| Faiz Muhammed Ahmed Al Kandari | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 3, 1975 Kuwait City |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| ISN | 552 |
| Charge(s) | Charge October 2008 |
| Status | Still held in Guantanamo |
Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen who has been detained in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.[1] He has been charged with war crimes.[2]
The US Department of Defense reports he was born on June 3, 1975 in Kuwait City.
Al Kandari has been held at Guantanamo for 9 years, 9 months and 25 days.[3]
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His Combatant Status Review Tribunal accused him of the following: "The detainee (Al Kandari) recruited personnel to participate in jihad in Afghanistan ... traveled into Afghanistan and received weapons training at the Khaldan training camp. Osama bin Laden personally provided religious instruction and trainee (sic) at this camp."[4] Al Kandari has always denied the accusations and said: "I looked at all the unclassified accusations; I was laughing so hard." and "All this happened in a period of three months ... I ask, 'Are these accusations against Faiz or against Superman?' It seems to me that whoever wrote these accusations he must (have) been drinking and he must have been drunk when he wrote it."
Lawyers for two Guantanamo detainees organized a study entitled, No-hearing hearings, which cited Al Kandari as an example of a detainee for whom all the evidence against him was "hearsay evidence".[5][6]
The study quoted the Tribunal's legal advisor:[5]
"Indeed, the evidence considered persuasive by the Tribunal is made up almost entirely of hearsay evidence recorded by unidentified individuals with no first hand knowledge of the events they describe."
The study commented:[5]
“Outside of the CSRT process, this type of evidence is more commonly referred to as 'rumor'.”
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard lead attorney from the Office of Military Commissions, published an article about citing hearsey evidence against his client.[7] Lieutenant Colonel Wingard said "Vague charges made it difficult to defend his client after he was assigned in October to represent a Kuwaiti named Fayiz al-Kandari". In trying to prepare his case, Lieutenant Colonel Wingard said:
"There simply is no evidence other than he is a Muslim in Afghanistan at the wrong time, other than double and triple hearsay statements, something i have never seen as justification for incarceration, let alone eight years."[7]
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard and Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari, pertaining to the harsh treatment and enhanced interrogation techniques that Fayiz was continually subjected to. The abuse included sleep deprivation, physical abuse, being placed in stress position, sexual humiliation, and the use of extreme temperature, loud music and dogs.[8][9]
Ask about the alleged mistreatment his mother who has not seen her son for 10 years his mother said:
"What do I feel? You know a mother's heart. I cry all the time and I never sleep at night."
In November 2011 Wingard expressed as well outrage over a propaganda video that the DOD had published.
"My first thought was that there is no way the United States government sank so low as to show my client to the world, caged like a circus animal."[10]
In a recently conducted interview with TPMmuckraker, Mr. David Cynamon—a lawyer for four Kuwaiti Gitmo detainees who are bringing habeas corpus claims against the government.[11]
"The Department of Justice has been doing everything in its power to delay and obstruct these cases," said Cynamon
Cynamon's clients were picked up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in the period after the 2001 U.S invasion of Afghanistan.
"They're not doing anything to move the case along, and doing everything to avoid it."
Asked whether he had observed a shift of any kind in the government's approach since the Obama administration came into office, Cynamon flatly replied
"None whatsoever."
In even more Habeas Corpus news, a Federal Judge in Washington is on a tear against alleged bad lawyering by the Justice Department.[12]
In a stinging order issued today, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to reconsider an earlier and similarly scathing order requiring the Justice Department to replace the government's attorney responding to challenges several Kuwaiti men have brought to their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay. How mad was the judge? Her salvo Monday uses the words "shockingly revisionist," "flippant" and "disingenuous" to describe the government's handling of the litigation.
"The responsibiltiy lies with the higher ups in the Justice Department who have been pursuing a very aggressive and very successful strategy of delay for months"
attorney Matthew Maclean said.
"The Supreme Court said in June of last year we were entitled to prompt habeas corpus review. ... Last month, ... for the first time in seven years, [the prisoners] were allowed to see the accusations against them."
On 22 October 2008 the Office of Military Commissions filed charges against Al Kandari.[13]
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