the Bagram Theater detention facility. See also Fethi Boucetta.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive sat with his hands cuffed 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.
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive sat with his hands cuffed and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[3] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.[4]

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] Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Shaheen Naqeebyllah, Shahwali, Zair Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 5 January 2005.[5] The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.
  1. On 14 Oct 02, six rockets were launched from the east, firing on Firebase (FB) LWARA, a U.S. Facility in Afghanistan. The FB then observed a vehicle with its headlights off drive away from the scene of the launch and stop at a dwelling.
  2. The detainee was found in the dwelling in which the FB observed the vehicle with its headlights off drive away from the scene of the launch.
  3. A search of the compound revealed batteries, Kalashnikov rifles with loaded magazines, a signal mirror and a pistol.
  4. The detainee is associated and was involved in a meeting with a suspect arrested by United States during a raid on a suspected Taliban facility.
  5. Prior to the rocket attacks, the detainee had sent a handwritten threat to the FB LWARA leadership implying that there would be problems if more locals were not hired to work on the base.
  6. The detainee sent vaguely worded letters to the commander of the U.S. facility prior to the rocket attack.

[edit] Transcript

Naqeebyllah chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[6] On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a twenty page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[7]

[edit] Testimony

  • Naqeebyllah denied all knowledge of the rocket attack.
  • Naqeebyllah pointed out that there were no vehicles parked nearby when his American captors arrived, and his house was at the end of a dead-end lane, so whoever the American officer saw driving away from the site of the rocket launch could not have driven down his lane, without their vehicle being found by the American forces.
  • Naqeebyllah pointed out every Afghan household was allowed an AK47, for self-defense, because Afghanistan remained lawless, and his house contained two households, his household and his brother's. He said he and his brother's household contained ordinary mirrors for personal grooming, but no "signalling mirrors".

Naqeebyllah had no idea what the allegation about his meeting with an unnamed suspect meant.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The seventeen Afghan captives determined not to have been enemy combatants during their release ceremony in Afghanistan, on April 20, 2005.
The seventeen Afghan captives determined not to have been enemy combatants during their release ceremony in Afghanistan, on April 20, 2005.[8]

The Washington Post reports that Naqeebyllah, and his brother Mohammed. were among the 38 detainees who were determined not to have been enemy combatants during their Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[9][10] The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

The 17 Afghan captives whose Tribunals determined had not been enemy combatants were transferred to Afghan custody in mid April 2005.[8][11] Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari addressed the 17 men during their release ceremony on April 20, 2005. Carlotta Gall of the New York Times reported that the Chief Justice encouraged the men to regard their detention as something sent from God. The reports stated that the Chief Justice warned the cleared men that a candid description of their detention could damage the chances of other Afghan captives to be released.

"Don't tell these people the stories of your time in prison because the government is trying to secure the release of others, and it may harm the release of your friends."

Chief Justice Fazil Hadi Shinwari is also reported to have distinguished between three categories of Guantanamo captives.[8][11]:

"There are three kinds of prisoners in Guantanamo. There are those that have committed crimes and should be there, then there are people who were falsely denounced, and third there are those who are there because of the mistakes of the Americans."

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, April 20, 2006
  2. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  3. ^ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ OARDEC (5 January 2005). Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- Shaheen Naqeebyllah, Shahwali, Zair Mohammed pages 21-22. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
  6. ^ OARDEC (date redacted). Summarized Statement pages 22-28, 64-76. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
  7. ^ "US releases Guantanamo files", The Age, April 4, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-03-15. 
  8. ^ a b c "17 Afghans, Turk home from Guantanamo Bay", China Daily, April 20, 2005. Retrieved on 2008-04-18. "Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said the 17 Afghans and the Turkish man had been cleared of accusations they were enemy combatants during the Combatant Status Review Tribunal process that recently ended. Five others cleared in late March already had been sent home and another 15 await transfers home." 
  9. ^ Guantanamo Bay Detainees Classified as "No Longer Enemy Combatants", Washington Post
  10. ^ "Detainees Found to No Longer Meet the Definition of "Enemy Combatant" during Combatant Status Review Tribunals Held at Guantanamo", United States Department of Defense, November 19, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-15. 
  11. ^ a b Carlotta Gall. "17 Afghans Freed From Guantánamo Prison", New York Times, April 20 2005. Retrieved on 2008-04-18. "In a brief ceremony, Chief Justice Fazil Hadi Shinwari told the 17 men that they were free to return home and he tried to reconcile them to the idea their imprisonment was something sent from God. Some prisoners in Guantánamo were guilty and deserved to be imprisoned, he said, but others were innocent victims of false accusations or military mistakes, or were duped into supporting terrorism." 
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