Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi

Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. [http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/detaineesFOIrelease15May2006.pdf list of prisoners (.pdf)] , "US Department of Defense", May 15 2006] His detainee ID number is 028.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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 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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi was one of those 169 detainees. [http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_mar05.pdf#230 Summary of Evidence memo (.pdf)] prepared for Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi's "Combatant Status Review Tribunal" - October 16 2004 page 230]

Allegations

:""'a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban and al Qaida::#"The detainee was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia when he decided to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fight against the Northern Alliance.:#"The detainee traveled from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, through Yemen and into Quetta, Pakistan, where he stayed at a Taliban guesthouse, before entering Afghanistan.:#"The detainee traveled with Taliban fighters from Quetta, Pakistan across the border into Afghanistan, where he stayed at another Taliban guesthouse.:#"The detainee stayed at another Taliban guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan before traveling north in a Taliban vehicle to the Khalid Center, hear Baghram sic, Afghanistan.:#"The detainee trained on and fired one round from a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher while at the Khalid Center.:#"While at the Khalid Center, the detainee was issued a Kalashnikov sic rifle, four magazzines and two grenades.:#"The detainee was captured as he fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan, and was then turned over to the U.S. forces.

:""'b. The detainee participated in military operations against the United States or its coalition partners::#"The detainee was transported to the Omar Saif Center where he was assigned to a middle line position for approximately five to six months and where he saw artillery attacks and saw other ffighters die.:#"As Kabul was overrun, the detainee returned to the north were sic he rejoined his unit and later went to the Mahlik Center sic, north of Kabul, where he assisted with loading horses into trucks for transportation to Tajikistan.:#"The detainee accompanied the horses to the front lines located near Khvajeh Ghar sic where he remained, with fighters from a number of different nationalities, for two to three months.

References