Shahwali Shaheen Naqeebyllah

Shahwali Shaheen Naqeebyllah
Detained at	Guantanamo
ISN	834
Charge(s)	No charge (held in extrajudicial detention)
Status	Determined not to have been an enemy combatant after all

Shahwali Zair Mohammed Shaheen Naqeebyllah is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 834. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on June 1, 1976, in Khowst, Afghanistan.

Shahwali Shaheen Naqeebyllah was transferred to Afghanistan on April 18, 2005.

Summary

Naqeebyllah and his brother were brought, by their parents, to Pakistan, when they were children. They attended Pakistani schools, went to college, and became lab technicians. Naqeebyllah then worked his way through medical school. When the USA ousted the Taliban Naqeebyllah and his brother moved back to the area of Afghanistan where they were born, and set up a modern medical practice. Naqeebyllah felt that a doctor needed the support of a modern lab, with a well qualified lab technician, to provide proper medical care, and they had borrowed money to equip their lab, including purchasing an expensive X-ray machine.

Two of the allegations against Naqeebyllah concern notes he wrote the commander of a local American base.

When an American base was established nearby Naqeeblyllah said the first commander had relied heavily on Naqeebyllah, because he was well-educated, spoke English, and was respected the elders at the nearby villages. Naqeebyllah visited the local village councils with the officer. And, having done so, the village elders approached him to convey their requests to the local American commanding officer. Naqeebyllah got in to the habit of writing the local American commanding officer notes, in his less than perfect English.

When the first local American commanding officer was replaced, Naqeebyllah said he continued to write his replacement the same kind of notes he wrote the first officer. He did not realize his notes were not appreciated, and, instead, were triggering fear or resentment in this officer.

When the American base underwent a night-time rocket attack the officer said the rockets were fired from near Naqeebyllah's house, so he captured Naqeebyllah, and his brother, and they were sent to Guantanamo, where they remained for three years. Naqeebyllah and his brother were among the 38 captives whose Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined they had never been "enemy combatants" in the first place. So they were released two and a half to three years later, officially cleared of suspicion, but with no compensation for being held without charge, and with no idea what had happened to expensive lab equipment they had borrowed money to equip their modern lab.

Naqeebyllah is one of four physicians swept up in the search for terrorist suspects that filled the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the Bagram Theater detention facility. See also Fethi Boucetta.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive sat with his hands cuffed and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.

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.

Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Shaheen Naqeebyllah, Shahwali, Zair Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 5 January 2005. The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.

1. On 14 Oct 02, six rockets were launched from the east, firing on Firebase (FB) LWARA, a U.S. Facility in Afghanistan. The FB then observed a vehicle with its headlights off drive away from the scene of the launch and stop at a dwelling.
2. The detainee was found in the dwelling in which the FB observed the vehicle with its headlights off drive away from the scene of the launch.
3. A search of the compound revealed batteries, Kalashnikov rifles with loaded magazines, a signal mirror and a pistol.
4. The detainee is associated and was involved in a meeting with a suspect arrested by United States during a raid on a suspected Taliban facility.
5. Prior to the rocket attacks, the detainee had sent a handwritten threat to the FB LWARA leadership implying that there would be problems if more locals were not hired to work on the base.
6. The detainee sent vaguely worded letters to the commander of the U.S. facility prior to the rocket attack.

Transcript

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

Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Naqeebyllah, and his brother Mohammed. were among the 38 detainees who were determined not to have been enemy combatants during their Combatant Status Review Tribunal. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

The 17 Afghan captives whose Tribunals determined had not been enemy combatants were transferred to Afghan custody in mid April 2005. Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari addressed the 17 men during their release ceremony on April 20, 2005. Carlotta Gall of the New York Times reported that the Chief Justice encouraged the men to regard their detention as something sent from God. The reports stated that the Chief Justice warned the cleared men that a candid description of their detention could damage the chances of other Afghan captives to be released.

"Don't tell these people the stories of your time in prison because the government is trying to secure the release of others, and it may harm the release of your friends."

Chief Justice Fazil Hadi Shinwari is also reported to have distinguished between three categories of Guantanamo captives.:

"There are three kinds of prisoners in Guantanamo. There are those that have committed crimes and should be there, then there are people who were falsely denounced, and third there are those who are there because of the mistakes of the Americans."