Review Boards Approve Ongoing Imprisonment of Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s Oldest Prisoner, and Two Others

31.5.17

Guantanamo prisoner Saifullah Paracha, in a photo taken several years ago by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.





 

I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Three weeks ago, in Under Trump, Periodic Review Boards Continue at Guantánamo, But At A Glacial Pace, I looked in detail at the current state of the Periodic Review Boards at Guantánamo, a parole-type process that quietly dominated Barack Obama’s detention policy at Guantánamo throughout his eight years in office, when, despite promising to close the prison on his second day, he left the White House with 41 men still held, and Donald Trump threatening to send new prisoners there.

Trump’s threats, have, fortunately, not materialized — hopefully, because wiser heads have told him that federal courts are more than adequate for dealing with captured terrorists — and the Periodic Review Boards are still functioning, despite a call for them to be scrapped by eleven Republican Senators in February, although they have not recommended anyone for release since before Trump took office.

After Obama took office in January 2009, he set up a high-level review process, the Guantánamo Review Task Force, to assess what he should do with the 240 men he had inherited from George W. Bush. The task force recommended that 156 of the 240 should be released and 36 prosecuted, and that the 48 others should continue to be held without charge or trial because they were too dangerous to release — although the task force members conceded that insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial, meaning that the so-called evidence was actually unreliable.

Obama eventually released all but three of the 156 men recommended for release by the task force, and, in March 2011, authorized the ongoing imprisonment of the 48  “forever prisoners” via an executive order, in which he also promised to set up periodic reviews to regular reassess their cases. Those reviews — the PRBs — didn’t begin until November 2013, by which time 41 of the 48 were left at Guantánamo, and 23 of the 36 men recommended for prosecution had been added to the tally of those eligible for PRBs, after the trial system at Guantánamo — the military commissions — suffered the most critical blow to its legitimacy when appeals court judges ruled that, for the most part, it had been trying men for war crimes (in particular, providing material support for terrorism) that were not recognized war crimes at all, and had been invented by Congress.

Over the next three years, the 64 men eligible for PRBs had their cases reviewed by the high-level review board panels — consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and 38 were recommended for release. All but two of the men were freed before Obama left office, leaving 26 to face further reviews — purely administrative file reviews every six months, and full reviews, with the prisoners interviewed by video link from a secure facility on the US mainland by the board members every three years.

In reality, what has happened with the reviews is that file reviews have, in 14 cases, recommended prisoners for second full reviews within a much shorter time scale — generally within a year of their initial review — if new information, from their lawyers, for example, has suggested that “a significant question is raised as to whether [their] continued detention is warranted.”

In the first eight of these second full reviews — all under Obama — the men had their release recommended, and were all freed. However, in the five most recent decisions taken, the men’s ongoing imprisonment has been upheld. I wrote about two of these decisions — in the cases of Said Nashir (ISN 841) and Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman (ISN 27) — in an article in February, but the other three decisions have only been made public in the last few weeks.

The recent decisions

In the first decision, taken on April 20, but only made public around May 18, the board upheld the ongoing imprisonment of Saifullah Paracha (ISN 1094), Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner. A 69-year old Pakistani businessman, Paracha met Osama bin Laden and was allegedly involved in plotting with al-Qaeda to attack US targets, although he has been unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, which has counted against him in the board members’ assessment.

As the board members stated, in making their determination, they “considered the detainee’s past involvement in terrorist activities, including contacts and activities with Usama Bin Laden [sic], Kahlid Shakyh Muhammad [sic] and other senior al-Qa’ida members, facilitating financial transactions and travel, and developing media for al-Qa’ida.”

They also, crucially, “considered [his] continued refusal to take responsibility for his involvement with al-Qa’ida,” described their “inability to assess [his] mindset due to his complete lack of candor, and the significant inconsistencies between written submissions to the Board and [his] testimony concerning family support and future plans.” They also “considered [his] indifference to the impact of his prior actions and the lack of evidence of significant mitigation measures.”

In the second decision, taken on April 27, but only made public around May 23, the board upheld the ongoing imprisonment of Haroon al-Afghani (ISN 3148), an Afghan, and the penultimate prisoner to arrive at Guantánamo in 2007. At the time of his first review, in June 2016, he had only just secured the assistance of an attorney, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis of Reprieve, who made a detailed submission on his behalf for his second full review on March 28, discussing his business plans and his preoccupation with being reunited with his daughter.

However, in making their determination, the board members stated that they had “considered [his] past involvement in terrorist activities, including [his] membership and leadership position in Hezb-e-lslami Gulbuddin (HIG), his extensive time spent fighting Coalition forces, and his prior associations with al Qaida.” They also considered what they described as his “continued refusal to acknowledge his involvement in hostilities after 2001 and his repeated attempts to minimize his role within the HIG despite facts to the contrary,” and also noted that he “was not credible in his responses to questions from the Board, and often provided internally inconsistent and evasive responses.” In their final point, the board members also “determined that [he] is susceptible to reengagement given his prior motivations for fighting and his inability to convey a change of mindset.”

In the third decision, taken on March 30, but only made public around May 26, the board upheld the ongoing imprisonment of Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj (ISN 1457), a Yemeni long regarded as a facilitator for al-Qaeda.

In making their determination, the board members stated that they had “considered [his] history as a career jihadist, to include acting as a prominent financial and travel facilitator for al-Qa’ida, and his close ties to Usama Bin Laden and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad.” They also noted their “inability to determine the credibility of [his] claims of a change in his extremist mindset due to his refusal to fully answer questions about pre-detention activities and motivations,” and “also considered [his] recent statements in support of extremism and that [his] age, health, and length of detention do not sufficiently mitigate his current threat level.” In conclusion, however, the board members “encourage[d] further compliance” and stated that they look forward to “hearing details regarding [his] activities and associations between his time in Bosnia and his capture.”

One more decision following a second full review has yet to be taken — in the case of Omar al-Rammah (ISN 1017), a Yemeni seized in Georgia in 2002, who has only recently managed to get in touch with his family. His review took place on February 9, and it is not known why it is taking so long for a decision to be announced, although it is difficult not to conclude that it is because the board members could not reach a unanimous decision. Al-Rammah, as I have previously noted, was seized by Russian forces and apparently sold to the US, and he appears to have only been connected wth the conflict in Chechnya and not to have had anything whatsoever to do with al-Qaeda.

In addition, two more file reviews — the purely administrative six-month reviews —  have reached decisions in the last three weeks, upholding the imprisonment of Mohammed Ahmad Rabbani (ISN 1461), one of two Pakistani brothers alleged to have been al-Qaeda facilitators, and Hassan bin Attash (ISN 1456), the younger brother of the “high-value detainee” Walid bin Attash, who is one of five men facing a trial for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Hassan bin Attash was just 17 when he was seized in Pakistan and sent to Jordan for torture.

Two more file review decisions have yet to be taken — in the cases of Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi (ISN 569), reviewed on April 19, and Khalid Ahmed Qasim (ISN 242), reviewed on May 24 — and Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi (ISN 1453) is having a file review tomorrow, May 31.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to note that an unfortunate by-product of the PRBs failing to approve anyone for release since Donald Trump took office is to create the impression that indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial is somehow acceptable, when, of course, that is completely untrue, and it is thoroughly depressing that, over 15 years after Guantánamo opened, the fundamental crime of its founders remains intact — the dangerous and mistaken suggestion that, in a country that claims to respect the rule of law, prisoners can be held indefinitely without either being charged and tried in federal court or held as prisoners of war with the protections of the Geneva Conventions.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

18 Responses

  1. Andy Worthington says...

    When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:

    Here’s my latest article, looking at the most recent news from Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Boards, the parole-type process set up under President Obama, which Donald Trump has not scrapped, despite being encouraged to do so by a number Republican Senators. Unfortunately, no one has been approved for release since Trump took office, and most recently three men including Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman and Guantanamo’s oldest prisoner, at 69, had their ongoing imprisonment upheld. This may have the unfortunate effect of encouraging Trump and others to think that endless imprisonment without charge or trial is somehow justified, although anyone who truly understand justice and the importance of the rule of law knows that it never is. Cross-posted from http://www.closeguantanamo.org.

  2. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks to everyone liking and sharing this. It’s very much appreciated, as I know Guantanamo has slipped off the radar in recent months. However, the men still held are still the subjects of the unacceptable detention policy implemented post-9/11 by the Bush administration and never adequately repudiated since.

  3. Andy Worthington says...

    Natalia R Scott wrote:

    This is horrible!!!

  4. Andy Worthington says...

    Oh, I know, Natalia. I’m trying to just cover the facts, but it’s such a broken situation – a charade of pretending that endless imprisonment without charge or trial is acceptable, when the parole-type PRBs were actually only tolerable when they provided a way for insignificant prisoners to be released.

  5. Andy Worthington says...

    Natalia R Scott wrote:

    I love your work, Andy. I’m just so sad.

  6. Andy Worthington says...

    Yes, it’s sad that the men still held are so overlooked again, Natalia – like it was in 2011 and 2012 under Obama, when he gave up doing anything because of Congressional opposition, and only stopped sitting on his hands when the prisoners embarked on their hunger strike in February 2013.

  7. Andy Worthington says...

    Just updated – my definitive Periodic Review Board list on the Close Guantanamo website: http://www.closeguantanamo.org/Periodic-Review-Boards

  8. Andy Worthington says...

    Rose Ann Bellotti wrote:

    I don’t even have a word to describe this ongoing travesty.

  9. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, Rose, for your ongoing interest. Sadly, Guantanamo has slipped into a little-remarked backwater with so many other reasons for people to be actively appalled by Donald Trump’s behavior, and yet, of course, there is no more reason to overlook Guantanamo now than there has been for the last 15 years and five months of disgraceful and completely unacceptable lawlessness.

  10. Andy Worthington says...

    Natalia R Scott wrote:

    Andy, he [Obama] could’ve done more to close Guantánamo but I feel he didn’t care enough

  11. Andy Worthington says...

    No, he didn’t care enough, Natalia, and he delayed when there was no good reason for doing so, not just via his inaction in 2011-12. So the PRBs, which he was first advised to create in 2009, weren’t nominally created until March 2011 (in an executive order in which he promised the first round would be completed within a year), and then didn’t begin until November 2013, and had to be conducted two a week in his last year in office to get them done before his time was up. He also, fundamentally, left the message that it’s OK to continually detain men designated for trials in a broken system, and, most crucially, to continually detain other men designated as “too dangerous to release”, even though people with respect for the law don’t recognise that as a valid reason for depriving someone of their liberty – for more than a few days, let alone 15+ years!

  12. arcticredriver says...

    Thanks for this article Andy.

    Newsweek wrote about Paracha being sent to solitary confinement, Guantanamo Under Trump Is a New Hell, Says 70-Year-Old Inmate Held For 13 Yearsarchived

    Why was he being punished with solitary? He wrote a letter to warden protesting the change in how the other captives who are hunger striking are treated.

    Newsweek attributes the harsher conditions to Trump’s Presidency.

  13. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, arcticredriver. I took a day off, and look what I missed. I’ll get onto this soon, but it definitely suggests that there’s a harsher regime at Guantanamo, which would certainly fit wth Donald Trump’s malignant rhetoric and racist worldview.

  14. Thomas says...

    What exactly is a facilitator and what do they do, Andy? Paracha and eleven other forever prisoners are accused of being this so I’m guessing it’s not a foot soldier job.

  15. Andy Worthington says...

    Well, describing someone as a facilitator makes them appear more significant than a foot soldier, Thomas, but of course each claim needs to be subjected to individual scrutiny. A lot of the supposed evidence only comes from other prisoners, or from the prisoners’ own confessions, and interrogations didn’t always take place under circumstances that were conducive to the truth being told.

  16. Anonymous says...

    To answer your question, Thomas, since Worthington didn’t, a facilitator is someone who engages in the activity of facilitation. They help a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan how to achieve these objectives; in doing so, the facilitator remains “neutral” meaning he/she does not take a particular position in the discussion. Paracha has insisted that he was neutral in regards to al-Qaeda and was only interested in the money. The GRTF and PRB didn’t believe him. Paracha and six other accused facilitators were recommended for prosecution during the Obama administration but unfortunately plans fell through. Paracha’s son Uzair, however, was tried and convicted in a court of law for providing material support to al-Qaeda and is serving 30 years in federal prison.

  17. arcticredriver says...

    Andy, I thought I would link to this recent article about Paracha and his son. Forever prisoners: were a father and son wrongly ensnared by America’s war on terror?

    Anonymous disputed your attempt to explain what US intelligence officials meant by the term “facilitator”.

    It seemed to me that US intelligence officials could be pretty sloppy about the terms they used. It seemed to me that, in order to selfishly magnify their own importance, they would demonize the suspects whose cases they were responsible for. This is why different intelligence officials each characterized the suspect whose dossier they were responsible for as “the 20th hijacker”
    Zach Moussaui was called “the 20th hijacker”, as was Mohammed al-Qahtani. If I recall correctly, there were a handful of other individuals who someone touted as “the 20th hijacker”.

    Similarly Abu Zubaydah, and half a dozen other individuals, each had US intelligence officials characterizing them as “Al Qaeda’s third in command”

    I think “facilitator” was misused in the same way. US Judge Joyce Hens Green asked the DOJ lawyer at Murat Kurnaz’s 2005 habeas corpus hearing whether a little old widow, from Switzerland, who donated her widow’s mite to what she thought was a legitimate charity, could be classified as an “enemy combatant” if someone at that charity was secretly sympathetic to a terrorist group, and embezzled some of the charity’s resources for a terrorist project. The Judge was told the widow could be classified as an “enemy combatant”.

    I’d bet a six pack that the dossiers of all the innocent bystanders who provided some kind of good faith help, without being aware they were helping a terrorist suspect, would describe them as “facilitators”.

    Cheers!

  18. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, arcticredriver. Great to hear from you, as ever. I saw this article yesterday. Haven’t had time to read it yet, but I’m intending to cross-post it with an introduction of my own next week. It’s been such a long time since I first wrote about Uzair’s case, back in the summer of 2007, in ‘Guantánamo’s tangled web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majid Khan, dubious US convictions, and a dying man’: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2007/07/14/guantanamos-tangled-web-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-majid-khan-dubious-us-convictions-and-a-dying-man/
    I agree with your assessment. I think the whole of Guantanamo’s so-called ‘intelligence’ files were based on US personnel trying to establish the significance and the threat levels posed by people they knew very little about, with little or no regard as to whether that was fair or appropriate; hence the number of Osama bin Laden bodyguards, for example, who were clearly no such things, and hence the number of 20th hijackers and facilitators you mention – and, of course, both of us remember how organisations that were not regarded as terrorist entities by the State Department magically became terrorist entities in Guantanamo: Tablighi Jamaat, for example, and numerous Middle Eastern charities.

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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