No Longer Enemy Combatant, (NLEC) is a U.S. military term for Guantanamo detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined they have not been classified as "enemy combatants".[1]
Thirty-eight detainees were finally classified as "NLECs".[2] The fifth Denbeaux report, "No-hearing hearings", reported that an additional three Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined that captives should not have been determined to have been enemy combatants, only to have their recommendation overturned.[3]
The Washington Post has published a list of the names of 30 of the 38 individuals who were determined not to have been enemy combatants.[2] None of the detainees who were determined not to have been enemy combatants were released right away. Ten of the detainees who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants were allowed to move to the more comfortable Camp Iguana. Others, such as Sami Al Laithi, remained in solitary confinement.
The delay in the release of some of the detainees was due to considerations of the detainees safety. Some of the detainees could not be returned to their home countries, out of fears of retaliation from their fellow citizens, or the governments of their countries. Some, like Al Laithi, were returned to their home countries after the U.S. secured a promise that they would not be punished by their home countries. Others, like five of the Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo, were released when the U.S. found a third country which would accept them.[4][5]
Three further captives who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, who had been occupants of Camp Iguana since May 2005, were released in Albania in November 2006.[6][7][8]
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The fifth Denbeaux study, entitled No-hearing hearings, revealed that some Guantanamo captives had second or third Combatant Status Review Tribunals convened when their first Tribunal determined that they had not been enemy combatants after all.[9]
H. Candace Gorman, the pro bono lawyer for Abdel Hamid Ibn Abdussalem Ibn Mifta Al Ghazzawi described her surprise when she learned that her client had initially been determined not to have been an enemy combatant, after all.[10] Gorman described traveling to the secure site in Virginia, the only place where lawyers were allowed to review their client's classified files. She was told that the justification for convening her client's second Tribunal had been that the DoD had new evidence. But, when she reviewed the transcript of his second Tribunal she found that there had been no new evidence.
Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham came forward and swore an affidavit, describing his experience sitting on Al Ghazzawi's Tribunal.[11][12][13][14][15]
On 19 November 2007, the Department of Defense published a list of the 38 men finally deemed to be no longer enemy combatants in 2004.[16]
| isn | name | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 142 | Fazaldad | Returned to Pakistan on 17 September 2004[17] |
| 208 | Maroof Saleemovich Salehove | Date of release to Tajikistan unknown |
| 248 | Saleh Abdall Al Oshan | Repatriated to Saudi custody on 20 July 2005[18][19] |
| 260 | Ahmed Adil | Sent to Albania with four other Uyghurs |
| 276 | Akhdar Qasem Basit | Sent to Albania with four other Uyghurs |
| 279 | Mohammed Ayub | Sent to Albania with four other Uyghurs |
| 283 | Abu Bakr Qasim | Sent to Albania with four other Uyghurs |
| 287 | Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy | Repatriated to Egypt, after assurances |
| 293 | Adel Abdulhehim | Sent to Albania with four other Uyghurs |
| 298 | Salih Uyar | Released to Turkey on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 357 | Abdul Rahman | Date of return to Afghanistan unknown. |
| 457 | Mohammad Gul | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 459 | Gul Zaman | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 491 | Sadik Ahmad Turkistani | Uyghur born in Saudi Arabia, repatriated to Saudi Arabia |
| 561 | Abdul Rahim Muslimdost | Release to Pakistan, disappeared mysteriously |
| 581 | Shed Abdur Rahman | Date of release to Pakistan unknown |
| 586 | Karam Khamis Sayd Khamsan | Date of release to Pakistan unknown; charged with attempting to assassinate US ambassador to Yemen in December 2005;[20][21] acquitted on 13 March 2006[22][23] |
| 589 | Khalid Mahomoud Abdul Wahab Al Asmr | Returned to Jordan on 19 July 2005[17] |
| 631 | Padsha Wazir | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 649 | Mustaq Ali Patel | Returned to France on 7 March 2005[17] |
| 672 | Zakirjan Asam | Set free on 17 November 2006[17] |
| 712 | Hammad Ali Amno Gadallah | Returned to Sudan on 19 July 2005[17] |
| 716 | Allah Muhammed Saleem | Released to Albania on 7 January 2007, where he applied for asylum[24] |
| 718 | Fethi Boucetta | Released to Albania rather than his home of Algeria |
| 730 | Ibrahim Fauzee | Citizen of the Maldives, release date unknown |
| 812 | Qalandar Shah | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 834 | Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 835 | Rasool Shahwali Zair Mohammed Mohammed | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 929 | Abdul Qudus | Youngest person ever detained at Guantanamo only 14 years old when he arrived in Guantanamo early 2002, he returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 952 | Shahzada | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 953 | Hammdidullah | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 958 | Mohammad Nasim | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 986 | Kako Kandahari | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 1013 | Feda Ahmed | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 1019 | Nasibullah | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 1041 | Habib Noor | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
| 1117 | Jalil | Returned to Afghanistan on 11 March 2005[17] |
| 1157 | Hukumra Khan | Returned to Afghanistan on 18 April 2005[17] |
On 17 January 2009, Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, quoted Guantanamo spokesman Jeffrey Gordon, that a panel of officers had recently reviewed Bismullah's "enemy combatant" status, and determined, "based on new evidence", that he was not an enemy combatant after all.[25] Bismullah was released to Afghanistan on January 17.