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Adel Hassan Hamad is a citizen of Sudan, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 940. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate he was born in 1958, in Port Sudan, Sudan. Adel Hassan was repatriated to Sudan without charges on December 12, 2007.[2]
Combatant Status Review[]
- Main article: Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Hamad 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. His memo accused him of the following:[4][5]
- a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida.
- The detainee was employed by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Afghanistan and Pakistan for approximately one and one half years until the time of his capture 18 July 2002.
- WAMY supports terrorist ideals and causes.
- During the Period 1986 through 1999, the detainee was employed by Lajanat Dawa Islamiya (LDI) in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- LDI has been one of the most active Islamic non-governmental organizations to give logistical and financial support to mujahaddin operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan area.
- During the course of his duties with LDI, the detainee came in contact with persons who held positions of responsibility in al Qaida.
On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a seven page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[6]
Administrative Review Board[]
Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee may pose if released or transferred, and whether there are other factors that warrant his continued detention.[7]
Allegations[]
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for his Administrative Review Board.[8]
The following primary factors favor continued detention
- a. Commitment
- The detainee related he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan during the early 1980's [sic]. He stated he was a student in school and his friends joined the group, so he did as well.
- The detainee was a member of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood until 1986.
- The detainee took a teaching job with the Hira Islamic Institute in 1986 where he worked until 1999.
- The detainee worked for the Hira Institute as a teacher at the Jelazee Refugee Camp. The Hira Institute is run by an organization named Lajnat Al-Da'wa al Islamia (LDI).
- Lajnat Al-Da'wa al Islamia (LDI) is a non-governmental organization that operated in Afghanistan and may be affiliated with Usama Bin Laden and al Qaida operations.
- In 1996 the detainee received a promotion and moved from Hira Institute to the LDI office in Peshawar, Pakistan. In 1997 the detainee was promoted again to the head of the Public Relations Division in Peshawar, Pakistan.
- After being laid off from LDI in 1999, the detainee was hired as the Director of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) Hospital in Afghanistan.
- WAMY is a non-governmental organization operating in Afghanistan that may be affiliated with Usama Bin Laden and al Qaida operations.
- According to top WAMY officials, both the United States and Israel must be destroyed. WAMY provides financial support to the Palestinians fighting against Israel. In addition, WAMY has put forward a proposal that the Palestinians should declare open war on Israel.
- After the 9/11 attacks, and due to the war and increased violence in the area, the detainee was told by Afghan government officials to leave Afghanistan.
- A 23 September 2001 copy of "The Brotherhood Letter" published by the Muslim Brotherhood Information Center was found during the capture raid in the detainee's home.
- Several identification documents were seized from the detainee's home at the time of the raid and his arrest, including a [sic] U.N. refugee card for his downstairs neighbor.
- The detainee initially claimed neither the Muslim Brotherhood newsletter nor copies of his neighbor's United Nations refugee cards reportedly found at his home were his.
- The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) developed as a fundamentalist Islamic belief community in Egypt. Foundations of organizations under the umbrella of the Egyptian MB were in other Arab countries and started the armed fight by MB activists. They attacked what the considered to be un-Islamic representatives of the government of Egypt based on its cooperation with Russia. The MB developed into an underground organization.
- The detainee stated he did have copies of "The Brotherhood Letter" in his residence, as he was a former member of the Musllim Brotherhood.
- b. Connections/Associations
- The detainee met Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at the Jelazee Refugee Camp in 1987. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed operated a "cultural center" located at the camp. The center was used to prepare Afghan people who had been recruited for the jihad against the Russians.
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's older brother, Zahid Al-Sheikh, was the director of the Jelazee Refugee Camp and LDI in Peshawar, Pakistan.
- Zahid Al-Sheikh has been identified from other sources as an extremist with terrorist ties.
- The detainee stated he was familiar with Shamshatoo Refugee Camp.[9] He distributed food to the camp on two occasions. The detainee stated the camp was run by Gulbidden Hekmatyar.[10]
- Gulbuddin Hikmatyar (variant of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) found Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) as a faction of the Hizb-I Islami party in 1977, and it was one of the major mujahedin groups in the war against the Soviets. HIG has long established ties with Bin Laden.
- In the early 1990s, Hikmatyar ran several terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and was a pioneer in sending mercenary fighters to other Islamic conflicts. Hikmatyar offered to shelter Bin Laden after the latter fled Sudan in 1996.
The following primary factors favor release or transfer
- a. The detainee took a vacation to Sudan in June 2002. Before he returned to the office, detainee called his supervisor to find out about the situation of NGOs in Peshawar, Pakistan after hearing about the arrests of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society workers. He was told that everything was normal, and that they needed him back at work.
- b. The detainee stated Al-Zawahiri and Usama Bin Laden were not Muslims and any acts their group perpetrated were against the Muslim faith.
- c. The detainee did not know of any connections between WAMY and al Qaida.
- d. The detainee did not like what the al Qaida stood for.
- e. The detainee believed the al Qaida/WAMY connection to be a false accusation.
- f. The detainee did not know any al Qaida individuals through relationship or just meeting.
Transcript[]
Hassan chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[11] In early 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a seventeen page summarized transcript from his first annual review board hearing.[6]
Representing Adel: The Case of Guantanamo Detainee 940[]
William Teesdale, a Portland, Oregon public defender, who is part of a team defending several Guantanamo captives, wrote a description of his team's work representing Adel.[12] He wrote:
- "Then, in May, 2005, the Government produced the factual return, as ordered by the District Court. We learned something stunning. There was a dissenting voice on the military CSRT panel that declared Adel an Enemy Combatant. An army major, whose name is classified, had the courage to file a dissenting report calling the result in Adel’s case 'unconscionable.'"
Teesdale described traveling to Afghanistan, and searching for witnesses who could prove Adel's innocence.[12] Teesdale wrote:
- "All of the information gathered in this investigation was filed with the court in Mr. Hamad’s case in the form of a motion for summary judgment. On October 17th, 2006 President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which attempts to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Guantanamo detainee habeas cases. All of our cases are presently stayed pending resolution of this issue."
Habeas corpus[]
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On October 5, 2007 the lawyers for Adel Hassan Hamad filed an affidavit from an officer who had served with OARDEC who had criticisms of the process.[13] The officer, an Army reservist whose name was redacted, was a prosecutor in civilian life. He wrote of the Tribunals: ``"training was minimal" -and- ``"the process was not well defined". The officer had sat on 49 Tribunals.
CBS News reports that the unnamed officer is a Major, who participated in meetings with the admiral in charge of OARDEC to discuss six instances where Tribunals that had determined captives were innocent had those determinations reversed by extraordinary second Tribunals.[14] CBS News speculated that the Army major was the Tribunal member who recorded a minority opinion in Adel Hassan Hamad's case, calling his detention "unconscionable" because it was not based on sufficient evidence.
The Army major has described "acrimony" at a meeting convened to discuss why some Tribunals determined Uyghur captives in Guantanamo were not enemy combatants, when other Tribunals determined they were, even though the Uyghurs cases were so similar.[14]
James R. Crisfield, the Legal Advisor who reviewed Tribunal determinations for "legal sufficiency" commented on the reasoning of the "dissenting Tribunal member":
The dissenting tribunal member also opined that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the detainee was part of or supporting al Qaeda forces engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its coalition partners. In analyzing whether there was sufficient evidence to support a Tribunal's decision I have customarily used the test of whether there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable finder of fact to have found the detainee was an enemy combatant by a preponderance of the evidence. Given the low evidentiary hurdle posed by a preponderance of the evidence standard[15] and the rebuttable presumption of genuiness and accuracy that attaches to the Government evidence, I believe that that the test is satisfied in this case. That is to say that reasonable finders of face could determine that this detainee meets the definition of "enemy combatant" based on the evidence presented.
Release[]
He and fellow Sudanese Salim Mahmud Adam were repatriated on December 13, 2007.[16] InFocus, a Muslim newspaper in California, extensively quoted from him, after his release:
- "When the [US] war started in Afghanistan, all foreigners left [for] Pakistan."
- "I only wanted to help refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
- "I was woken up by Pakistani intelligence officers who told me not to move and asked for my papers."
- "We were taken in a cargo plane, tied to the floor. It took nearly 20 hours to get there."
- "They accused me of helping Taliban and al-Qaeda. I asked how so? They said that was secret information. I was accused of being an enemy combatant but I never carried weapons."
Lawsuit[]
On May 14, 2008 the Daily Times of Pakistan reported that "Salim Mahmud Adam" and "Adel Hasan Hamad" had announced plans to sue the United States government over their detention.[17] The article reports that he told the Daily Times that his 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal had cleared him of the allegation that he was an "enemy combatant".
Hassan filed suit against the government and several individuals in federal district court in Seattle in April, 2010.[18] His case was bolstered by an affidavit from Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a former aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who stated that top U.S. officials, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, had known that the majority of the detainees initially sent to Guantánamo were innocent, but that the detainees had been kept there for reasons of political expedience.[19][20]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ OARDEC (May 15, 2006). "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. http://www.dod.mil/news/May2006/d20060515%20List.pdf. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
- ↑ Adel Hassan – The Guantánamo Docket [1] The New York Times
- ↑ OARDEC, Index to Transcripts of Detainee Testimony and Documents Submitted by Detainees at Combatant Status Review Tribunals Held at Guantanamo Between July 2004 and March 2005, September 4, 2007
- ↑ OARDEC (date redacted). "Summarized Statement". United States Department of Defense. pp. pages 37–43. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/Set_52_3643-3869.pdf#37. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
- ↑ OARDEC (19 November 2004). "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal - Hamed, Adel Hassan". United States Department of Defense. pp. page 69. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/000600-000699.pdf#69. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1
US releases Guantanamo files [2] April 4, 2006 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>
tag; name "TheAge20060404" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ "Annual Administrative Review Boards for Enemy Combatants Held at Guantanamo Attributable to Senior Defense Officials". March 6, 2007. http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3902. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
- ↑ OARDEC (28 June 2005). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Adel Hussein, Hassan". United States Department of Defense. pp. pages 56–58. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_1_Factors_000694-000793.pdf#56. Retrieved 2007-10-09.
- ↑ The camp was spelled "Shamshani" in the transcript from his hearing.
- ↑ The militia leader's name was spelled "Gulduddin Hekmatyar" in his hearing transcript.
- ↑ OARDEC (date redacted). "Summarized Detainee Transcript". United States Department of Defense. pp. 244–260. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Transcript_Set_9_21017-21351.pdf#244-260. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Representing Adel: The Case of Guantanamo Detainee 940 [3] William Teesdale January 11, 2007
- ↑ Second Army Officer Faults Gitmo Panels [4] Ben Fox October 6, 2007
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Freed Gitmo Detainee Tells Of Desecration [5] October 6, 2007[dead link]
- ↑ The preponderance of the evidence standard my be simply stated as "more likely than not."
- ↑ Two men speak of their lost years at Gitmo [6] Ismail Kamal Kushkush March 2008
- ↑ Two ex-Guantanamo detainees to sue US [7] Akhtar Amin May 14, 2008
- ↑ "Sudanese Man Sues After Release From Guantanamo", The New York Times, April 7, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/07/us/AP-US-Guantanamo-Detainee-Lawsuit.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Adel%20Hassan%20Hamad&st=cse, retrieved 2010-04-11[dead link]
- ↑ Reid, Tim (April 9, 2010), "George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'", The Times (London), http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7092435.ece, retrieved 2010-04-11
- ↑ Wilkerson, Lawrence (March 24, 2010). "DECLARATION OF COLONEL LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON (RET.)" (PDF). Truthout. http://www.truthout.org/files/Wilkerson.pdf.
Further reading[]
- Wax, Steven T. (2008). Kafka comes to America. Other Press. ISBN 9781590512951.
External links[]
- Sudanese ex-Guantánamo detainees demand release of fellow citizens and compensation for “mental and physical torture” Andy Worthington
- Sudanese man sues after release from Guantanamo
- Former Guantánamo prisoner asks U.S. to review its founding ideals
- The Shocking Stories of the Aid Workers Just Released From Gitmo
- projecthamad.org -The story of Adel Hamad with an emphasis on the Habeas Corpus
- Guantanamo Unclassified - Hamad's Lawyer's video featuring interviews with Adel Hamad's co-workers (youtube)
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