Mohammad Gul

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Mohammad Gul is an Afghan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 457. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1962 in Zamikhel, Afghanistan.

Summary

Mohammad Gul grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, spent seven years as a guest worker in Saudi Arabia. He lived in a very small village, Zami Khel, where he owned a gas station. He is married, with four children.

Three neighbors of Mohammad Gul, Abib Sarajuddin, his brother, Khan Zaman, and his son Gul Zaman, were captured during the same raid as Mohammad Gul. American forces had bombed Abib Patel's house, on November 16, 2001, when they received a tip that he had allowed a fleeing Taliban leader to stay overnight in his guesthouse. On January 21, 2002 American forces raided the village to arrest Abib Sarajuddin. They arrested Mohammad Gul because they didn't understand he was legally entitled to carry a Pakistani passport, and because his house contained a "signalling mirror".

He and his neighbour Gul Zaman convinced their Tribunals that their passports were legitimate, and that they confirmed they were not in Saudi Arabia when American forces bombed the village.

American analysts confirmed that he was apprehended in the middle of the night, in his home, and had no association with al Qaeda or the Taliban, and didn't know when he was taken.

Official status reviews

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Hearing room where Guantanamo captive's annual Administrative Review Board hearings convened for captives whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal had already determined they were an "enemy combatant".

Following the Supreme Court's ruling that prisoners the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants. Gul attended his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board (WP) hearings. The US government, careful to avoid the standards of international law, made a point of declaring that Administrative Review Boards were not authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, as this would have invoked the Geneva Convention standards. They further distanced the ARB boards from international consideration by distancing the ARB boards from the CSRT and the government's own definition of "enemy combatant", by not authorizing the ARB boards to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were set on a purely opportunistic venture to assess the government's self interest, in the manner of the villain holding a gun to a hostage's head and saying, "don't make me do this". "If we do the right thing and release these prisoners, the board asked, "will we be inconveniencing ourselves?" And so they considered whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

He was one of the 38 captives whose Tribunals determined they had never been "enemy combatants" in the first place. Following a ruling from US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff his twelve page tribunal transcript was published in March 2006, and his two page Summary of Evidence memo was published in September 2007.

Testimony

Gul denied that he was seized in the open. He said he was at home, asleep, in his bed when the Americans came. Every home in his area of Afghanistan had a weapon for self-protection. The rifle the Americans confiscated belonged to his father.

Gul denied any ties to the Taliban, to Pacha Khan, to Jalaluddin Haqqani, and to terrorism in general. Gul acknowledged knowing Sarajuddin Ibab; they were neighbors in their small village, but they were not close, nor had they ever worked together.

Gul said that at the time of his capture, he had a work visa for Saudi Arabia and had spent six of the last seven years working there as a driver for a supermarket. He had returned just six weeks before his capture because his wife was ill. He had no idea who his neighbor Sarajuddin had hosted while he was in Saudi Arabia.

Gul pointed out that he was just a young boy when HIG began.

Witness

Gul called another neighbor, Zaman Khan, as a witness. Zaman confirmed that Gul worked in Saudi Arabia and had recently returned because his wife was sick. Zaman confirmed that Gul was not tied to the Taliban, to HIG, or any charity groups. Zaman confirmed that Gul did not work with Sarajuddin.

Testified at Gul Zaman's CSRT

Gul testified at Gul Zaman's Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Mohammad Gul's guess as to why he was captured

During his testimony, Gul was asked why he thought he was taken into custody with Zaman, his father, and his uncle, while most of his neighbor's were not. He said that after the Americans finished searching the Zaman's house, they searched another neighbors house, and then searched his family's house. He said that the reason they singled him out was that they found his passport, and that foreign travel made them think he was someone important.

Legal travel documents

Gul also testified, in more detail, about how he and his fellow villagers were able to acquire legal travel documents. Afghanistan had endured decades of fighting. During the fighting in their district, he and Gul Zaman, and most of their neighbors, had spent time in refugee camps in Pakistan. Pakistan had a policy of giving Afghan refugees who could establish their identity legal Pakistani passports.

The identity of Jalaluddin Haqqani

During Gul Zaman's Combatant Status Review Tribunal Gul Zaman, Khan Zaman, Mohammad Gul, and the Tribunal members, were trying to determine who Jalaluddin Haqqani was. Apparently one of the unclassified documents submitted to the Tribunal was an article about Haqqani from the February 2, 2002 New York Times. The Tribunal's President tried to estimate when the four were captured. It sounded to him as if they were captured in November 2001.

Mohammad Gul said he remembered hearing Haqqani's name on the radio news, during the fight against the Soviet occupiers. Khan Zaman, Gul Zaman's uncle, said Haqqani had been a resistance leader against the Soviets, who fought under a leader named Pir. Khan Zaman said Haqqani was from Paktia, their Province.

Release

According to the transcript from Khan Zaman's Administrative Review Board hearing Mohammad Gul and Zaman's nephew Gul Zaman were deemed not to have been enemy combatants after all. He said there were given letters certifying that they were not enemy combatants.

McClatchy interview

On June 15, 2008 the McClatchy News Service published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Mohammed Gul. Mohammed Gul only reported being beaten once in US custody, in the Kandahar detention facility.

Mohammed Gul said he was interrogated very infrequently, during the three and a half years he spent in Guantanamo, and that when he was interrogated his interrogators asked him to explain why he was being held, to which he replied:

"I said please let me know my crime; I am not Taliban, I am not al Qaida. They had no answer. They just said they were writing down what I said."

Mohammed Gul told his interviewers that he had great difficulty coping with the isolation and long detention:

"One day I beat my head against a bar in my cell until I was unconscious."

Mohammed Gul was then confined to the wing of the prison for psychiatric cases. He told his interviewer that he had not been able to curb his racing thoughts, and had not been able to return to work. He asked his interviewer whether he thought there were any American psychiatrists in Kabul.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. Gul's assessment was drafted on March 4, 2005, and was four pages long. The assessment was signed by camp commandant, Jay W. Hood, and recommended his transfer out of DoD control.

Historian Andy Worthington, the author of The Guantanamo Files, noted Hood's assessment referred to earlier assessments that had also recommended his repatriation, as he had long been cleared of suspicion of association with terrorism and association with the Taliban. Worthington described him as having been seized at random. He described how the detainee assessment said he grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, and had then served as a guest worker in Saudi Arabia, that he was married, with four children.

References

External links

• McClatchy News Service - video
• Mohammed Gul - McClatchy News Service

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