Everything about Abdullah Khan totally explained
Abdullah Khan is an
Afghani
held in
extrajudicial detention in the
United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in
Cuba.
Khan's Guantanamo ISN is 950. The
Department of Defense estimates he was born in 1956.
Background
Khan testified that he was a merchant, from the Northern,
Uzbek portion of
Afghanistan, who traveled to Southern
Kandahar Province in 2003, for the first time since before the
Taliban took power.
He testified he was threatened, in a Kandahar market place, by locals, who held animosity against him from his earlier visit decades earlier. He felt threatened, so went early to the home of his host
Haji Shahzada.
Khan testified that his host invited another man over for dinner and that they spent the evening playing cards.
The next day American forces arrested him, his host, and the other guest, based on a denunciation. Khan believed his enemies had falsely denounce him to the Americans, telling them he was the well-known Taliban Governor
Khirullah Khairkhwa. Khan believed his enemies collected a large bounty through the American bounty program.
Khan told his Tribunal that his American interrogators in Afghanistan insisted they knew he was lying about his identity. He told his Tribunal they insisted they knew he was really Khirullah Khairkhwa, and that if he didn't confess they'd send him to a worse place.
Khan told his Tribunal that he was sent to Guantanamo.
He told his Tribunal that the other captives informed him that Guantanamo already held the real Khirullah Khairkhwa,
that the real Khirullah Khairkhwa had been captured more than a year before he was captured.
Khan told his Tribunal that when his Guantanamo interrogators also insisted they knew he was Khirullah Khairkhwa he requested that they check the prison roster, and verify they already held the original Khairkhwa. He told his Tribunal that none of his interrogators checked the prison roster, because they kept leveling the accusation against him that he was Khirullah Khairkhwa.
Khan told his Tribunal that the
Summary of Evidence memo prepared for his Tribunal, which had been shown to him just a few days earlier, was the first time the accusation that he was Khirullah Khairkhwa was dropped.
Khan told his Tribunal that the allegations on his Summary of Evidence were brand new to him, that none of the questions his interrogators asked him were related to the allegations.
The main allegations against Khan's host Shahzada, and his fellow guest
Nasrullah were that they spent the previous evening with Khirullah Khairkhwa. Shahzada was one of the 38 captives whose Tribunal
determined he hadn't been an enemy combatant after all.
Washington Post Khan and Nasrullah's
Administrative Review Board hearing recommended their repatriation in 2005. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.]]
Initially the
Bush Presidency 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 couldn't evade its obligation to conduct
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 Presidency's definition of an
enemy combatant.
Summary of Evidence memo
A
Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for
Abdullah Khan's
Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on
January 5 2005.
The memo listed the following allegations against him:
» a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban:
#The detainee was a
Taliban cook for about two and one half months.
» #The detainee fought for two years in the
jihad against the
Soviets.
#The detainee was in charge of ammunition distribution during the
Russian jihad.
» b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition:
#The detainee is alleged to have been a
Taliban airfield commander.
» #The detainee may have information regarding attacks against the United States and coalition forces .
#The detainee is suspected of moving weapons.
» #The detainee discussed plans to conduct attacks against the United States and/or Coalition Forces .
#United States Forces arrested the detainee with two other detainees in
Kandahar Province.
Transcript
Khan chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
On
March 3 2006, in response to a
court order from
Jed Rakoff the
Department of Defense published twelve pages of summarized transcripts from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
For unexplained reasons the Guantanamo intelligence analysts who managed his case file separated the five pages that recorded the allegations and Khan's response to them from the rest of his testimony.
Response
In response to the allegatios:
- Khan denied being a member of the Taliban, or having any sympathy for their ideas.
- Khan acknowledged serving as a cook for the Taliban. He offered the following account of how he came to be a cook:
I came from the province of Oruzgan, Kandahar
Transcript
There is no record that Abdullah Khan chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.
Recommendations
The recommendations of his Board, to Gordon England, the Designated Civilian Official, were made public on September 4 2007.
The Administrative Review Board's recommendations quote Abdullah Khan's Assisting Military Officers' report from his Enemy Combatant election form that he declined to attend his Tribunal because he didn't want to return to Afghanistan -- that he wanted to live out the rest of his life in Guantanamo.[
The recommendations were heavily redacted.][
It isn't clear what the Board recommended. The Board's recommendation was unanimous.
But the Department of Defense only made public the recommendations of captives who the Designated Civilian Official had cleared for release or transfer from Guantanamo.]
Abdullah Khan's Board's recommendations contained three notable unredacted passages:[
]- Recruitment. Members of known terrorist organizations or known or suspected terrorist support organizations recruited the EC.
- (U) Organizational affiliations.. The EC has been a known affiliate of organizations that espouse terrorist and violent acts against the United States and its allies.
- (U) Behavior. The EC's behavior during interrogation and detention don't indicate that he poses a dangerous threat to the U.S. and its allies.Further Information
Get more info on 'Abdullah Khan'.
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