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User:Geo Swan/Gholam Ruhani

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Gholam Ruhani
Born1975 (age 48–49)
Ghazni, Afghanistan
Detained at Guantanamo
ISN3
Charge(s)No charge (held in extrajudicial detention)
StatusRepatriated

Gholam Ruhani is a citizen of Afghanistan, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 3.

When he was captured by US intelligence official with Abdul Haq Wasiq in Ghazni in late 2001.[2] Their capture was called the capture of "number two and number three in Taliban intelligence". On his release, Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, noted that he had been included in the very first flight to Guantanamo, quoting camp commandant Michael Lehnert, that they wanted the worst captives first.[3]

Background[edit]

A widely distributed Associated Press story said that Ruhani was a clerk for the Taliban intelligence service.[4] AP quoted from Ruhani's testimony before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

"The Taliban law was that young people had to join the Taliban, I had to join, but protested several times that I had an old father and I wanted to go back to my family. ... If I had not cooperated with the Taliban Intelligence service member, I would have been sent to the front lines. I was afraid I would be killed."

Capture[edit]

According to Ruhani, he was a recently married store clerk at his father's electrical supply store where he learned a little English to make some sense of the electronics manuals in his family's shop. Ruhani was seized near his hometown of Ghazni on December 9, 2001 when he agreed to translate for Abdul Haq Wasiq, a Taliban government official seeking a meeting with a U.S. soldier.[5]

Held aboard the USS Bataan[edit]

Former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef described being flown to the United States Navy's amphibious warfare vessel, the USS Bataan, for special interrogation.[6] Zaeef wrote that the cells were located six decks down, were only 1 meter by 2 meters. He wrote that the captives weren't allowed to speak with one another, but that he "eventually saw that Mullahs Fazal, Noori, Burhan, Wasseeq Sahib and Rohani were all among the other prisoners." Historian Andy Worthington, author of the The Guantanamo Files, identified Ruhani as one of the men Zaeef recognized. He identified Mullah Wasseeq as Abdul-Haq Wasiq, Mullah Noori as Norullah Noori and Mullah Fazal as Mohammed Fazil.

Ruhani arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp on January 11, 2002.[5]

Official status reviews[edit]

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[7] In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Gholam Ruhani v. George W. Bush[edit]

Human Rights lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus on Ruhani's behalf in 2005.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).[8]]]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[7][9]

Annual reviews were convened to review Ruhani's status from 2004 to 2008.[10] Rohani attended all his reviews.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment[edit]

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[11][12] His seven page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on January 14, 2007.[13] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris. He recommended transfer.

Repatriation[edit]

A captive named "Ghulam Ruhani" was transferred to Afghan custody in "a U.S-sponsored lockup near Kabul.[14] An American sponsored wing of the Pul-e-charkhi prison was opened near Kabul, in mid 2007. This 316 cell prison was built at a cost of $30 million, to enable captives to be transferred from Guantanamo and the Bagram Theater internment facility.

According to an article by Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, Ghulam Ruhani had initially been held with David Hicks and John Walker Lindh, aboard a USN warship.[14] Ruhani was one of the first twenty captives transferred to Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, whose images were captured in a widely republished picture of kneeling captives.

On November 25, 2008 the Department of Defense published a list of when Guantanamo captives were repatriated.[15] According to that list he was repatriated on December 12, 2007.

The Center for Constitutional Rights reports that all of the Afghans repatriated to Afghanistan from April 2007 were sent to Afghan custody in the American built and supervised wing of the Pul-e-Charkhi prison near Kabul.[16]

Post transfer claims[edit]

Slate magazine described Ruhani as "having simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time."[17]

When five Taliban leaders were exchanged for captured GI Bowe Bergdahl, Anand Gopal, writing for CNN, reported Ruhani was believed to have re-engaged in hostilities.[18]

Thomas Josceyln reported Guantanamo officials had compared Ruhani's DNA with other captives, and believed he and Mohommod Zahir were brothers.[19]

References[edit]

  1. ^ 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. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
  2. ^ Andy Worthington (2007-12-22). "Tales of the Afghan Prisoners: Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons in Afghanistan". Counterpunch magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-08-16. Retrieved 2012-08-16. Ruhani, however, was adamant that he was not the "number three in Taliban intel." He said that he was a Taliban conscript, who fulfilled his duties in a clerical capacity to avoid being sent to the front lines, and explained that he was asked to attend the meeting between the Taliban and the Americans because he had learned a little English while studying electronics manuals in a store run by his elderly father. " {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead= ignored (help)
  3. ^ placeholder
  4. ^ "Sketches of Guantanamo Detainees". AP. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  5. ^ a b Leonnig, Carol D.; Julie Tate (January 16, 2007). "Some at Guantanamo Mark 5 Years in Limbo". The Washington Post. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  6. ^ Abdul Salam Zaeef (2010). "Torture and Abuse on the USS Bataan and in Bagram and Kandahar: An Excerpt from "My Life with the Taliban" by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef". Archived from the original on 2010-12-16. We were not permitted to talk to each other, but could see one another while the food was handed to us. I eventually saw that Mullahs Fazal, Noori, Burhan, Wasseeq Sahib and Rohani were all among the other prisoners, but still we could not talk to each other.
  7. ^ a b "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  8. ^ Mark Huband (2004-12-11). "Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals"". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  9. ^ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24. mirror
  10. ^ Margot Williams (2008-11-08). "Guantanamo Docket: Gholam Ruhani". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2017-10-19. Retrieved 2017-10-18.
  11. ^ Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt, Heidi Blake (2011-04-27). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 2012-07-13. Retrieved 2012-07-13. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  13. ^ 2007-01-14 (2011-04-27). "Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Gholam Ruhani, US9AF-000003DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). Retrieved 2016-07-09. {{cite news}}: |author= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ a b Carol Rosenberg (2008-01-17). "7 of first Guantánamo captives now home". Miami Herald. Retrieved 2008-01-24. A Taliban member from the first flight, Ghulam Ruhani, has just gone home -- to a U.S-sponsored lockup near Kabul. In the earliest days of the American-led coalition assault on Afghanistan, he was held on a U.S. Navy ship at sea, along with Hicks and American captive John Walker, now serving in a federal penitentiary in California for being a Taliban foot soldier. [dead link] mirror
  15. ^ OARDEC (2008-10-09). "Consolidated chronological listing of GTMO detainees released, transferred or deceased" (PDF). Department of Defense. Retrieved 2008-12-28.
  16. ^ "International Travel" (PDF). Center for Constitutional Rights. 2008. Retrieved 2009-03-13. CCR attorney Pardiss Kebriaei traveled to Kabul to follow the situation of Guantánamo prisoners being returned to Afghanistan. Since April 2007, all such prisoners have been sent to a U.S.-built detention facility within the Soviet era Pule-charkhi prison located outside Kabul. mirror
  17. ^ Daniel Politi (2007-01-16). "They Did It Adegain". Slate magazine. Retrieved 2017-10-18. The Post fronts the story of the third official inmate at Guantanamo to illustrate the plight of some who have been held at the naval station for five years despite the lack of evidence against them. The story of Gholam Ruhani is particularly compelling because all evidence seems to point at him having simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he is still being held indefinitely.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ Anand Gopal (2014-06-05). "Taliban prisoner swap makes sense". CNN. Retrieved 2017-10-18.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ Thomas Joscelyn (2014-12-24). "4 Gitmo detainees transferred to Afghanistan are veteran insurgents, files allege". Long War Journal. Retrieved 2017-10-18. Intelligence cited by JTF-GTMO connected Zahir to additional Taliban leaders, including other detainees once held at Guantanamo. DNA tests revealed that Zahir and Gholam Ruhani, who was transferred from Guantanamo to Afghanistan in 2007, "are related and possibly siblings."{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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External links[edit]


Category:Afghan extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Category:Clerks "Category:Guantanamo detainees known to have been transferred and never released Category:Block D, Pul-e-Charkhi prison Category:Living people Category:1975 births

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