Mohammad Gul (Guantanamo detainee 457)

Mohammad Gul is an Afghan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 457. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1962 in Zamikhel, Afghanistan.

Summary

Three neighbors of Mohammad Gul, Abib Sarajuddin, his brother, Khan Zaman, and his son Gul Zaman, were captured during the same raid as Mohammad Gul.^[2] American forces had bombed Abib Patel's house, on November 16, 2001, when they received a tip that he had allowed a fleeing Taliban leader to stay overnight in his guesthouse. On January 21, 2002 American forces raided the village to arrest Abib Sarajuddin. They arrested Mohammad Gul because they didn't understand he was legally entitled to carry a Pakistani passport, and because his house contained a "signalling mirror".

He and his neighbour Gul Zaman convinced their Tribunals that their passports were legitimate, and that they confirmed they were not in Saudi Arabia when American forces bombed the village.

Combatant Status Review

Gul was among the 60% of prisoners who participated in the tribunal hearings.^[3] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee. The memo for his hearing lists the following:^[4]

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

1. The detainee was seized in an open-air area near a suspected Taliban facility.
2. A Kalashnikov rifle was confiscated from the detainee's home the night he was arrested.
3. The detainee was captured with communications equipment.
4. Coalition forces were fired upon from the direction of a suspected hostile facility during the seizure of the detainee and his associates.
5. The detainee was captured with Sarajuddin, a recruiter for Pacha Khan.
6. Pacha Khan, a renegade Pashtun Commander, has been conducted military operations against the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA) and coalition forces.
7. It is alleged that Jalaluddin Haqqani, used Sarajuddin's guesthouse for shelter.
8. Jalaluddin Haqqani was the Taliban Minister of Frontiers and Tribal Affairs.
9. The detainee has been working for HIG since it began.
10. The HIG is listed in the United States Department of Homeland Security's "Terrorist Organization Reference Guide".

Release

According to the transcript from Khan Zaman's Administrative Review Board hearing Mohammad Gul and Zaman's nephew Gul Zaman were deemed not to have been enemy combatants after all.^[5] He said there were given letters certifying that they were not enemy combatants.

McClatchy interview

On June 15, 2008 the McClatchy News Service published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Mohammed Gul.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} Mohammed Gul only reported being beaten once in US custody, in the Kandahar detention facility.

Mohammed Gul said he was interrogated very infrequently, during the three and a half years he spent in Guantanamo, and that when he was interrogated his interrogators asked him to explain why he was being held, to which he replied^[12]:

"I said please let me know my crime; I am not Taliban, I am not al Qaida. They had no answer. They just said they were writing down what I said."

Mohammed Gul told his interviewers that he had great difficulty coping with the isolation and long detention^[12]:

"One day I beat my head against a bar in my cell until I was unconscious."

Mohammed Gul was then confined to the wing of the prison for psychiatric cases.^[12] He told his interviewer that he had not been able to curb his racing thoughts, and had not been able to return to work. He asked his interviewer whether he thought there were any American psychiatrists in Kabul.

References