Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar
Encyclopedia
Transcript
Tahar chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review TribunalCombatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...
.
In response to a court order
Court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...
the Department of Defense was forced to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request and publish a sixteen page summarized transcript from Tahar's Tribunal.
Administrative Review Board hearing
Administrative Review Board
The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the suspects held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....
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.
First annual Administrative Review Board
A Summary of Evidence memoSummary of Evidence (ARB)
Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Administrative Review Board hearings of approximately 460 captives in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba from December 2004 to December 2005.-Release of the memos:...
was prepared for Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar's first annual Administrative Review Board, on 2 June 2005.
The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.
The following primary factors favor continued detention
The following primary factors favor release or transfer
Transcript
Tahar chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.In response to a court order
Court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...
the Department of Defense responded to a Freedom of Information Act request and published a twelve page summarized transcript from his first annual Review Board in the spring of 2006.
Second annual Administrative Review Board
A Summary of Evidence memoSummary of Evidence (ARB)
Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Administrative Review Board hearings of approximately 460 captives in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba from December 2004 to December 2005.-Release of the memos:...
was prepared for
Mohammad Ahmad Ali Tahar's second annual
Administrative Review Board,
on
22 March 2006.
The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.
The following primary factors favor continued detention
The following primary factors favor release or transfer
Third annual Administrative Review Board hearing
A Summary of Evidence memoSummary of Evidence (ARB)
Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Administrative Review Board hearings of approximately 460 captives in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba from December 2004 to December 2005.-Release of the memos:...
was prepared for Mohammad Tahar's third
annual Administrative Review Board on April 10, 2007.
The following primary factors favor continued detention
The following primary factors favor release or transfer
Board recommendations
On January 9, 2009, the Department of Defense released two heavily redacted memos, from his Board, to Gordon England, the Designated Civilian Official.Press reports
Canadian journalist, and former special assistant to US President George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, David Frum
David Frum
David J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
, published an article based on his own reading of the transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, on November 11, 2006.
It was Frum who coined the term "Axis of evil
Axis of evil
"Axis of evil" is a term initially used by the former United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 and often repeated throughout his presidency, describing governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction...
" for use in a speech he wrote for Bush.
Tahar's transcript was one of the nine Frum briefly summarized.
His comment on Tahar was:
Frum came to the conclusion that all nine of the men whose transcript he summarized had obviously lied.
He did not, however, state how he came to the conclusion they lied.
His article concluded with the comment:
Habeas petition
A petition of habeas corpusHabeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
was filed on his behalf
Over two hundred captives had habeas corpus petitions filed on their behalf before the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v...
closed off the captives' access to the US civilian justice system.
On June 12, 2008, in its ruling on the Boumediene v. Bush
Boumediene v. Bush
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 , was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba...
habeas corpus petition, the United States Supreme Court over-rode the Congress and Presidency, and restored the captives' access to habeas corpus.
On 18 July July 2008 Pardiss Kebriaei filed a "Petitioner's status report" on Mohammed Ahmed Taher's behalf in Civil Action No. 06-cv-1684.
The Detainee Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act
Mohammad Ahmad Taher had a DTA appeal filed on his behalf.The United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v...
. Both these Acts included provisions to close of Guantanamo captives' ability to file habeas corpus petitions.
The Detainee Treatment Act included a provision to proscribe Guantanamo captives who had not already initiated a habeas corpus petition from initiating new habeas corpus petitions.
The Act included provision for an alternate, more limited form of appeal for captives. Captives were allowed to submit limited appeals to panels of three judges in a Washington DC appeals court. The appeals were limited—they could not be based on general principles of human rights. They could only be based on arguments that their Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...
had not followed the rules laid out for the operation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
Nine months later Congress passed the Military Commissions Act.
This Act contained provision to close off all the remaining outstanding habeas corpus petitions. After the closure of the habeas corpus petitions some Guantanamo captives had appeals in the Washington DC court submitted on their behalf, as described in the Detainee Treatment Act.
The DTA appeals progressed very slowly.
Initially the Department of Justice argued that the captive's lawyers, and the judges on the panel, needed consider no more evidence than the "Summary of Evidence memos"
Summary of Evidence (CSRT)
Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of the 558 captives who remained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba in the fall of 2004.-The 2005 release:...
prepared for the captives' CSR Tribunals. By September 2007 the Washington DC court ruled that the evidence that formed the basis of the summaries had to be made available.
The Administration then argued that it was not possible to present the evidence the Tribunals considered in 2004—because the evidence had not been preserved.
Only one captive, a Uyghur captive named Hufaiza Parhat, had his DTA appeal run to completion. On 20 June [2008 his three judge panel concluded that his Tribunal had erred and that he never should have been confirmed as an enemy combatant
Nlec
No Longer Enemy Combatant, is a U.S. military term for Guantanamo detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined they have not been classified as "enemy combatants".Thirty-eight detainees were finally classified as "NLECs"....
.
Repatriation
Carol RosenbergCarol Rosenberg
Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist, currently with the McClatchy News Service.Rosenberg works at the Miami Herald, which has provided extensive coverage of the operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.-Biography:...
, writing in the Miami Herald reported that
Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher
was one of twelve men transferred from Guantanamo on December 19, 2009.
The other eleven men were:
Ayman Batarfi,
Jamal Alawi Mari,
Farouq Ali Ahmed,
Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami,
Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf,
Abdul Hafiz,
Sharifullah,
Mohamed Rahim
Mohamed Rahim
Mohamed Naeem Rahim is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba.His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 1104.The Department of Defense reports he was born in Ghazni....
,
Mohammed Hashim,
Ismael Arale and
Mohamed Suleiman Barre.
Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim were Afghans
Afghan captives in Guantanamo
According to the United States Department of Defense, there were over two hundred Afghan detainees in Guantanamo prior to May 15, 2006.The Guantanamo Bay detention camp was opened on January 11, 2002....
.
Asmael Arale and Mohamed Suleiman Barre were Somalis.
The other five men were fellow Yemenis
Yemeni captives in Guantanamo
The United States were holding a total of 112 Yemeni citizen at Guantanamo Bay.By January 2008 the Yemenis in Guantanamo represented the largest group of detainees....
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External links
- Guantánamo: A Prison Built On Lies Andy Worthington