Citizenship Yemen Status released | ISN 440 | |
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Charge(s) extrajudicial detention | ||
Mohammed Ali Abdullah Bwazir is a citizen of Yemen, once held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Bwazir's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 440. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1980, in Howra, Yemen.
Contents
- Hunger strike
- Official status reviews
- Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
- habeas corpus
- Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment
- References
Bwazir arrived in Guantanamo on May 1, 2002.
In December 2015 unnamed officials leaked that Congress had been given notice that 17 individuals would be transferred from Guantanamo starting in thirty days. The US military planned to transfer the last three of those seventeen on January 21, 2016. Both his lawyers and military officials were surprised when Bwazir balked at the last moment, and declined repatriation.
On January 5, 2017 Bwazir and three other Yemeni men were transferred to Saudi Arabia.
Hunger strike
The Washington Post reports that Bawazir's lawyers assert that Bawazir was one of those participating in the 2006 Guantanamo hunger strike, and that the new harsher procedures camp authorities instituted to break the hunger strike violated last fall's proscription on torture.
Camp authorities have been force-feeding hunger strikers. In January 2006 camp authorities started using "restraint chairs" to feed detainees.
The Center for Constitutional Rights quoted from the emergency injunction Bawazir's lawyers filed on his behalf, in reaction to what they described as the unnecessary violence of his force-feeding in the restraint chair:
Medical records show Bawazir's weight had dropped to 97 pounds, during the 140 days of his hunger strike. Medical records show Bawazir was restrained in the chair longer than the manufacturer's directions.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin asserted that the force-feedings were conducted humanely. He explained the extraordinary duration of the detainee's confinement to the restraint chair was due to the length of time the force-feeding took.
U.S. government lawyers argued that the bans on torture and cruel and unusual treatment didn't apply to captives in Guantánamo Bay. Justice Gladys Kessler called the allegations "extremely disturbing".
On February 11, 2009 US District Court judge Gladys Kessler declined to bar the use of restraint chairs for force-feeding Mohammed Ali Abdullah Bawazir and Omar Khamis Bin Hamdoon. Kessler's noted that Bawazir and Hamdoon petition stated that the use of the restraint chair was "tantamount to torture". But she stated the opinion that because she lacked the medical expertise to evaluate the position of the camp's medical authorities she lacked jurisdiction to rule on the petition.
According to the Agence France Presse Bawazir and Hamdoon were not opposed to being force fed. According to the Agence France Presse camp authorities are withholding medical treatment for their other ailments from the hunger strikers, in an attempt to pressure them to quit their strike.
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:
habeas corpus
A habeas corpus petition was filed on Bwazir's behalf in 2005.
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 9 page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on October 27, 2008. It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral David M. Thomas Jr. He recommended continued detention.