Sufyian Barhoumi

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Sufyian Barhoumi is a citizen of Algeria, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 694. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on 28 July 1973, in Algiers, Algeria.

As of December 3, 2009, Sufyian Barhoumi has been held at Guantanamo for seven years six months.

Combatant Status Review

Barhoumi was among the 60% of prisoners who participated in the tribunal hearings. A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee.

Charges before a military commission

The original ten Presidentially authorized Military Commissions were convened in the former terminal building in the discontinued airfield on the Naval Base's Eastern Peninsula.

On 6 July 2004, United States President Bush ordered that Sufyian Barhoumi be charged before a military commission. The appointing authority approved the charges against Sufyian on 4 November 2005. Barhoumi faced the charge of "Conspiracy". His five page charge sheet listed thirteen general allegations, that were essentially identical to those of Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi. Sufyian Barhoumi, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, and two other captives, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Omar Khadr had their charges confirmed on the same day as Barhoumi. Sufyian Barhoumi, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, and Binyam Ahmed Muhammad all faced conspiracy charges. Omar Khadr faced both murder and conspiracy to murder charges.

Four other men, David Hicks, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Ali Hamza Ahmed Suleiman Al Bahlul and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi, had their charge authorized by President Bush approved in 2004. One other man, Abdul Zahir, had his charges confirmed in January 2006.

In July 2006, after considering Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the President lacked the Constitutional Authority to order Military Commissions. The Supreme Court ruled that only the United States Congress had the authority to order Military Commissions. So the charges against all ten men were dropped.

In the fall of 2006 the United States Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, authorizing commissions similar to those previously authorized by President Bush. Several of the other men who had been charged before the Presidentially authorized commissions had new charges filed against them before Congressionally authorized commissions.

On 29 May 2008 Barhoumi, Jabran al-Qathani and Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi were charged before the Congressionally authorized military commissions.

File:Safe house in Faisalabad where Abu Zubaydah was captured.jpg

Safe house in Faisalabad where Abu Zubaydah, Sufyian Barhoumi, Ghassan al-Shirbi, Jabran Al Qahtani, Abdul Zahir and several other captives were captured.

On 21 October 2008 Susan J. Crawford the official in charge of the Office of Military Commissions announced charges were dropped against Barhoumi and four other captives, Jabran al Qahtani, Ghassan al Sharbi, Binyam Mohamed, and Noor Uthman Muhammed. Carol J. Williams, writing in the Los Angeles Times reports that all five men had been connected by Abu Zubaydah -- one of the three captives the CIA has acknowledged was interrogated using the controversial technique known as "waterboarding".

Williams quoted the men's attorneys, who anticipated the five men would be re-charged in thirty days. They told Williams that: "... prosecutors called the move procedural", and attributed it to the resignation of fellow Prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld, who resigned on ethical grounds. Williams reported that Clive Stafford Smith speculated that the Prosecution's dropping of the charges, and plans to subsequently re-file charges later was intended to counter and disarm the testimony Vandeveld was anticipated to offer, that the Prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence.

a. Detainee is a member or an associate of Al Qaida. In 1989, detainee traveled to Afghanistan to train with an AK 47 and other weapons. At the camp, he lost four fingers practicing land mine defusion. Detainee later trained at the Khalden Camp, where he was trained in the use of the AK-47; AKS-74; RPK; PK with tripod; DSHK-38 with tripod B-10; RPG-7; mine and grenade training; and radio communications. Detainee attended a third camp, where he received training in weapons, mountain navigation and mines. Detainee is a trained remote control device specialist who also had training in car bombs and explosives. Detainee trained others in the use of remotely controlled devices. Detainee was captured at a safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan with a top Al Qaida member. b. Detainee engaged in hostilities against the United States Detainee participated in a plan to bomb the United States using bombs remotely activated by cellular phone or pager.

On 3 March 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Testimony

Barhoumi and the Tribunal President exchanged opinions on whether Barhoumi should be allowed to see all the evidence against him. Barhoumi said his father was a lawyer, and he knew the laws of evidence. He knew he was entitled to see the evidence against him.

Barhoumi pointed out he traveled to Afghanistan before the attack of September 11, 2001, before the American invasion, when Afghanistan and America were at peace. He acknowledge traveling there for military training - but in order to go fight in Chechnya, not Afghanistan.

Barhoumi acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan, from Britain, in 1999

Barhoumi lost the fingers from his left hand during landmine training, and some minor wounds on his legs. A member of the Tribunal asked if the bandages on his legs were due to those wounds. Barhoumi replied:

“Maybe you won’t believe me, but that’s an investigation. They [guards at Guantanamo Bay] did that to me, for a year and a half. From walking for an hour and a half with chains on. There was an investigation, about a 2 month investigation. It was cut from the top and the bottom at the base of my leg. It happened here, not before.”

Barhoumi acknowledged attending two training camps. Under pressure from his interrogators, he confessed to attending a third camp, but he told his Tribunal he lied due to the pressure interrogators were putting him under.

While fleeing Afghanistan Barhoumi said he became part of the group that contained Abu Zubaydah. He was captured with Abu Zubaydah. But he didn’t really know him.

When asked about an allegation that he had been part of a plan to attack the United States Barhoumi replied:

“I never! That is strange, very strange. I want to laugh. Honestly, I want to laugh at those allegations. If I were so dangerous, I would not be here. This is very strange.

2008 Administrative Review Board hearing

On 9 January 2009, the Department of Defense published documents from the Administrative Review Board hearings convened in 2007, which for all the other captives was their third hearing. Although their first hearings convened in 2008, the documents from Sufyian Barhoumi and Jabran al Qahtani's hearing were published with the 2007 documents from the other captives' hearings.

Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Sufyian Barhoumi's 2008 Administrative Review Board. The four page memo listed thirty-two "primary factors favor[ing] continued detention" and one "primary factor favor[ing] release or transfer".

Transcript

Sufyian Barhoumi attended his hearing. The Department of Defense published a seventeen page transcript.

Civil Action No. 05-cv-1506

Barhoumi had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf, Civil Action No. 05-cv-1506, by pro bono attorneys from Holland & Hart LLP.

Military Commissions Act

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 mandated that Guantanamo captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding habeas corpus petitions were stayed.

Boumediene v. Bush

On 12 June 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated. The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations the men and boys were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant".

On 15 July 2008 Danielle R. Voorhees filed a "STATUS REPORT FOR PETITIONER SUFYIAN BARHOUMI a/k/a SHAFIIQ et al." on behalf of Barhoumi.

On 8 September 2008 Voorhees filed a "PETITIONERS’ RESPONSE TO RESPONDENTS’ MOTION FOR RELIEF FROM SCHEDULING ORDER" on behalf of Barhoumi and three other captives.

Detention authorized

On September 24 2009 Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, reported that U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer had ruled that the USA could continue to hold Sufiyan in Guantanamo. While the ruling was announced, its text remained classified. Civilian judges had concluded thirty-seven captive habeas petitions prior to Sufiyan's. They had ordered thirty of those captives released. Sufiyan's was the that Collyer had concluded. Two other captives, Mohammed Jawad and Fouad Al Rabia, who had faced charges before Guantanamo military commissions had their petitions concluded prior to Sufiyan's, were ordered to be relased.

External links

• Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo? Part Six: Captured in Pakistan (2 of 3) Andy Worthington, October 6, 2010
• Commissions Transcripts Exhibits, and Allied Papers
• US military charges Omar Khadr with murder, CTV, 7 November 2005
• US charges five Guantanamo detainees with war crimes, China Daily, 7 November 2005
• Canadian held at Guantanamo charged with murder, CBC, 7 November 2005
• Five More Guantanamo Detainees Charged, The Guardian, 7 November 2005
• Supreme Court to hear challenge to military commissions, San Francisco Mercury, 7 November 2005

• Human Rights First; Habeas Works: Federal Courts’ Proven Capacity to Handle Guantánamo Cases (2010)