Mustaq Ali Patel

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Mustaq Ali Patel is a citizen of France, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 649.

Patel, Khaled Ben Mustapha, and Ridouane Khalid were the last French citizens held at the base. They were released in March 2005 and placed under formal investigation by a judge in Paris. Patel was born in India, around 1965, presumably the Western province of Gujarat, but has French nationality through his marriage to a Creole woman, Benedicte Acapandie, from Réunion.^[2] He was reported to have been an imam at a French mosque on the Indian Ocean island before going to Afghanistan. Some news reports also question his state of mental health at the time of his arrest by U.S. forces in 2001.

[edit] Identity

The US Department of Defense was forced, by court order, to release the names of the captives taken in the "war on terror" who were held in Guantanamo. On April 20, 2006 they released a list of 558 names, nationalities and ID numbers, of all the captives whose status as "enemy combatants" had been reviewed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[1] Twenty-five days later they released a list of 759 names, nationalities, ID numbers, dates of birth, and places of birth, of all captives who had been held in military custody in Guantanamo.^[3]

Captive 649 was named inconsistently on the two official lists of captives' names and ID numbers the Department of Defense released:

• Captive 649 was listed as Mustaq Ali Patel on the list released on April 20, 2006.^[1]
• Captive 649 was listed as Haji Muhammed on the list released on May 15, 2006.^[3]

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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.^[4][5] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.^[6]

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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.

Patel chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[7]

[edit] Allegations

The allegations Patel faced, during his Tribunal, were:

a. -- The general summary of the allegations that establish an association with terrorism were missing from the transcript. --

1. The Detainee traveled to Afghanistan after II September 2001.
2. The Detainee provided false identification upon his capture.
3. A visiting delegation from Saudi Arabia verified that the Detainee was not of the Saudi Nationality.
4. The Detainee even changed his story after his capture.
5. The Detainee was apprehended in Afghanistan.

[edit] Transcript

Patel told his Tribunal he was beaten by his initial captors to force him to falsely claim to be a Saudi. He claimed he had been beaten so badly that his memory and cognitive abilities had never recovered.

[edit] Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Patel was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[8][9] They report that Patel has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

[edit] Ahmed v. Bush

A writ of habeas corpus, Ahmed v. Bush, was filed on his behalf.^[10] On that habeas corpus petition he was identified as "Hazi Ahmed".

In September 2007 the United States Department of Defense published 179 dossiers in response to captives' habeas petitions.^[11] But they did not publish his.

[edit] References

v • d • e Captives held at Guantanamo Bay before being exonerated and found to not be "enemy combatants" Afghanistan Abdul Rahman, Mohammad Gul, Gul Zaman, Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, Qalandar Shah, Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah, Rasool Shahwali Zair Mohammed Mohammed, Abdul Qudus, Shahzada, Hammdidullah, Mohammad Nasim, Kako Kandahari, Feda Ahmed, Nasibullah, Habib Noor, Jalil, Hukumra Khan Algeria Ahmed Adil, Akhdar Qasem Basit, Mohammed Ayub, Abu Bakr Qasim, Adel Abdulhehim, Sadik Ahmad Turkistani Egypt Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy, Allah Muhammed Saleem France Mustaq Ali Patel Jordan Khalid Mahomoud Abdul Wahab Al Asmr Maldives Ibrahim Fauzee Pakistan Fazaldad, Shed Abdur Rahman Saudi Arabia Saleh Abdall Al Oshan Sudan Hammad Ali Amno Gadallah Tajikistan Maroof Saleemovich Salehove Turkey Salih Uyar Uzbekistan Zakirjan Asam Yemen Karam Khamis Sayd Khamsan