[Ppnews] Judge Orders Release of Saeed Hatim
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri Dec 18 12:32:22 EST 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington12182009.html
December 18-20, 2009
Judge Orders Release of Saeed Hatim
The Case of the Unwilling Yemeni Recruit
By ANDY WORTHINGTON
On Monday, as
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington12152009.html>I
explained in a previous article, Judge Thomas
Hogan refused the habeas corpus petition of
Musaab al-Madhwani, a Yemeni who had been
tortured in the CIAs Dark Prison near Kabul,
and who was described by the judge as a model
prisoner who was not dangerous. Judge Hogan made
his ruling partly on the basis that al-Madhwani
had received military training at the al-Farouq
camp in Afghanistan, which was associated with
Osama bin Laden in the years before the 9/11
attacks, but just two days later, Judge Ricardo
Urbina (who
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington10092008.html>ordered
the release of the Uighurs last October) granted
the habeas petition of another Yemeni, Saeed
Hatim, who had also trained at al-Farouq, but who
told his interrogators that he did not like anything about the training.
The reasons for Judge Urbinas decision on
Wednesday are not yet clear, as an unclassified
version of his ruling has not yet been made
available, but elements of Saeed Hatims story
are available from the Unclassified Summaries of
Evidence for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal
(CSRT) at Guantánamo, part of a process conducted
in 2004-05 to ascertain whether the prisoners had
been correctly designated as enemy combatants,
who could be held without charge or trial, and
his Administrative Review Boards (ARBs), held
every year as part of a process to determine
whether prisoners could be approved for release.
These were
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/12/22/an-interview-with-guantanamo-whistleblower-stephen-abraham-part-one/>shamefully
one-sided affairs, in which the authorities
relied on classified evidence that was not
disclosed to the prisoners, who were also
prevented from having any legal representation.
However, they often provide the only insight
available into the prisoners stories, and in the
case of Saeed Hatim, who was 25 years old at the
time of his capture, they provide what appears to
be a relatively coherent narrative, although it
may, of course, be revealed as a tissue of lies,
produced as a result of threats and coercion,
when Judge Urbinas ruling is made public.
In statements made by Hatim during his CSRT, or
attributed to him by interrogators in submissions
for his ARBs, which he did not attend, he
apparently explained that he had never held a
job for more than six months and relied upon
his father and older brother for financial
support, and stated that he went to Afghanistan
in spring 2001, because he had heard there was a
lot of justice in that part of the world, and
also because, like several others who ended up in
Guantánamo, he thought that he would find a way
to fight in Chechnya. He stated he became
interested in Russias war in Chechnya because he
witnessed the oppression on the television.
Explaining that he was outraged about what the
Russians were doing to the Chechens, he decided
to travel there to fight jihad alongside his Muslim brothers.
Hatim admitted attending al-Farouq, but said that
he soon left the camp because it was not what he
expected. He explained that he faked a fever
telling the people he was ill and needed to seek
medical care, and complained that the trainers
were always yelling at him, the food was
terrible, and he was forced to sleep on the
ground. He added that he did not like anything
about the training and wanted to quit on the first day.
Acknowledging that he was obliged to put his
decision to fight in Chechnya on the back burner
for a while, but insisting that he did not want
to partake in the war in Afghanistan because it
was a civil war in which Muslims were fighting
other Muslims, he nevertheless reportedly ended
up at a place of re-supply for the front lines
near Bagram, where, on at least one occasion, he
apparently traveled to the front lines to deliver
food to the Taliban soldiers fighting the
Northern Alliance. He also apparently spent some
time in a number of guest houses, which, in the
US authorities opinion, were associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
He added, however, that once the US-led invasion
began, and Kabul was being bombed, he made his
way to the eastern city of Jalalabad, where he
took a cab to the Pakistani border, meeting up
with an Afghan who escorted him to a Pakistani
police station. From there, soon after, his long ordeal in US custody began.
I await Judge Urbinas ruling with some interest,
primarily, as I mentioned above, to discover
whether this account bears any resemblance to the
story uncovered by the judge in what, despite the
persistent fog of classified evidence that clouds
so many of the Guantánamo cases, will undoubtedly
be the first time that something close to an
objective analysis of his case has been
undertaken, after eight years in US custody.
At present, however, Judge Urbinas ruling means
little to Saeed Hatim, as the Obama
administration has demonstrated that it is
extremely unwilling to release any of the Yemenis
who now make up nearly half of Guantánamos
population of 210 prisoners -- even those who
have won their habeas petitions in the US courts.
Just one Yemeni has been released since Barack
Obama became President, even though, by my
reckoning, Yemenis account for somewhere between
50 and 60 of
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/12/07/116-guantanamo-prisoners-cleared-for-release-171-still-in-limbo/>the
115 prisoners who have been cleared for release
by the inter-agency Task Force
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington01232009.html>established
by President Obama on his second day in office.
The administrations reluctance to release
Yemenis was explained by officials in September,
around the time that the only Yemeni to secure
his release under Obama -- Alla Ali Bin Ali
Ahmed, who
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington05142009.html>won
his habeas petition in May, after a devastating
dissection of the governments supposed evidence
by Judge Gladys Kessler -- was
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/09/26/three-prisoners-released-from-guantanamo-two-to-ireland-one-to-yemen/>finally
released. On that occasion, the officials stated
that Even if Mr. Ahmed was not dangerous in 2002
Guantánamo itself might have radicalized him,
exposing him to militants and embittering him against the United States.
As
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/10/05/75-guantanamo-prisoners-cleared-for-release-31-could-leave-today/>I
explained at the time:
The officials have valid fears about political
instability in Yemen, and the existence of
terrorist groups, even though the Yemeni
authorities have stated that none of the 16
Yemenis returned from Guantánamo have joined
terrorist groups, but whatever their fears, they
do not seem to have reflected that, if their
rationale for not releasing any of the Yemenis
from Guantánamo was extended to the US prison
system, it would mean that no prisoner would ever
be released at the end of their sentence, because
prison might have radicalized them, and also,
of course, that it would lead to no prisoner ever
being released from Guantánamo.
On that note, it is, I hope, time for this
nonsense to end, and for Saeed Hatim, a
demonstrably insignificant figure in the War on
Terror, to be returned to his homeland, along
with all the other cleared prisoners. Its not
difficult. Just find a large enough plane, fly
them home, and drop them off. At the time of
writing, Im pleased to note that the
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121800898.html>Washington
Post is reporting that, according to sources
with independent knowledge of the matter, six
Yemenis, along with four Afghans, will be
transferred out of Guantánamo Bay in the near
future, and that this transfer could be a
prelude to the release of dozens more detainees
to Yemen. I certainly hope that this is the
case; otherwise, we may as well all stop
pretending that being cleared by a court, or by
the administrations own Task Force, means anything at all.
Andy Worthington is a British journalist and
historian, and the author of
'<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745326641/counterpunchmaga>The
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774
Detainees in America's Illegal Prison' (published
by Pluto Press). Visit his website at:
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/>www.andyworthington.co.uk
He can be reached at:
<mailto:andy at andyworthington.co.uk>andy at andyworthington.co.uk
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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