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Idris Ahmad ʽAbd al Qadir Idris

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Idris Ahmad ʽAbd al Qadir Idris
Arrested2001-12-15
Afghanistan-Pakistan border
Pakistani border officials
Released2015-06-13
CitizenshipYemen
Detained at Guantanamo
ISN35
Charge(s)extrajudicial detention
Statustransferred to Oman

Idris Ahmed ʽAbd al Qader Idris is a citizen of Yemen, who was held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His detainee ID number was 035. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1979, in Rada, Yemen. Idris was transferred to Oman on June 13, 2015, where the Government of Oman agreed to what the Department of Defense called "appropriate security measures".[2] He arrived on June 8, 2002, he was held in extrajudicial detention, and never faced criminal charges.[3] The Department of Defense never fully released its justification for holding Idris, but on April 25, 2011, the Guantanamo Bay files leak was published.

Background

According to Idris he graduated from high school in 1996, and then attended Sanaa University for two years.[citation needed] After he dropped out, he worked for Yemen's Ministry of Agriculture. Idris says an imam at the al-Khayr Mosque in Sanaa convinced him to travel to Afghanistan to teach the Quran in 1999. Idris says he did travel to Afghanistan, and spent eight months teaching the Quran at the al Raham Mosque in Kandahar but denied ever taking any military training or participating in hostilities. He described fleeing the American Bombardment of Afghanistan, traveling alone, to Khowst on November 15, 2001. He described spending approximately 20 days in Khowst, when an Arab named Rosi Khan, helped him join with a group of approximately 30 other arabs, who planned to travel together on foot to cross the border with Pakistan. These men were apprehended by Pakistani officials on December 15, 2001.

Idris was transferred to Guantanamo over six months later, on June 8, 2002.[3]

American counter-terrorism analysts came to characterize the group of men Idris was captured with as "the dirty thirty", asserting that it was a group of Osama bin Laden bodyguards.[4] Human rights workers and legal critics challenged this characterization, as it was based on denunciations from captives using unreliable coercive interrogation techniques. Information from the public record established that the men had little in common, prior to their capture, that they had come to Afghanistan at different times, and pursued different activities there, prior to their capture.

On September 21, the Department of Justice published a list of 55 captives who had been cleared for release or transfer from Guantanamo by the Guantanamo Review Task Force in 2010.[4] On September 24, Fox News named Idris, as one of the men cleared for release -- even though he had been described as one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards.

Official status reviews

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.[5] 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.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[6][7]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[5][8]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[9]

  • Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban."[9]
  • Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... traveled to Afghanistan for jihad."[9]
  • Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris was listed as one of the captives who was a foreign fighter.[9]
  • Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris was listed as one of the "82 detainees made no statement to CSRT or ARB tribunals or made statements that do not bear materially on the military’s allegations against them."[9]

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.[10][11] An assessment dated January 26, 2008, was published, recommending his continued detention in Guantanamo.[12] It was ten pages long, and was signed by Mark Buzby, the camp commandant.

Guantanamo Joint Review Task Force

When President Barack Obama took office he instituted a new review procedure the Guantanamo Joint Review Task Force, which was to report back to him, within a year, after conducting new assessments of the captives' status.[13] The review classified the captives into three groups, those who should face charges, those who could safely be released or transferred to other countries, and a third group, too innocent to face charges, but too dangerous for the US to release. Idris was classified as safe to release.

Transfer to Oman

Idris was transferred to Oman on June 13, 2015, with five other Yemenis.[2]

References

  1. ^ OARDEC. "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. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-05-15. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  2. ^ a b "IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Release No: NR-235-15, June 13, 2015, Detainee Transfer Announced". United States Department of Defense. 2015-06-13. Archived from the original on 2015-06-13. The United States is grateful to the Government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Oman to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.
  3. ^ a b "Measurements of Heights and Weights of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (ordered and consolidated version)" (PDF). Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, from DoD data. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-13.
  4. ^ a b "Bin Laden bodyguard among Gitmo detainees cleared to leave, documents show". Fox News. 2012-09-24. Archived from the original on 2012-09-25. The name Idris Ahmad Abdu Qadir Idris appears on the list of 55 detainees. He is believed to be an Al Qaeda member and was identified as a bin Laden bodyguard whose duty began shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to Defense Department documents in 2008 made available by WikiLeaks.
  5. ^ a b "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. 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.
  6. ^ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  8. ^ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  9. ^ a b c d e Benjamin Wittes; Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  10. ^ 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 2012-07-15. 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.
  11. ^ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2011-04-29. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  12. ^ "Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Idris Ahmed Abdu Qader Idris, US9YM-000035DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2015-06-13.
  13. ^ Andy Worthington. "Who are the 55 men cleared for release by the Obama administration". Retrieved 2015-06-13.
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