| Mustaq Ali Patel | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1962 (age 49–50) |
| Citizenship | France |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| Alternate name | Haji Muhammed, Hazi Ahmed Ali Mustafa Patel Abu Mohammed |
| ISN | 649 |
| Status | Determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all. |
Mustaq Ali Patel is a citizen of France best known for the time he spent in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 649.
Patel, Khaled Ben Mustapha, and Ridouane Khalid were the last French citizens held at the base. They were released in March 2005 and placed under formal investigation by a judge in Paris upon their return but Patel was not prosecuted and released.[2]
Patel was born in India, around 1965, presumably the Western province of Gujarat, but has French nationality through his marriage to a Creole woman, Benedicte Acapandie, from Réunion.[3] He was reported to have been an imam at a French mosque on the Indian Ocean island before going to Afghanistan. Some news reports also question his state of mental health at the time of his arrest by U.S. forces in 2001.
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Patel was among the 60% of prisoners who participated in the tribunal hearings.[4] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee. The memo for his hearing lists the following allegations:[5][5]
- A: The detainee is associated with al Qaida.
- The Detainee traveled to Afghanistan after II September 2001.
- The Detainee provided false identification upon his capture.
- A visiting delegation from Saudi Arabia verified that the Detainee was not of the Saudi Nationality.
- The Detainee even changed his story after his capture.
- The Detainee was apprehended in Afghanistan.
Patel told his Tribunal he was beaten by his initial captors to force him to falsely claim to be a Saudi. He claimed he had been beaten so badly that his memory and cognitive abilities had never recovered.
The Washington Post reports that Patel was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[6][7] They report that Patel has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.
A writ of habeas corpus, Ahmed v. Bush (05-cv-0665), was filed on his behalf.[8] On that habeas corpus petition he was identified as "Hazi Ahmed".
In September 2007 the United States Department of Defense published 179 dossiers in response to captives' habeas petitions.[9] But they did not publish his.
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