Comments on: Guantánamo’s forgotten child: the sad story of Mohammed El-Gharani

By: Mohammed El-Gharani, Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, speaks to al-Jazeera by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:40:16 +0000

[...] nothing.” Recounting the torture he experienced, which I reported last April in my article, “Guantánamo’s forgotten child: the sad story of Mohammed El-Gharani,” Mohammed also revealed, for the first time, that the interrogators in Guantánamo tried to [...]

By: WikiLeaks and the 22 Children of Guantánamo by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 20:05:22 +0000

[...] October 2001 (aged 14/15), released June 2009. Seized in a raid on mosque in Karachi, he was treated brutally at Guantánamo, but was finally freed after winning his habeas corpus petition in January [...]

By: The Black Hole of Guantanamo : STATESMAN SENTINEL

The Black Hole of Guantanamo : STATESMAN SENTINEL — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:17:25 +0000

[...] Bosnians, that a supposed informer was unreliable, and in the case of the former child prisoner, Mohammed El-Gharani, that unreliable witnesses in Guantánamo (whose unreliability was known to the authorities) had [...]

By: Terrorizing Children Is a Crime Against Humanity « Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:13:38 +0000

[...] “Guantánamo’s forgotten child: the sad story of Mohammed El-Gharani,” [...]

By: ling

ling — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:44:24 +0000

Don’t know if this guy was guilty or not, but every single guy sentenced to anything related to terrorism in the middle east have these great sad stories. Maybe the bombs are just misunderstood too, and people are cutting their own heads. I even remember the guy that openly was trying to use his show as a bomb in that plane going to the US, the English fellow, later claiming that he was also innocent, so go figure, there are simply no guilty people any more

By: The Long Ordeal of Guantánamo’s Youngest Prisoner

The Long Ordeal of Guantánamo’s Youngest Prisoner — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:59:48 +0000

[...] provided a detailed explanation of the abuse to which he was subjected in an article last year, “Guantánamo’s Forgotten Child,” which I condensed for an article in January, when I explained: As with all but three of the 22 [...]

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:04:44 +0000

Mr. Rogson,
Those are not facts that you quoted above. Those are the allegations made by the US government while El-Gharani was in Guantanamo.

Mohammed El-Gharani was cleared for release in January this year by a US judge, appointed by George W. Bush:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/01/15/judge-orders-release-of-guantanamos-forgotten-child/

From the article, demonstrating how Judge Leon demolished the government’s allegations, which you mentioned as being “facts”:

“Unlike most of the other cases reviewed to date by this Court,” Leon wrote, the government’s supposed evidence against El-Gharani consisted “principally” of statements made by two other prisoners at Guantánamo. “Indeed,” he added, these statements are either exclusively, or jointly, the only evidence offered by the Government to substantiate the majority of their allegations,” and, in addition, “the credibility and reliability of the detainees being relied upon by the Government has either been directly called into question by Government personnel or has been characterized by Government personnel as undermined.”

[...]

Judge Leon then granted El-Gharani’s habeas claim, with another statement that soundly trounced the government’s basis for holding him, and that ought to have struck fear into those parts of the Pentagon and the Justice Department that are responsible for presenting the government’s evidence in the Guantánamo habeas cases. “Simply stated,” he wrote, “a mosaic of tiles bearing images this murky reveals nothing about the petitioner with sufficient clarity, either individually or collectively, that can be relied upon by this Court.”

By: Leon Rogson

Leon Rogson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:35:18 +0000

Here are the actual facts of his case as documented in Wikipedia.
Commitment
On approximately June 13, 2001, the detainee departed Medina, Saudi Arabia, where his family lived and traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and then on to Karachi, Pakistan.
The detainee paid 500 Saudi Riyals for a fraudulent passport with a false date of birth. The name on the passport is Youself Abkir Saleh. This passport was supposed to allow the detainee to stay in Pakistan for five to six months.
The detainee was seen in the al Ansar guesthouse, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The detainee traveled with a large group of people from al Farouq to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The detainee was given a forged document that indicated that he had finished training at al Farouq. This document enabled the detainee to accompany a group to Towr Khom.
The detainee was in Tora Bora for two and a half months. Prior to his capture there, the detainee created a cover story that he was a humanitarian relief worker.
The detainee was arrested with a specific model casio watch that is given to graduates of al Farouq.
b. Training
The detainee received only very basic training, mostly learning how to use the AK-47.
c. Connections/Associations
After arriving in Pakistan, the detainee took a taxi to the nearest hotel and met two men who introduced themselves to the detainee after they heard him speaking Arabic in the lobby. The men’s names were Mu’ath, from Pakistan, and al Habre, from Saudi Arabia. The detainee shared a room with these two men.
The detainee’s name was found on an Arabic-language computer file that listed contact points and telephone numbers for al Qaida Mujahadeen in Pakistan. According to the file, these Mujahadeen were among a group who had come to Afghanistan in December 2001 but who had not completed their training and therefore were not ready to fight in the war.
the detainee’s name and phone number were found on a computer file named “asra.doc.” The information on this file was associated with a senior al Qaida member.
On 20 July 2002, the detainee’s name was identified on the Alneda Internet site as aprt of a group of Taliban and al Qaida fighters who were captured by Pakistani forces.
The detainee’s name was on an e-mailed copy of a list of Arabs incarcerated in Pakistan.
The detainee’s name and phone number were found on material in the pockets of two Saudi citizens detained by a foreign government service on 26 June 2001 at the Bahrain International Airport. The two Saudis admitted they were al Qaida trained and traveling on behalf of Usama bin Laden to carry out suicide missions in Saudi Arabia.
The detainee was identifed as belonging to a London, United Kingdom cell led by Abu Qatada al Masri, circa 1998.
d. Other Relevant Data
Approximately five months after arriving in Pakistan, the detainee lost his passport. The detainee said the passport and some money fell out of his pants pocket.
The detainee accused a foreign government service of electrically shocking him and he accused U.S. troops of beating him. The detainee was then shown a photograph of himself taken by American troops in Kandahar and asked to identify any bruises or evidence of beating. The detainee then admitted to lying about the beatings.
Leon Rogson

By: Leon Rogson

Leon Rogson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:27:26 +0000

You are an anti American propagandist who presents no facts concerning the behaviour of Americans.
I can believe he was tortured by Pakistani’s, but you don’t present much evidence of that either. Why would Americans pay $5,000 for a 14 year old non combatant? Youd did not mention in your presentation that Americans were stupid as well as brutal.
Shame on you!
Leon Rogson
A proud citizen of America who grew up under a brutal Latin American Dictatorship and knows the difference!

By: The BRAD BLOG : 'Worst of the Worst'?: Gitmo's Youngest Prisoner, the 'Forgotten Child', Released Without Charges

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:20:41 +0000

[...] I provided a detailed explanation of the abuse to which he was subjected in an article last year, “Guantánamo’s Forgotten Child,” which I condensed for an article in January, when I explained: As with all but three of the 22 [...]