Omar Abdulayev

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Omar Hamzayevich Abdulayev is a citizen of Tajikistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Abdulayev's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 257. The Department of Defense reports that Abdulayev was born on October 11, 1978, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

[edit] Combatant Status Review

CSRT notice read to a Guantanamo captive.

Initially the Bush administration asserted they could withhold the protections of the Geneva Conventions from captives in the War on Terror, while critics argued the Conventions obligated the United States to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals, to determine whether the captives met the new definition of an "enemy combatant".

The trailer where CSRTs were convened.

From July 2004 through March 2005, a CSRT was convened to make a determination whether each captive had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Omar Abdulayev among the two-thirds of prisoners who chose to participate in their tribunals.^[2]

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal, listing the alleged facts that led to his detainment. Omar Abdulayev's memo accused him of the following: ^[3]

A memorandum summarizing the evidence against Abdulayev prepared for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, was among those released in March of 2005.^[4]

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida and the Taliban:

The detainee was captured carrying numerous documents, including three handwritten notebooks with information on weapons systems; extensive information about counterintelligence architecture and methods; extensive references to chemistry and poisons.
The detainee was captured carrying a small black book containing information on fighters associated with the Islamic Group ^[^sic] Nahzat-Islami and weapon serial numbers associated with names of mujahidin fighters.
The detainee was a member of the Islamic fundamentalist group Nahzat-Islami.
Nahzat-Islami is a Tajik Islamic fundamentalist group that fought against the Russian-backed government of Tajikistan.
The detainee studied in a madrassa for at least a year under the Taliban, and received terrorist training in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, from several instructors in military doctrine, intelligence, weapons, training methods, and terrorist operations.
The detainee lived at Camp Babu in Pakistan from early 2001, until his capture.
The Taliban and al Qaida trained male and female suicide attackers at Camp Babu in Pakistan.

Abdulayev responded to each allegation, in turn, as they were read out loud:

Abdulayev said that when he was captured by Pakistani intelligence officials, in a Pakistani bazaar, all he was carrying were two personal letters. He said that first the intelligence officials tried to shake him down for a bribe. He said that when he told them he was a poor refugee who could not afford to pay any bribes. They then gave him three printed books, and told him to copy them out in longhand. He says he refused, so they beat and tortured him, until he complied. Once he had completed the copies they handed him over to the Americans. When he told the American interrogators he was just a poor refugee, they told him they knew he was lying because the Pakistani intelligence had supplied them with the three handwritten notebooks in his hand-writing. He explained their provenance, but the Americans didn't believe him.
Abdulayev's explanation of the small book was the same as the three notebooks. Corrupt Pakistani intelligence officials made him copy the information in his handwriting.
Abdulayev denied being a member of the Nahzat-Islami party. He arrived in Afghanistan, as a refugee, who didn't know anyone.
Abdulayev said he was about 12 or 13 years old when he arrived in Pakistan. As the oldest child he had to stop his education, and work in construction to help support his younger siblings.

Abdulayev had the following exchange with one of his Tribunal officers.

Q:	*You told us you were in a bazaar and the Pakistani intelligence people just suddenly came and arrested you one day?*
A:	Yes. Things were pretty bad in Pakistan and Afghanistan in those days. Pakistanis were looking for any foreigners in those days. Anywhere they would see a foreign looking person, they would immediately arrest them.
Q:	To hear your story, it seems they went through an awful lot of effort to have you write down these very specific accusations ^[sic] . I'm just wondering why they would do that if you were just a poor refugee, as you said.
A:	They knew that when they made me do that...they knew that the more evidence they created, the more dangerous they made me, the more money they would make from the Americans. There was a reason for that.
Q:	*Did you ever have any trouble with Pakistani authorities before?*
A:	No, sir. Before that, there wasn't any problem for refugees until the war with the Americans. As soon as the Americans went to Afghanistan, it became a good opportunity for Pakistan to make money out of this war. They started arresting people everywhere.
Q:	*Are there other people that were arrested with you and now at the camp as well?*
A:	I was by myself when I was captured. When I was moved to Khad, I saw many arrested because they were not Pakistani looking.