- Faiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari
-
Faiz Muhammed Ahmed Al Kandari Born June 3, 1975
Kuwait CityDetained at Guantanamo ISN 552 Charge(s) Charge October 2008 Status Still held in Guantanamo Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen who has been detained in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.[1] He has been charged with war crimes.[2]
The US Department of Defense reports he was born on June 3, 1975 in Kuwait City.
Al Kandari has been held at Guantanamo for 9 years, 6 months and 21 days.[3]
Contents
Detention in Bagram
Combatant Status Review
His Combatant Status Review Tribunal accused him of the following: "The detainee (Al Kandari) recruited personnel to participate in jihad in Afghanistan ... traveled into Afghanistan and received weapons training at the Khaldan training camp. Osama bin Laden personally provided religious instruction and trainee (sic) at this camp."[4] Al Kandari has always denied the accusations and said: "I looked at all the unclassified accusations; I was laughing so hard." and "All this happened in a period of three months ... I ask, 'Are these accusations against Faiz or against Superman?' It seems to me that whoever wrote these accusations he must (have) been drinking and he must have been drunk when he wrote it."
Hearsay evidence
Lawyers for two Guantanamo detainees organized a study entitled, No-hearing hearings, which cited Al Kandari as an example of a detainee for whom all the evidence against him was "hearsay evidence".[5][6]
The study quoted the Tribunal's legal advisor:[5]
"Indeed, the evidence considered persuasive by the Tribunal is made up almost entirely of hearsay evidence recorded by unidentified individuals with no first hand knowledge of the events they describe."
The study commented:[5]
“Outside of the CSRT process, this type of evidence is more commonly referred to as 'rumor'.”
Comments from his lawyer Lieutenant Colonel Barry D. Wingard
On 1 July 2009, the Washington Post and the DoD edition called "The Early Bird" posted an article about Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard and Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari, pertaining to the harsh treatment and enhanced interrogation techniques that Fayiz was continually subjected to.[7]
Faiz Muhammad Ahmed al Kandari's lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard is the detailed lead attorney from the Office of Military Commissions. Lieutenant Colonel Wingard recently submitted and had published an article about citing hearsey evidence against his client.[8] Lieutenant Colonel Wingard said "Vague charges made it difficult to defend his client after he was assigned in October to represent a Kuwaiti named Fayiz al-Kandari". In trying to prepare his case, Lieutenant Colonel Wingard said:
"There simply is no evidence other than he is a Muslim in Afghanistan at the wrong time, other than double and triple hearsay statements, something i have never seen as justification for incarceration, let alone eight years."[8]
In November 2011 Wingard expressed outrage over a propaganda video that the DOD had published.
"My first thought was that there is no way the United States government sank so low as to show my client to the world, caged like a circus animal."[9]
Habeas Corpus
In a recently conducted interview with TPMmuckraker, Mr. David Cynamon—a lawyer for four Kuwaiti Gitmo detainees who are bringing habeas corpus claims against the government.[10]
"The Department of Justice has been doing everything in its power to delay and obstruct these cases," said Cynamon
Cynamon's clients were picked up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in the period after the 2001 U.S invasion of Afghanistan.
"They're not doing anything to move the case along, and doing everything to avoid it."
Asked whether he had observed a shift of any kind in the government's approach since the Obama administration came into office, Cynamon flatly replied
"None whatsoever."
In even more Habeas Corpus news, a Federal Judge in Washington is on a tear against alleged bad lawyering by the Justice Department.[11]
In a stinging order issued today, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to reconsider an earlier and similarly scathing order requiring the Justice Department to replace the government's attorney responding to challenges several Kuwaiti men have brought to their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay. How mad was the judge? Her salvo Monday uses the words "shockingly revisionist," "flippant" and "disingenuous" to describe the government's handling of the litigation.
"The responsibiltiy lies with the higher ups in the Justice Department who have been pursuing a very aggressive and very successful strategy of delay for months"
attorney Matthew Maclean said.
"The Supreme Court said in June of last year we were entitled to prompt habeas corpus review. ... Last month, ... for the first time in seven years, [the prisoners] were allowed to see the accusations against them."
US v. Al Kandari
On 22 October 2008 the Office of Military Commissions filed charges against Al Kandari.[12]
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.
- ^ The Guantanamo Docket - Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari
- ^ Fayiz Muhammad Ahmad Jamal Muhammad Al Kandari, The Daily Telegraph, April 27, 2011
- ^ Jenifer Fenton (August 16, 2011). "Ten years on, Kuwaiti inmates fear indefinite Guantanamo detention". CNN. p. 2. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-16/world/kuwaiti.guantanamo.detainees_1_qaeda-kuwait-tora-bora. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
- ^ a b c Mark Denbeaux, Joshua Denbeaux, David Gratz, John Gregorek, Matthew Darby, Shana Edwards, Shane Hartman, Daniel Mann, Megan Sassaman and Helen Skinner. "No-hearing hearings" (PDF). Seton Hall University School of Law. p. 17. http://law.shu.edu/news/final_no_hearing_hearings_report.pdf. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
- ^ "Gitmo detainees denied witnesses: Lawyer calls legal proceedings ‘shams,’". MSNBC. November 17, 2006. Archived from the original on 2009-09-13. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15759610/. Retrieved 2007-04-02. "The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for Guantanamo detainees..."
- ^ Barry Wingard (2009-07-01). "No Justice Today At Guantanamo". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063002897.html. Retrieved 2009-07-01. [1]
- ^ a b Lillian Thomas (May 10, 2009). "Military attorneys risk careers to criticize practices at Guantanamo". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. pp. 1. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09130/968880-84.stm?cmpid=MOSTEMAILEDBOX. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
- ^ http://www.truth-out.org/outrage-pentagon-produced-guantanamo-propaganda-video/1321647939
- ^ Zachary Roth (2009-04-10). "Not Just State Secrets: Obama Continuing Bush's Stonewalling On Gitmo Cases, Lawyer Claims". TPMMuckraker. pp. page 1. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/yesterday_we_told_you_about.php. Retrieved 2009-04-10. In the interview Mr. Cynamon said that the Justice Department has been consistently dragging its heels in the case, denying detainees their basic due process rights and furthering what he called the "abandonment of the rule of law."
- ^ Josh Gerstein (2009-04-06). "Judge riled at DOJ in Gitmo case". Under the Radar-Politico. pp. page 1. http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0409/Judge_riled_in_Gtmo_case.html. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
- ^ Carol Rosenberg (2008-10-22). "Pentagon accuses 2 Kuwaitis of war crimes". Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/735909.html. Retrieved 2008-10-22.[dead link] mirror
External links
- Resisting Injustice In Guantánamo: The Story Of Fayiz Al-Kandari Andy Worthington, 17 October 2009
- US Military Lawyer: Kuwait Needs to Speak Up on Guantánamo Andy Worthington, February 26, 2010
- Judge OK's indefinite detention of alleged bin Laden advisor.
- Kuwaiti Family Committee website
- Political Carnival-Part 3 website
- Political Carnival-Part 4 website
Controversies surrounding people captured during the War on Terror Guantanamo Bay
detention campSuicide attempts · Qur'an desecration controversy · Boycott of military tribunals · Former captives alleged to have (re)joined insurgency · Hunger strikes · Force feeding · Homicide accusations · Juvenile prisoner
CIA black site operations Prison and detainee abuse Abu Ghraib · Bagram · Canadian Afghan detainee issue · Black jail · Salt Pit
Prison uprisings
and escapesDeaths in custody Dilawar · Jamal Nasser · Abdul Wahid · Habibullah · Abed Hamed Mowhoush · Manadel al-Jamadi · Nagem Hatab · Baha Mousa · Fashad Mohamed · Muhammad Zaidan · Gul Rahman · Abdul Wali
Tortured Abu Zubaydah · Mohamedou Ould Slahi · Mohammed al-Qahtani · Khalid Sheikh Mohammed · Abdul Jabar · Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri · Binyam Mohamed
Forced disappearances Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi · Abdu Ali al Haji Sharqawi · Muhammed al-Darbi · Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman · Yassir al-Jazeeri · Tariq Mahmood · Hassan Ghul · Musaad Aruchi · Hiwa Abdul Rahman RashulReports and legislation Related media Categories:- 1975 births
- Bagram Theater Internment Facility detainees
- Kuwaiti extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
- Living people
- People held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp
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