Released 2016-01-07
Ghana Detained at Guantanamo Status released | Citizenship Yemen ISN 00202 | |
 | ||
Charge(s) Bin Atef was held in extrajudicial detention | ||
Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef is a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 202. American intelligence analysts report that Bin Atef was born in 1980, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Contents
- Official status reviews
- Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
- Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment
- Transfer to the USA
- Transfer to Ghana
- References
Bin Atef arrived in Guantanamo on February 7, 2002, and was held there until January 7, 2016. Bin Atef, and fellow Yemeni captives in Guantanamo Khalid Mohammed Salih Al Dhuby, were the first two individuals to be transferred to a sub-Saharan Africa country—other than the country of their citizenship.
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. 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
Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.
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:
Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, noted that he stood accused of having trained at the al Farouq training camp, and fought the Northern Alliance on the Taliban's front lines.
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. His 11 page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on December 28, 2007. It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby. He recommended continued detention.
Transfer to the USA
On August 31, 2009 Corrections One, a trade journal for the prison industry, speculated that "Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr" was one of ten captives they speculated might be moved to a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan.
Transfer to Ghana
Spencer Ackerman, writing in The Guardian, reported that the US had been negotiating for a year with Ghana, for his release. The imminent release of seventeen individuals from Guantanamo was leaked in December 2015. Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih al-Dhuby were the first two of those seventeen to be released. Both men were freed upon arrival.