Gul Zaman

Gul Zaman is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 459. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1971, in Khowst, Afghanistan. His father and uncle were reported to have been born in Zamikhel, a Zadran village in Khowst.

Zaman, and seventeen other Afghan detainees determined not to have been "enemy combatants" were repatriated on April 18, 2005.^[2][3]

Summary

Zaman is the son of Khan Zaman, and the nephew of Abib Sarajuddin. The three of them, and their neighbor, Mohammad Gul, were captured on January 21, 2002.^[4] Zaman, and Mohammad Gul were released when their testimony at thie Tribunals confirmed that they were entitled to carry Pakistani passports, and those passports confirmed that they were in Saudi Arabia when American forces bombed their village. Abib Sarajuddin and Khan Zaman's Tribunals confirmed that they had originally been wrongly classified as "enemy combatants.

Combatant Status Review

Zaman was among the 60% of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings.^[5] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee.

Zaman's memo accused him of the following:^[6][7]

a. The detainee is associated with forces that engaged in hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners.

1. The detainee traveled from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia in 2001.
2. The detainee utilized counterfeit travel documents for his travel to Saudi Arabia.
3. The detainee returned to Afghanistan at the time the Northern Alliance recaptured Kabul.
4. The detainee's family and village members stated an important Taliban member used the detainee's father's guesthouse.
5. The detainee lives with his father, Hajji Sarajudeen.
6. The detainee's father worked as a recruiter for Pacha Khan.
7. Pacha Khan, a renegade Pashtun Commander, has been conducting military operations against the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA) and coalition foces.
8. The detainee stated he owns one or two Kalashnikov [sic] rifles with 30 rounds of ammunition.
9. The detainee was captured with communications equipment.
10. The detainee admits seeing this type of equipment in the possession of Taliban members.
11. Coalition forces were fired upone during the capture of the detainee and three associates.

Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

Zaman was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[8][9] The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

Zaman was freed on April 20, 2005 with sixteen other Afghans whose Tribunals had determined they were not enemy combatants. The Associated Press reported that their release ceremony was addressed by Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari.^[10] Carlotta Gall of the New York Times reported that the Chief Justice encouraged the men to regard their detention as something sent from God.^[11] 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."

Zaman was one of the three captives who chose to address the Press.^[11] He was quoted as saying:

"There were some old people there, some of them are still there. And it is very amazing that somebody who was taken from his home stayed for three years in prison. The prison has nothing to commend it. There were difficulties. The other problems the world knows about,"[11]

Both reports quoted Chief Justice Fazil Hadi Shinwari distinguishing three categories of captives^[10][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."

Subsequent Bagram detention

On January 15, 2010, the Department of Defense complied with a court order and published a heavily redacted list of Captives held in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.^[12] There were 645 names on the list, which was dated September 22, 2009. Historian Andy Worthington, author of the The Guantanamo Files, noted that three of the individuals on that list had the same name and ID number as former Guantanamo captives.^[13] He noted that all the other Bagram captives had ID numbers that weren't in the same range as those used at Guantanamo, and he asserted that these three men, Gul Zaman, Khandan Kadir and Hafizullah Shabaz Khail were in fact former Guantanamo captives.

References

External links

• A NATION CHALLENGED: CIVILIANS; Villagers Say Errors by U.S. Causing Grief For Innocent