Muhammad Hamid Al Qarani

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Muhammad Hamid Al Qarani (also transliterated as Mohamed el Gharani) is a citizen of Chad, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Qarani's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 269. American intelligence analysts estimate Al Qarani was born in 1986.

On June 15, 2005 Human Rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith identified Al Qarani as one of a dozen teenage boys held in the adult portion of the prison. ^[2] According to Smith Al Qarani was born in November 1987.

On May 28, 2006 The Independent said Al Qarani was accused of plotting with Abu Qatada, in London, in 1999 -- when he was a 12 year old, living with his parents, in Saudi Arabia.^[3]

Main article: minors detained in the global war on terror

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Boston Globe investigations
3 Questioning over the June 10th 2006 suicides
4 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.

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.

[edit] Allegations

A memorandum summarizing the evidence against Al Qarani prepared for his Combatan Status Reiew Tribunal, was among those released in March of 2005.^[4] The allegations Al Qarani faced were:

a. The detainee is a member of al Qaida and the Taliban:

The detainee traveled to Pakistan in late 2001 ^[5] on a fake passport.
The detainee has been associated with al Qaeda [sic] members.
The detainee is identified as a member of the Bahrain Defense Organization.
The detainee is a low level al Qaida fighter.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the U.S. and its Coalition partners.

The detainee was recruited for military training at the al Farouq training camp.
The detainee received military training, including use of AK-47's [sic].
The detainee reportedly may have fought^[6] against U.S. and coalition troops in Tora Bora.

[edit] Testimony

Al Qarani chose to dictate a statement for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[7]

[edit] Missing evidence

Al Qarani had requested his Personal Representative to present his student visa as evidence to his Tribunal that he had traveled to Pakistan to study computers and had never traveled to Afghanistan. His Personal Representative told the Tribunal he had been unable to locate Al Qarani's passport and evidence in the evidence locker.

The Tribunal briefly recessed, to consider this development, and when it reconvened the President announced:

“It was determined that this Visa like his passport would also be under a false name and therefor is truly irrelevant to the proceedings at this time. The Tribunal has determined that the document is irrelevant and we will not pursue anything further in trying to locate it.”

[edit] Al Qarani's statement

Al Qarani's Personal Representative told the Tribunal Al Qarani asked him to present the evidence on his behalf.

Al Qarani's Personal Representative did not mention Al Qarani's youth.

Al Qarani had acknowledged acquiring a false passport:

“I actually did leave Pakistan in late 2000 and in doing so I had to obtain a fake passport. The reason is because I was born in Saudi Arabia but my family was from Chad. I had to go to the Chad Embassy to find out if I could obtain a passport. They allowed me to get one under a different name; which made the passport fake.”

Al Qarani had denied having any contact with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Al Qarani had stated he was caught in Karachi, Pakistan and sold to the Americans for $5,000. He said he was not a fighter. He denied ever having been to any training camps.

Initially Al Qarani’s Personal Representative told his Tribunal that Al Qarani was captured in Saudi Arabia, after September 11th, 2000, when he went to the Police Station to report that he had lost his passport.

The Tribunal President confirmed a note on Al Qarani detainee election form that his Personal Representative had not mentioned:

“the detainee requested to have the airport confirm that he left Saudi only once. That was a month to a month and a half prior to 9/11 to go to Jeddah and then Karachi. Truly that is not relevant to what we are talking about and there is no way to confirm that obviously without his passport. We just wanted to address that since it is on the Detainee Election Form.”

The Tribunal reconvened, twice, to correct errors the Personal Representative made.

Al Qarani had traveled to Pakistan in late 2001, not 2000.
Al Qarani was not arrested in Saudi Arabia. He was arrested in Pakistan, “amongst Arabic and Saudi people.”

[edit] Boston Globe investigations

On July 14, 2006 the Boston Globe reported on investigations they made to test the credibility of the allegations against Guantanamo detainees.^[8] Al Gharani was one of the detainees who they profiled.^[9]

The Globe reported that Al Gharani was alleged to have been part of a cell, in London, lead by Abu Qatada, "circa 1998" -- when Al Gharani was 11 or 12 years old.^[9] According to the Globe:

"Chito Peppler, a Pentagon spokesman, said the date referred to when 'Abu Qatada became active.' He maintained that it was possible that Gharani had been a part of the cell before his arrest at 14."

Al Gharani's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith pointed out that Al Gharani had never traveled to England.^[9]

Smith also offered an example of how allegations arose against Al Gharani due to the DoD's lack of qualified translators.^[9] In Al Gharani's dialect of Arabic 'zalati' is a tomato. In his translator's dialect of Arabic 'zalati' meant money. His translator asked Al Gharani where he would go to get money, back home, and Al Gharani dutifully listed all the grocery stalls where he could buy tomatoes.

[edit] Questioning over the June 10th 2006 suicides

The Department of Defense reported, on June 10, 2006, that three detainees committed suicide.

Main article: Guantanamo suicide attempts

The camp commander, Admiral Harry Harris, called the suicides, "an act of asymetrial warfare". One reaction of the camp authorities to the suicide was to seize all their papers, even their confidential communication with their lawyers. Leaks from the camp authorities fueled rumors that the camp authorities had reason to believe that detainee's lawyers had actively conspired with the detainees in arranging the suicides. The camp authorities claimed that one of the suicide notes was written on stationary that the camp authorities made available to detainee's lawyers.

The Washington Post reports that the lawyer camp authorities have focussed their suspicion on was Clive Stafford Smith.^[10] Stafford Smith reports that his client Mohammed el-Gharani, one of the youngest of the Guantanamo detainees, has been interrogated, at length, trying to establish a tie between him and the suicides.^[11] In a letter to the Associated Press Stafford Smith wrote:

"The interrogator said I told my clients to kill themselves, and word was passed to the three men who did commit suicide."

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Stafford Smith claims: "...soldiers have threatened to move el-Gharani to Camp 5, a maximum-security facility, if he does not implicate Stafford Smith in the suicides.".^[11]