Muhammed Qasim

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Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a trailer the size of a large RV. The captive sat on a plastic garden chair, with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed. The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a trailer the size of a large RV. The captive sat on a plastic garden chair, with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[1][2] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.[3]
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

Muhammed Qasim is a citizen of Afghanistan who is reportedly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[4]

Contents

[edit] Identity

The Philadelphia Inquirer printed an article by David L. McColgin, who described working as a lawyer for a Guanntanamo captive named Muhammed Qasim.[4] The US Department of Defense released what it described as a full list of all the captives who had been held, in military custody, in Guantanamo.[5] It only lists two individuals named Qasim: A Yemeni named Khaled Qasim, and a Uyghur named Abu Bakr Qasim. Muhammed Qasim is not listed. McColgin wrote that Qasim attended his Combatant Status Review Tribunal in 2004.

Main article: Guantanamo detainees missing from the official list

[edit] Capture

McColgin wrote that Qasim was captured on February 7, 2003.[4] He was captured by a mixed force of Americans and Afghans. He believes that a neighbor falsely alleged he was a member of the Taliban so he could be paid a bounty.

McColgin wrote that Qasim was a thirty year old farmer, in Zormat, Afghanistan, who supported his mother and a sister.[4]

[edit] 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 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.

Qasim chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror
  2. ^ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  3. ^ Annual Administrative Review Boards for Enemy Combatants Held at Guantanamo Attributable to Senior Defense Officials. United States Department of Defense (March 6, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-09-22.
  4. ^ a b c d David L. McColgin. "Guantanamo, five years later", The Philadelphia Inquirer, Thursday January 25, 2007. 
  5. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006