Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi

Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi

Muazhamza al-Alawi's Guantanamo identity portrait, showing him wearing the white uniform issued to "compliant" individuals
Arrested 2001
Pakistani border
Pakistani officials
Citizenship Yemen
Alternate name
  • Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi
  • Muazhamza al-Alawi
  • Muaz al Alawi
ISN 28
Charge(s) extrajudicial detention
Status a "forever prisoner"

Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His detainee ID number is 028. Guantanamo analysts estimated he was born in 1977, in Bajor, Yemen.

Al-Alawi arrived at Guantanamo on January 17, 2002, and has been held at Guantanamo for 14 years, 3 months and 21 days.[2] In January 2010 the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended he should be classed as a "forever prisoner", one who couldn't face charges, because he was innocent of committing a crime, who, nevertheless, was too dangerous to release.

Al-Alawi is a long-term Guantanamo hunger striker, who has described his force-feeding as “an endless horror story.”[3] In March 2015 he weighed just 98 pounds.

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.[4] 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 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[5][6]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[4][7]

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:[8]

Habeas corpus petition

Al Alawi had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.

On 30 December 2008 US District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that Al Alawi, and, in a separate ruling, that Hisham Sliti, "were part of or supported the Taliban", and thus could continue to be held in US custody.[9][10][11] The New York Times called the two rulings: "the first clear-cut victories for the Bush administration", while Andy Worthington noted they represented a "disturbing development".[12]

Glaberson reported that Leon stated he did not have to take a position on the Bush administration's claim Al Alawi was an Osama bin Laden bodyguard, that there was enough evidence he had supported the Taliban to confirm his designation as an "enemy combatant".[9]

In August 2011 Thomas Joscelyn reported that a panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld Leon's ruling.[13]

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.[14][15] A thirteen-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo detainee assessment was drafted for him on March 14, 2008.[16] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby, who recommended continued detention.

Joint Review Task Force

When he assumed office in January 2009 President Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo.[17][18] [19] He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[20] Al Alawi was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release. Although Obama promised that those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board less than a quarter of men have received a review.

Medical condition

As of 2015 al Alawi is recognized as one of the camp's long-term hunger strikers.[3] Camp authorities published the weight records from the first four years.[21] Those records show al Alawi's weight being recorded 53 times. His weight was only recorded twice during the camp's first well-known hunger strikes, in 2005, where his weight dropped to 117 and 118 pounds. But a hunger-strike he began in 2013, has left him weighing less than 100 pounds.

Al Alawi described his hunger strike as a form of peaceful protest.[3]

In 2013 a new warden was appointed to the camp, Colonel John Bogdan. Under his administration guards fired upon the captives, for the first time. Al Alawi was one of the captives guards shot.[3] He described being shot with rubber coated steel bullets in April 2013.

Robert Durand, a camp spokesman, asserted guards were provoked, and that they only fired "four less than lethal rounds".[22] Al Alawi described being fired upon without warning when he and other men were preparing for communal prayers.[3] According to al Alawi account he himself was hit by more than four munitions. According to al Alawi his wounds were either inadequately treated, or not treated at all.

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. ↑ "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 2008-11-09.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Murtaza Hussain (2015-03-24). "Prison Dispatches from the War on Terror: Gitmo Detainee’s Life an "Endless Horror Movie"". The Intercept. Archived from the original on 2015-05-29. Retrieved 2015-07-07.
  4. 1 2 "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. 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.
  5. ↑ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror
  6. ↑ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  7. ↑ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24. mirror
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 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 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  9. 1 2 William Glaberson (2008-12-30). "Judge Agrees With Bush in Ruling on 2 Detainees". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-31. A federal judge in Washington ruled Tuesday that the government was properly holding two Guantánamo detainees as enemy combatants, the first clear-cut victories for the Bush administration in what are expected to be more than 200 similar cases.
  10. ↑ "Judge Denies Release For 2 at Guantanamo". Washington Post. 2008-12-31. p. A05. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
  11. ↑ Randall Mikkelsen (2008-12-31). "U.S. judge rejects release of two Guantanamo inmates". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
  12. ↑ Worthington, Andy. Judge orders release of Guantanamo's forgotten child, December 2008
  13. ↑ Thomas Joscelyn (2011-08-02). "Al Qaeda fighter’s detention upheld by DC Circuit Court". Long War Journal. Archived from the original on 2014-08-15. Retrieved 2015-07-07.
  14. ↑ 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 2012-07-13. 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.
  15. ↑ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  16. ↑ "Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Muaz Hamza Ahmad Al Alawi, US9YM-000028DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2015-07-07.
  17. ↑ Peter Finn (January 22, 2010). "Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantanamo detainees be held indefinitely". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  18. ↑ Peter Finn (May 29, 2010). "Most Guantanamo detainees low-level fighters, task force report says". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  19. ↑ Andy Worthington (June 11, 2010). "Does Obama Really Know or Care About Who Is at Guantánamo?". Archived from the original on 2010-06-16. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  20. ↑ "71 Guantanamo Detainees Determined Eligible to Receive a Periodic Review Board as of April 19, 2013". Joint Review Task Force. 2013-04-09. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  21. ↑ "ISN 2-57's weights from 2002-2006" (PDF). OARDEC. 2007. Archived from the original on December 4, 2007.
  22. ↑ Charlie Savage (2013-04-13). "Mounting Tensions Escalate Into Violence During Raid at Guantánamo Prison". New York Times. p. A16. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16. Retrieved 2015-07-07.
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