Qari Esmhatulla
Encyclopedia : Q : QA : QAR : Qari Esmhatulla
Qari Esmhatulla is a citizen of Afghanistan or Pakistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[list of prisoners (.pdf)], US Department of Defense, May 15 2006[Summarized transcripts (.pdf)] from Qari Esmhatulla's Administrative Review Board hearing - pages 1-7
Esmhatulla's Guantanamo detainee ID is 591.[list of prisoners (.pdf)], US Department of Defense, May 15 2006 The Department of Defense's official list of detainee names released on May 15 2006 estimates that Esmhatulla was born in 1984 in Ramsha, Pakistan. It states that he was a citizen of Pakistan. The official list released on less than four weeks earlier on April 20 2006 spelled his name Qari Esmhatullat, and stated that Esmhatulla had stated that he was a citizen of Afghanistan.[list of prisoners (.pdf)], US Department of Defense, April 20 2006
The Associated Press filed Freedom of Information Act requests to learn the identity of the Guantanamo detainees. [Pentagon releases more Guantanamo detainee names], The Jurist, May 15 2006 And the DoD filed appeals so they could deny those requests. The DoD exhausted their appeals. US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff issued a court order to the DoD giving them a deadline of 6pm March 3 2006. The DoD complied by releasing 5,000 pages of transcripts from detainee's Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Administrative Review Board hearings.
Most of the transcripts did not contain the detainee's name, referring to them only by their detainee ID number. Esmhatulla was one of the very few detainee's whose name was mentioned during the course of his transcript. So he was one of the first detainee's whose case was summarized in the press. [In Guantanamo Bay Documents, Prisoners Plead for Release: U.S. Makes First Public Accounting Of Detainees], Washington Post, March 5 2006[Guantanamo Bay: The testimony], BBC, March 4 2006 [Sketches of Guantanamo detainees-Part I], The State, March 15 2006
Those reports quoted Esmhatulla testifying that he served with the Taliban for just four days, and that he joined up to help his fellow Pashtun speaker fight the Farsi speaking tribes from the north, where the Northern Alliance was based, that he had not joined to fight Americans.
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.
Subsequently the [[Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.
Esmhatullat chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[Summarized transcripts (.pdf)], from Qari Esmhatulla's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 165-173
Administrative Review Board hearing
Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".
They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.
Esmhatullat chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[Summarized transcripts (.pdf)] from Qari Esmhatulla's Administrative Review Board hearing - pages 1-7
The factors for and against continuing to detain Esmhatullah were among the 121 that the Department of Defense released on March 3 2006.[Factors for and against the continued detention (.pdf)] of Qari Esmhatulla Administrative Review Board - page 77
''The following primary factors favor continued detention:
- 'a. Commitment
- #''The detainee admitted he agreed to join the Taliban and to participate in the jihad in Afghanistan.
- #''The detainee was aware that he would be joining with and supporting the Taliban forces, albeit for both religious reasons and in responding to a challenge as to why the detainee was remaining at home while other were fighting the United States and the Northern Alliance forces.
- #''The detainee was captured by the Afghans and turned over to the United States forces during Operation Anaconda.
- 'b. Training
- #''The detainee admitted he traveled to Shahi-Kwowt to join the Taliban military.
- 'c. Connections/Association
- #''The detainee advised that his brother was forced into fighting for the Taliban and died fighting the Northern Alliance.
- 'd. Intent
- #''The detainee demonstrated his intent to attack or maliciously engage the United States or its Allied interests by admitting he went to help the Taliban in their fight against the Northern Alliance.
- #''The detainee admitted he was carrying a radio and grenades while he was traveling to the Taliban forces to support them.
''The following primary factors favor release or transfer:
- 'a. Exculpatory data:
- #''The detainee was challenged as to why he was not helping the Taliban. The detainee stated that in his culture, Pashtu culture, it is a bad thing if you do not accept a challenge.
- #''The detainee denies engaging in any military action against the United States or the Northern Alliance.
- #''The detainee's position is that he did not fight against Americans, rather his intent was to fight against Farsi speaking people who have differences with the Pashtu speaking people like himself.
- #''The detainee intends to return to his village, help his father with the farm, and continue his religious studies.
- #''The detainee holds no animosity towards the United States government for its current involvement in Afghanistan or his incarceration.
- #''The detainee stated he did not believe his brother who was forced into fighting for the Taliban and subsequently died fighting the Northern Alliance was a martyr.
Opening statement
Primary factors favoring continued detention:
The Designated Military Officer read out a different set of factors than those in the factors memo.[Summarized transcripts (.pdf)] from Qari Esmhatulla's Administrative Review Board hearing - pages 1-7 [Factors for and against the continued detention (.pdf)] of Qari Esmhatulla Administrative Review Board - page 77
- ''The detainee admitted he greed to join the Taliban and participate in the jihad in Afghanistan.
- ''The detainee admitted he was carrying a radio and grenades while he was traveling to Taliban forces to support them.
- ''The detainee was aware that he would be joining with and supporting the Taliban forces, albeit for both religious reasons and in responding to a challegne as to why the detainee was remaining at home while others were fighting the United States and the Northern Alliance forces.
- ''The detainee admitted he traveled to Shahi-Kwowt to join the Taliban military.
- ''The detainee demonstrated his intent to attack or maliciously engage the United States or its allied interests by admitting he went to help the Taliban in their fight against the Northern Alliance.
- ''The detainee admitted he was carrying a radio and grenades while he was traveling to the Taliban forces to support them.
testimony
References
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.