Padsha Wazir

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Padsha Wazir 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 631. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1972, in Kundai, Afghanistan

[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 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.

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

[edit] allegations

Most transcripts repeat the allegations against the detainee. The allegations against Wazir can only be guessed at by interpolation from the issues he addressed in his opening statement. One of the allegations seems to be that he secured villages for a renegade named Padsha Khan.

[edit] testimony

Wazir denied all the allegations.

Wazir said that as the Taliban fell he and his brother joined a local informal militia, that welcomed the Americans. His brother was shot in the leg. But it was part of a local feud, not due to the Taliban. Wazir took his brother to a hospital, in Pakistan. The car he and his brother were traveling in was stopped at the border. There was an American soldier there. He believes that one of the Afghan guards was affiliated to the other side in the local feud, and that he denounced him to the American with a false allegation.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Wazir was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[6] They report that Wazir has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

[edit] References

1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror
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. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Padsha Wazir's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 28-36
6. ^ Guantanamo Bay Detainees Classifed as "No Longer Enemy Combatants", Washington Post