Khaled Ben Mustafa

Khaled Ben Mustafa is a citizen of France who was formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. The Department of Defense reports that Mustafa was born on January 9, 1972, in Lyon, France. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 236.

Although originally convicted in France, his trial was overturned and he was released in February 2009.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Khaled Ben Mustafa was one of those 169 detainees.

All 572 Summary of Evidence memos were re-released in early September 2007, with their names in the clear. The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is a member of al Qaida and supported military operations against the United States or its coalition partners:

1. In July 2001, and using a falsified Pakistani travel visa, the detainee traveled from France to London to Pakistan and finally into Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
2. The detainee traveled with other al Qaida recruits, but they were instructed to "ignore each other during the voyage."
3. When the detainee arrived in Jalalabad, he and his traveling companions were sent to the "House of the Algerians."
4. While at this location, an instructor showed the detainee how to de-assemble nd re-assemble a Kalashnikov.
5. In August 2001, the detainee left by taxi for Kandahar, Afghanistan, via Kabul, to begin their training.
6. The detainee waited for ten days in Kandahar so that a larger group of around thirty people could jointly undergo training, but soon traveled back to Jalalabad.
7. In November, as the city of Jalalabad was falling, the detainee escaped to the Tora Bora Mountains and remained there during the bombardment by coalition forces.
8. The Pakistani Military Authorities arrested the detainee as he and a group of other men were trying to cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

Testimony

There is no record that Mustafa chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Return to France

Mustafa has been returned to France.

Comments on the June 10 2006 suicides

On June 23, 2006 Mustafa wrote about the deaths of the three Guantanamo detainees who died, apparently of suicide, on June 10, 2006. Mustafa knew all three men. He said Yasser had invited him to visit him, in Saudi Arabia, once they were released. This suggested to Mustafa that Yasser really didn't commit suicide. Mustafa said all three men had memorized the entire Koran.

Main article: Guantanamo suicide attempts

French conviction

Khaled Ben Mustafa, and four other French citizens, were convicted in 2007 of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise." They had their convictions overturned on appeal on February 24, 2009. Their convictions were overturned because they were based on interrogations conducted in Guantanamo, and the interrogations were conducted by French security officials, not law enforcement officials.