Adel Fattough Ali Al Gazzar

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Adel Fattough Ali Al Gazzar is a citizen of Egypt, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Gazzar's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 369. The Department of Defense reports that Al Gazzar was born on October 22, 1965, in Cairo, Egypt.

Al Gazzar is one of five detainees that Egypt sought to have sent home on November 19, 2004.^[2]

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Press reports
3 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

The caption to this poster, distributed by the CIA in Afghanistan, reads: “You can receive millions of dollars for helping the Anti-Taliban Force catch Al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. This enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

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.

Al Gazzar chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[3]

[edit] Allegations

The allegations Al Gazzar faced during his Tribuanl were:

a. -- missing from the transcript ==

Detainee became a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) in 2000.
The LT is the armed wing of the Pakistan based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad. LT is also an anti-U.S. terrorist organization.
The detainee admitted being present at the LT-controlled major training facility in Northern Pakistan referred to as "Al Aqsa" in January 2001. Al Aqsa was created to facilitate the training and movement of Pakistani Muslim guerilla fighters.
Detainee voluntarily traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.
The Egyptian government has stated that detainee is a member of the Egyptian terrorist organization Al Wa'ad and was part of the plot to assassinate President Mubarek in 1995.)

b. -- missing from the transcript ==

The detainee was injured during a U.S. bombing campaign. He was wounded by shrapnel in the leg.
While being treated for his leg wound, the detainee was captured by the Pakistani Intelligence Service, then turned over to U.S. forces.

[edit] Testimony

In response to the allegations against him in the “Summary of Evidence” Al Gazzar replied:

[edit] Training at the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba camp

He denied he had ever been a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, or that he had ever said he was a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
- He acknowleged meeting some people who were members. He argued that it made as much sense to state that meeting Lashkar-e-Tayyiba members made him a member as it would to say metting the Tribunal members made him a member of the US Army.
- He pointed out that the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba only accepted members who were from Pakistan, and that he was from Egypt.
Al Gazzar said that the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba was supported by and tied to Pakistan Government.
The Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is composed of believers from the one of the branches of Islam that was opposed by, and opposes, the believers who compose the Taliban and al Qaeda. This makes it very unlikely the groups would be allies. Members of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba who traveled to Afghanistan could expect to be immediately discharged.
Al Gazzar acknowledged paying a two day visit to the Al Aqsa facility. He didn’t train there. As an Egyptian officer he didn’t need any training.

“...I visited the camp for two days. I didn’t train there. I was an Egyptian Officer. I don’t need any kind of training. I visited the camp after I was invited by the LT. It is not actually a camp it is a joke. It’s not a camp it is several tents on the top of a mountain. They take people from the streets and give them training on the Kalashnikov AK-47 then send them to Kashmir to fight. About 95% of them are killed crossing the border by India. If you want to visit this camp you can go to Pakistan and ask anybody and they will tell you where it is. It is not a secret camp. Anybody can visit there it is an open camp.”

Al Gazzar’s Personal Representative added some details from their interview:

The Al Aqsa camp was sponsored by the ISI.
He would not have been allowed to train there, because he was not a Pakistani.
Al Gazzar cut short his visit to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba camp when he heard it described as a terrorist group on the BBC.

[edit] Wounded during the US Bombing campaign

Al Gazzar acknowledged traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan during Ramadan, around the end of November 2001. He was working for the Saudi Red Crescent. He was working at a Saudi Red Crescent refugee camp on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The camp provided refugees with medicine, tents, food and clothes. He made a brief crossing to help refugees, and was caught in an Americn air raid two hours later, and woke up in a Pakistani hospital in Quetta.

While he was in the hospital in Quetta he received visits from the Governor, and other Pakistani big-wigs. When he tried to talk to them about the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba they warned him not to rock the boat. After 25 days in the hospital in Quetta he was told that he was going to be moved to a more modern hospital, where the surgeons would be able to take better care of his leg. Instead he was transferred to American custody. The Americans took him to Cuba, where he lost his leg.

[edit] The Mubarek assassination allegation

Al Gazzar responded to the allegation that he was involved in the assassination attempt as follows:

“This has got to be a very big joke. I was in Egypt from 1995 to 2000. I didn’t leave Egypt until August 2000. The attempt occurred in 1995, which means I stayed there for five years after this attempt. Do you think I would stay there for five years if I were involved in such a thing? Besides that in January 2004, the Egyptian Government sent a delegation to Guantanamo. They met me twice here. After the interview they sent a report to the CIA. They mentioned in the report that I am not a member of any organization either in Egypt or outside Egypt and that I was not involved in the assassination attempt. They daid I should be released at once because I was innocent. This report is in my file. I was told about the report from the Egyptian delegation and from my interrogator Big Jim. After the delegation left the island, Big Jim, stood up when I entered the room, shook my hand, said thank you and said I would be released.

Al Gazzar pointed out that the assassination attempt occurred in Ethiopia, while he was at home in Egypt.

[edit] Concluding statement

Al Gazzar pointed out that he was given a polygraph in April 2004, which he passed with flying colors.

[edit] Response to questions from the Tribunal's officers

Al Gazzar confirmed the two hour excursion he made the day he was wounded was his only visit to Afghanistan.

Al Gazzar said he had his ID papers with him when he made his excursion.

Al Gazzar said he traveled from the refugee camp, into Afghanistan, to drive to a village near the border for religious work.

When Al Gazzar was asked why he thought the Pakistanis turned him over to the Americans. He responded that he believed he was sold for a bounty of $10,000.

[edit] Press reports

On July 12, 2006 the magazine Mother Jones provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantanamo detainees.^[4] Al Gazzar was one of the detainees profiled. According to the article his transcript contained the following exchange:

algazzar: I am disappointed with this tribunal because if I am in a court and you accuse me of anything I should be allowed to know what the accusations are and to see the evidence. You tell me that these accusations are unclassified but there are other classified accusations. How can I defend myself if I don’t know what the evidence is about the other accusations?...

tribunal member: If I can clarify a little bit before you start. These are all the accusations. What we will get in the classified session is in theory evidence to support these accusations, but there are no other accusations against you besides what is listed here.

algazzar: I understand that but what I mean is if you say I am an enemy combatant and you say you have evidence, I don’t get to see it. Then I will stay here….

tribunal member: Do you have any theories about why the government and the Pakistani intel folks would sell you out and turn you over to the Americans?

algazzar: Come on, man, you know what happened. In Pakistan you can buy people for $10. So what about $5,000?

tribunal member: So they sold you?

algazzar: Yes.

Former George W. Bush speech writer David Frum reported, on November 11, 2006 on his reading of the transcripts of nine Guantanamo detainees.^[5] About al Gazzar Frum wrote:

“A former Egyptian army officer acknowledged that he had undergone training in Afghanistan at a camp run by the Kashiri group, Lashkar-i-Taibi. However, he said, he had been listening to the BBC in February 2001 and heard an announcer describe LiT as a terrorist organization. After that, he said, he quit the group and had never had anything to do with them again. How had he supported himself in Afghanistan over the following year? He had, he said, relied on charity from his fellow Muslims.”