publications

IV. Cases61

Walid62

Walid is a 28-year-old Palestinian.  Reportedly sold to the United States by the Pakistani security forces, Walid was among the first arrivals to Guantanamo Bay in early 2002.  As of February 2008, he was “approved to leave” yet he continues to be housed in high-security Camp 5, where he has been held since early 2007.63

Since his arrest, Walid has had very little contact with his family, who thought he was dead until, several years after his initial detention, he was able to send them a postcard.  He has not, to his lawyer’s knowledge, been able to speak with any of his family members.  Since learning of his whereabouts in 2005, his family has been writing to him and has sent him photos—including pictures of nieces and nephews he has never met.

Around 2003 or 2004 Walid went on a hunger strike for 20 months and was force-fed through intubation.  At one point Walid, who is approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed only 96 pounds.64

His attorneys report that they have long been worried about Walid’s mental health, which they believe has been deteriorating over time.  They describe him as lethargic, listless, and distracted, and took the following notes of his speech:

I love cowboys.  I love Indians.  I feel like they’re my family….  I knew an Indian woman in Gaza—she talked a witch language.  I won’t tell you her name because she might send me a witch curse….  Tarzan is a lovely person—very polite—he’s my friend, though he doesn’t [know] it.  I don’t watch for entertainment but for another reason—a secret—I won’t tell you….  I live in heaven, heaven is in my chest.  I love Jesus, I want to see him, and all the mermaids around them.65

After the US denied Walid’s lawyers’ requests to release Walid’s medical records, and knowing that they would not be allowed to bring in an independent psychiatrist to evaluate Walid in person, they turned to their next-best option.  They retained Dr. Daryl Matthews, a psychiatrist once hired by the Department of Defense to evaluate the mental health facilities at Guantanamo, and asked him to prepare a questionnaire by which he could do a proxy psychological assessment of Walid.  Based on the results of this questionnaire, Dr. Matthews has concluded that Walid appears to have developed schizophrenia, and suffers from delusions, significant anxiety, and depression.

Dr. Matthews noted that the “development of a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia is one of the known adverse consequences, albeit relatively infrequent, in populations exposed to isolation and other forms of severe maltreatment in confinement.”  Dr. Matthews believes that Walid’s condition will only deteriorate while confined at Guantanamo.66

The Group of Uighurs

In 2001 a group of 18 Uighurs, an ethnic minority from Xinjiang province in western China, was living together in a camp in Afghanistan when the coalition bombing started.  They claim that they fled to the Afghan mountains, were led across the border to Pakistan by some other travelers, and were sold to the United States for a bounty.  Another five Uighurs also ended up in Guantanamo, possibly sold to the US as well.

Most of these men have been cleared for release since 2003, yet remain in Guantanamo because they cannot be returned to China, and neither the United States nor any other country has been willing to take them in.  To its credit, the United States has concluded that it cannot return these men to China, due to the risk that they would be tortured upon return.  State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger has said that: “The United States has made extensive and high-level efforts over a period of four years to try to resettle the Uighurs in countries around the world.”67  While five of the Uighurs were resettled in Albania in 2005, another 17 remain—housed in one of the most draconian facilities in Guantanamo: Camp 6.68

Previously held in less-restrictive conditions, these men were moved to Camp 6 in May 2007 after some reportedly threw feces and urine at prison guards following a dispute about the Koran.  But rather than imposing a 30- or 90-day punishment, as is common in US prisons, military authorities moved them to Camp 6 for an indefinite period of time.69

As of April 2008—almost a full year later—these men have been moved to their own wing of Camp 6, where they are reportedly allowed to keep the slots in the door for meals open most of the day, so that they can more easily speak to each other without shouting.  JTF-GTMO also reports that they are now being granted additional recreation time, including the chance to go into a single recreation pen with another detainee, and that ultimately they will be able to leave their cells during the day and mingle in the common space in the pods.70  For now, however, they still spend the majority of their days locked in their totally enclosed, windowless cells, unable to congregate for meals or prayer time, and unable to see each other as they talk through the meal slots.71

In December, before being moved to the “Uighur wing” of Camp 6, an approximately 20-year-old Uighur man named Abdulghappar, who has reportedly been cleared for release, wrote to his attorneys.  In his letter, he described the impact of months of isolation on his physical and mental state:

We were very pleased at the beginning when the Pakistanis turned us over to American custody.  We sincerely hoped that America would be sympathetic to us and help us.  Unfortunately, the fact was different.  Although in 2004 and 2005 we were told that we were innocent, however, we are being incarcerated in jail for the past 6 years until present.  We fail to know why we are still in jail here.  We are still in the hope that the US government will free us soon and send us to a safe place.  Being away from family, away from our homeland, and also away from the outside world and losing any contact with anyone, also being forbidden from the natural sunlight, natural air, being surrounded with a metal box all around is not suitable for a human being.  I was very healthy in the past.  However, since I was brought to Camp 6, I got rheumatism and my joints started to hurt all the time and are getting worse.  My kidney started to hurt for the past 10 days.  My countryman Abdulrazaq used to have rheumatism for a while and since he came to Camp 6, it got worse.  Sometime in early August, the US army has told Abdulrazaq that he is cleared to be released and also issued the release arrival in writing to him.  Hence, Abdulrazaq requested to move him to a better conditioned camp for his health reasons and when it was being ignored he started to go on hunger strike for over a month now.  Currently, he is on punishment and his situation is worse and he is being shackled down to the chair and force fed twice a day by the guards, that wear glass shields on their faces, for the past 20 days.  For someone who has not eaten for a long time, such treatment is not humane.  Abdulrazaq would never want to go on hunger strike however the circumstances here forced him to do so as he had no other choice.  If the oppression was not unbearable, who would want to throw himself on a burning fire?

… Recently, I started to wonder, why are we staying in this jail for so long?  I wonder if we will be released after we damage our internal and external organs and arms and legs.  Or is it necessary for a few Turkistanis to die as it happened in the past here in this jail in order to gain others’ attention and their concern toward our matter?  Such thoughts are in my mind all the time.  The reason I am writing this letter to you is that, I sincerely hope you and related law and enforcements solve this issue quickly and help us in a practical manner. 

—Abdulghappar Turkistani (281), December 12, 2007. Guantanamo Bay jail, Camp 672

In April, Huzaifa Parhat, another Uighur who was reportedly determined eligible for release over four years ago, described his daily routine to his lawyer, who wrote:

Wake at 4:30 or 5:00. Pray. Go back to sleep. Walk in circles—north, south, east, west—around his 6-by-12 foot cell for an hour. Go back to sleep for another two or more hours. Wake up and read the Koran or look at a magazine (written in a language that he does not understand). Pray. Walk in circles once more. Eat lunch. Pray. Walk in circles. Pray. Walk in circles or look at a magazine (again, in a foreign language). Go back to sleep at 10:00 p.m.

The next day is the same except that the detainee may leave his cell for two hours of recreation in a slightly larger pen or for a shower.73

A Uighur named Abdusemet described days on end of doing nothing other than eating, praying, pacing, and sitting on his bed.  “I am starting to hear voices, sometimes.  There is no one to talk to all day in my cell and I hear these voices,” Abdusemet told his lawyer, worriedly.  “What did we do? Why do they hate us so much?” he asked. 74

Abdulli Feghoul

Feghoul, an Algerian reportedly handed over to the US by Pakistani security forces and sent to Guantanamo in 2002, was informed over a year ago that he was cleared to leave Guantanamo.  Yet he remains in Camp 6, having been moved there in December 2006.

In April 2007 he told his lawyers: “It seems that I am buried in my grave.”  Five months later, in August, he was reportedly given the false impression that he was going home, having been taken to another camp, measured for clothes, and told he would be traveling within 24 hours.  The next day, however, he was returned to Camp 6, where he has been held ever since.

As of February 2008, Feghoul had not been allowed a single phone call home in his more than six years of detention.  Feghoul told his lawyers that the Red Cross brought him photos of his family in early 2008, but that the prison guards searched his cell and took two of the photos away.  He told his lawyer he did not know why they were taken and that they had not been returned as of February 2008, when his lawyers last visited him.

Feghoul’s lawyers report that he is experiencing increasing difficulty coping with the psychological and physical effects of the profound isolation in Camp 6.75

Saber Lahmar

Lahmar, a 39-year-old Bosnian-Algerian, is a university-educated father of two who once taught at the Islamic Cultural Center in Bosnia.  In 2001 the Bosnian government arrested Lahmar and detained him for three months on charges that he was part of an al-Qaeda cell that was plotting to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital city.  Although the Bosnian Supreme Court eventually ordered his release due to lack of evidence, he was immediately picked up by Bosnian police and transferred to US custody.  By early 2002, the United States brought Lahmar to Guantanamo Bay, and he has been imprisoned there ever since.76

He has never seen—or ever even spoken with—his second child, who was born after he was initially detained in Bosnia.77

Since 2006 Lahmar has been housed in extreme isolation, with virtually no human contact other than with the prison guards and occasional medical staff or interrogators.  From June 2006 to November 2007 he was housed in an 8-by-6-feet cell in Camp Echo, with the only window in his cell painted black so that he would not be exposed to any natural light.  His lawyers report that he was denied paper and pen, allowed no reading material other than the Koran, rarely allowed out of his cell, and given only a sheet to sleep with at night, which was taken away in the morning.

Sometime around November 2007 Lahmar was moved to Camp 3, where he continues to be housed 22 hours a day in a single cell, with nothing to occupy his time other than his Koran.  He cannot speak to other detainees over the noise of machines that many detainees believe is designed to prevent them from communicating with each other.  Even his recreation time is totally solitary.

Prior to being moved to Camp Echo, Lahmar suffered leg muscle atrophy due to lack of exercise.  A JTF-GTMO doctor reportedly told him that he needed to exercise more often, yet instead he was moved to Camp Echo, where he was rarely provided recreation time during the more than 18 months he was held there, according to information provided to his attorneys.

Lahmar now reports that he is going blind in his left eye, a result that he attributes to being housed in cells with fluorescent lights on 24 hours a day.

Even before being moved to Camp Echo, Lahmar’s lawyers worried about his mental health.  His lawyers say that Lahmar’s mental health has deteriorated significantly during his years in extreme isolation in Camp Echo and Camp 3, and that he has become seriously depressed.

Over a year ago, in April 2007, Lahmar’s lawyers wrote a letter to Terry Henry and Andrew Warden at the Department of Justice, raising serious concerns about Lahmar’s conditions of confinement and their impact on his physical and mental health (attached as Appendix).  As of this writing, the lawyers still have not received a response.78

Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov

Jabbarov is a 30-year-old Uzbek national who has been cleared for release since at least February 22, 2007.  Reportedly sold to the United States by Afghan soldiers, Jabbarov has been in US custody since October 2001 and held at Guantanamo since June 2002.

Jabbarov told his lawyers that, shortly after he arrived at Guantanamo, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent informed him that US authorities knew his capture had been a mistake and that he would be freed very soon.79  In February 2007 Jabbarov received official notice that he was approved to leave Guantanamo.

However, Uzbekistan is a country with a known record of torture, and Jabbarov, who was reportedly visited by Uzbek officials in September 2002 and threatened with torture, has a credible fear of return, which the United States has recognized.80  But neither the US nor any third-party country is yet willing to take him, and Jabbarov remains at Guantanamo.  Even though he has been approved to leave Guantanamo, his conditions of confinement have worsened.81

For most of the time Jabbarov has been held in Guantanamo, he was housed with “compliant” detainees in Camp 1.  But in May 2007 he suffered a herniated disc and underwent back surgery.  Following the surgery, Jabbarov was confined to a wheelchair and given a catheter for urinating.  Concerned about bugs and infection in a camp exposed to the open air, and wanting to be someplace more wheelchair accessible, Jabbarov told his attorney that he requested to be moved, and he was placed in Camp 5.

By October 2007 Jabbarov—able to use a walker and feeling somewhat better—reportedly asked guards if he could be moved back to Camp 1 or Camp 4.  He explained that he needed to interact with others who could aid him in walking and stretching out his back and legs.  Jabbarov told his lawyer that the guards refused and said that he was being held in Camp 5 as punishment.82

In January 2008 Jabbarov’s habeas counsel hand-delivered a letter to the JTF Guantanamo commander, requesting that Jabbarov be moved out of Camp 5; he claims that he never received a response.  In March 2008 he again asked that Jabbarov be transferred to Camp 1 or Camp 4 and that he receive physical therapy for his back.  At the end of April, Jabbarov wrote his attorney that he is now receiving some limited physical therapy.  Yet, Jabbarov remains in Camp 5.83

Jabbarov has told his lawyer that the recreation area in Camp 5 has a tarp covering it, so he never gets to feel the sun, and that he longs to feel the warmth of the sun on his body.  He said also that whenever he is moved, for visits to the hospital or visits with his lawyer, he always sneaks glances of the ocean.84

Jabbarov has a wife and two children—both boys—ages eight and six.  He has never laid eyes upon—or spoken with—his youngest son.85

Ahmed Belbacha

Belbacha is a 39-year-old Algerian who fled to Britain in 1999 after his life was reportedly threatened by Islamist extremists.  Belbacha states that he went to Pakistan in 2001 to study religion. In December 2001 he was reportedly apprehended by villagers near Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan, and sold to the United States for a bounty. He was flown to Guantanamo in March 2002.

Belbacha received official notice that he was “approved to leave” Guantanamo in February 2007. But he is so fearful of returning to Algeria—a country with a known record of torture—that he has asked US federal courts to block his return. In March 2008 a federal appellate court reversed a lower court’s refusal to do so, and sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration.86

In the meantime, Belbacha remains housed in Camp 6, where he has been since it opened in December 2006.

In December 2007 Belbacha reportedly tried to commit suicide and was temporarily moved to the mental health unit, where he was held for two months.  Put on suicide watch, he was stripped naked and given a green plastic rip-proof suicide smock and placed in an individual cell under constant monitoring.  He says he was given absolutely nothing else in his cell: no toothbrush, no soap, no books, nothing he could somehow use to injure himself.

Each morning a member of the mental health staff reportedly came by and asked the same set of questions: “Do you want to hurt yourself?  Do you want to hurt anyone else?  Are you sleeping well?  Are you eating well?”

In January 2008 Belbacha was moved out of the mental health unit—and back to Camp 6.  “I feel like I’m being buried alive,” Belbacha told his lawyer, soon after his return to Camp 6.

Belbacha’s parents still live in Algeria.  He has not spoken to them since being turned over to US forces over six years ago.  He tells his lawyers that he is too depressed to write them.87

Mohammad El Gharani

Truly the forgotten child in Guantanamo, El Gharani, a now-21-year-old Chadian who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan and eventually brought to Guantanamo in early 2002. Although he was just 15 upon arrival, he was wrongly classified as 25 and held as an adult.

El Gharani has been in Camp 5 and Camp 6 for the best part of two years.

He has tried to commit suicide at least seven times.  He has slit his wrist, run repeatedly headfirst into the sides of his cell, and tried to hang himself.  On several occasions, he has been put on suicide watch in the mental health unit, given the green suicide smock, and placed in a single cell with no other items other than toilet paper.  Each time, he has been moved out of the suicide unit and back into Camp 5 or Camp 6.

El Gharani, who is described by his lawyers as extremely bright, has taught himself English.

He claims that the first English word he learned was “nigger,” and that he has been subject to repeated racial harassment since he arrived in Guantanamo. In fact, two guards have reportedly been investigated and disciplined for racially harassing El Gharani during the middle of 2007—a time during which El Gharani tried to kill himself twice. El Gharani reports, however, that he still sometimes sees the two guards on his cell block.

Often subject to punishment for reported disciplinary problems, El Gharani says he is often left with nothing in his cell other than a mat for sleeping, the Koran, and toilet paper. He says that at times even some of the basic items that all detainees are reportedly allowed at all times—including a finger tooth brush and small bar of soap—have been taken away.

He has never been provided any educational or additional recreation opportunities in accordance with his juvenile status at the time of capture.  He has never been allowed to speak with—let alone see—any of his family members during his more than six years in US custody.

El Gharani claims that his eyes are being damaged due to the fluorescent lights kept on in his cell 24 hours a day.88

Ayman Al Shurafa

Al Shurafa is a 33-year-old Palestinian national born and raised in Saudi Arabia.Although Al Shurafa has been cleared to leave Guantanamo since at least February 2007, Saudi Arabia will not resettle him because he is not a Saudi citizen. While extended family members in Gaza are willing to take him in, the United States is not currently resettling anyone there.

Meanwhile, Al Shurafa remains in Camp 5, where he has been for almost three years. In February 2008 he told his lawyer that he had asked the Guantanamo Bay medical staff for medication to “let the days go by without feeling anything.”  Although Al Shurafa has been given anti-depressants on and off, he was not receiving them in February.

Contributing to his emotional distress, Al Shurafa has suffered for many years from vitiligo, a skin disease that causes him to lose pigmentation in his skin, so that he looks as if he has been burned or bleached.  Al Shurafa reports that several Guantanamo doctors have prescribed ointments or other treatments for the disease, but that he has never received any of the prescriptions.

Al Shurafa, who reportedly loves to do artwork, was given paper and colored pencils from his interrogators throughout most of 2007. But in February 2008 Al Shurafa reported that the guards no longer let him keep the paper and pencils in his cell, saying they were against the rules. Now he reportedly spends most of the day sitting and staring at the walls with nothing to do.

Al Shurafa told his lawyers: “Being away from my family is like a death sentence.” Yet he has never been allowed a phone call home, and has even stopped responding to letters from his mother, brothers, and sisters. “What can I say to them? Nothing happens to me that is good. Nothing happens that I can say anything about,” he explained to his lawyer.89

B90

B, a 46-year-old man, was transported to Guantanamo in 2002 where he has been ever since.

B is now being held in Camp 6.  Previously, he spent close to two years in Camp 5.

Although B had no pre-existing history of psychiatric illness, his lawyers report that prolonged and isolated confinement has had a devastating impact on his mental health.  Over the course of his incarceration, he has become increasingly depressed, which has been worsened by an increasing feeling of guilt, as he has come to believe that his detention is a punishment from God for his minor personal misdeeds and failings.

B’s lawyers report that he has begun to hallucinate, hearing voices or noises and seeing images that are not there.  At times he reportedly beats his head against the wall.91

Out of concern for B’s health, his lawyers arranged for a psychiatrist who had once been recruited to work for the Department of Defense and has visited the detention facility in Guantanamo, to perform two proxy psychiatric assessments—one in 2005 and one in 2007.92  (The US would not allow the psychiatrist to return to Guantanamo to do the examination in person.)  The results were alarming:

Mr. [B]’s psychiatric symptoms have expanded and worsened in the past two years.  He now appears to meet the clinical criteria for both Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder with Mood Congruent Psychotic Features.  These disorders represent both a quantitative and qualitative worsening of his condition.  They are major anxiety and mood disorders, respectively, and are serious mental illnesses.  As a result of his continued detention, isolation, and maltreatment, he has begun to lose touch with reality (become psychotic) in addition to experiencing an expanding array of painful and incapacitating psychiatric symptoms.

The psychiatrist concluded that as long as B’s conditions of confinement remain the same, his psychiatric condition will likely deteriorate further, leading to an increased risk of suicide.93

To make matters worse, B, whose eyesight has significantly deteriorated during the time he has been in Guantanamo, has been told by a Guantanamo doctor that there is nothing they can do and that he will eventually go blind.  B also reportedly suffers from extreme stomach pain, persistent migraines, and recurring kidney stones.

He has never been allowed to speak to his family during the more than six years he has been in US custody.94

Mohammed Jawad

Jawad, a 22- or 23-year-old Afghan (he does not know his exact birth date), has been in US custody since he was 17.  He was captured by Afghan police on December 17, 2002, and handed over to US forces the same day.  According to his military defense lawyer, Jawad was briefly held at Bagram Air Base and transported to Guantanamo in January 2003.

Although other children detained at Guantanamo were given special housing and education programs, and were eventually released to rehabilitative programs in Afghanistan, the United States ignored Jawad’s status as an alleged juvenile offender.  He was housed with adults and reportedly subjected to psychologically manipulative interrogations, including being moved from cell to cell and deprived of sleep, a process that has been described as the “detainee frequent flier program.”  On December 25, 2003, about 11 months after arriving at Guantanamo, Jawad reportedly tried to commit suicide by hanging himself by his shirt collar.

Jawad received minimal if any educational programming or rehabilitative assistance.  After more than five years in Guantanamo, he remains functionally illiterate.

It is unclear in which camps Jawad has been held over the years.  During his two appearances before military commissions, he has said that he has lost track of time and cannot remember where he was held at which times.  However, he is currently being held in Camp 6.95

In October 2007 the US government announced that it was charging Jawad with attempted murder for throwing a grenade into a US army vehicle that injured two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in December 2002.  He was formally charged before a military commission in January 2008.

When Jawad tried to boycott his March 12 arraignment before the military commissions, he was forcibly extracted from his cell and brought to court in shackles.  He told his military defense counsel, Major David Frakt, that he was subsequently punished by the removal of "comfort items" - such as a T-shirt, one of his two styrofoam cups, and his book .96

At his May 8 appearance before the military commission, Jawad complained that he cannot even communicate with those in the cells near him because he is surrounded by Arabs and he speaks Pashto, not Arabic.  “There were some Afghans, but they were far away,” he told the commission.97

Frakt informed the military commission judge that he is extremely concerned about Jawad’s mental state.  He said that Jawad appears to have lost track of time and lost touch with reality, that he suffers from severe depression and headaches, which he attributes to the fluorescent lights that are left on in his cell 24 hours a day, and that he has very little understanding of the legal process at Guantanamo.  He told the commission that he had serious concerns as to whether Jawad was capable of aiding in his defense, and requested that his client be taken out of Camp 6 and moved to a “quiet, restful place where he can rehabilitate.”  He also requested that Jawad be examined by a mental health professional.  The judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, asked Frakt to put the requests in writing, and in the meantime, Jawad is still being housed in Camp 6.98

Salim Hamdan

Hamdan, a 37-year-old Yemeni, was one of the first detainees to be charged during the first round of military commissions authorized by President Bush.  Hamdan successfully challenged the military commission system, winning before the US Supreme Court in June 2006.  Four months later, however, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, authorizing a new set of commissions.  Hamdan, who has been charged with material support for terrorism and conspiracy to commit terrorism based on allegations that he served as one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers and bodyguards and transported surface-to-air missiles for al-Qaeda, is now slated to be the first detainee to go on trial before these commissions.  His trial is set to begin in July 2008.

Hamdan’s lawyers have argued that he has been so traumatized by his conditions of confinement that he can no longer help in his own defense.  “He is frequently unable to focus on any real discussion of the case, instead focusing on his conditions of confinement and our failure to improve them,” explained one of Hamdan’s lawyers in an affidavit filed before a military commission.99  At his last hearing in April 2008, Hamdan announced his intent to boycott the trial.

 

Dr. Emily Keram, a psychiatrist who visited Hamdan on three occasions from May 2005 through February 2008, concluded that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and major depression.100

When Dr. Keram first visited him in 2005, she noted that “the effects of even one night of isolation on Mr. Hamdan were so pronounced” that it was difficult for her to do her job.101  Since then, Hamdan has been moved into Camp 1, then Camp 6, and he is now in Camp 5, where he was been held for more than a year.  Dr. Keram warns that if Hamdan remains in the isolating conditions of Camp 5 his condition will continue to deteriorate.102

At Hamdan’s military commission hearing in April, he announced his intention to boycott his trial, ordered his lawyers not to speak on his behalf, and subsequently cut off all contact with them.  Hamdan’s lawyers have argued that, due in large part to his current conditions of confinement, he appears to lack the mental capacity to stand trial—as well as the capacity to waive his right to participate.103

In response, the commission’s judge ordered the Department of Defense to appoint a panel of experts to review Hamdan’s mental health and determine whether he is fit to stand trial.  The decision is due June 13, 2008.




61 As noted above, information about the detainees comes from their attorneys and cleared notes that they have shared with Human Rights Watch.  The Department of Defense does not allow Human Rights Watch (or any other nongovernmental organization – except for the ICRC – or journalist) to interview any of the detainees still held in Guantanamo.

62 Walid’s full name is not included in order to protect his privacy and at his attorney’s request.

63 Email communication from Navy Commander Bree Ermentrout, staff judge advocate to Matthew O’Hara, attorney for Walid, February 7, 2008; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Matthew O’Hara, May 7, 2008.

64 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Matthew O’Hara, May 7, 2008.

65 Letter from Dr. Daryl B. Matthews, M.D., Ph.D., to Matthew O’Hara, March 7, 2008 (copy on file with Human Rights Watch).

66 Ibid.

67 Quoted in Tim Golden, “Chinese leave Guantanamo for Albanian Limbo,” New York Times, June 10, 2007.

68Another Uighur was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006.  As of this writing, 16 of the remaining 17 Uighurs have reportedly been cleared for release.

69 Only one Uighur, Abdulnassir, has been moved from Camp 6.  In late 2007 he was transferred to Camp 4.  Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Jason Pinney, May 13, 2008.

70 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with JTF-GTMO (name withheld) official, May 15, 2008.

71 Human Rights Watch interview with Department of Defense official, May 14, 2008.

72 Letter from Abdulghappar Turkistani to his attorneys, May 8, 2008, provided to Human Rights Watch by Seema Saifee.

73 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Jason Pinney, attorney for Huzaifa Parhat, May 13, 2008; Attorney notes from April 2008 visit, before Parhat was moved to the “Uighur” wing of Camp 6, provided to Human Rights Watch by Jason Pinney. 

74 United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit, Huzaifa Parhat, et al. v. Robert M. Gates, Case No. 06-1397, Declaration of Sabin Willet, January 20, 2007, paras. 34 and 42, (copy on file with Human Rights Watch).

75 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Shawn Nolan, attorney for Abdulli Feghoul, May 14, 2008.

76 European Court of Human Rights, Saber Lahmar v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Application no. 2141/07, Claim for Just Satisfaction Detailed Description, March 12, 2008, pp. 2-3 (copy on file with Human Rights Watch).

77 Ibid., p. 2.

78 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Stephen H. Oleskey, attorney for Saber Lahmar, May 20, 2008; Email communication from Matthew Bryson to Human Rights Watch, May 21, 2008.

79 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Michael Mone, attorney for Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov, April 6, 2008.

80 The 2007 State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices noted that security forces in Uzbekistan “routinely tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees under interrogation to obtain confessions or incriminating information.”  US State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2007: Uzbekistan,” March 11, 2008, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100623.htm (accessed June 6, 2008); Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Michael Mone, May 12, 2008.

81 To its credit, the US has recognized Jabbarov’s credible fear of return, is not planning to repatriate him to Uzbekistan, and is instead seeking to resettle him elsewhere.

82 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Michael Mone, May 12, 2008.

83 Email communication from Michael Mone to Human Rights Watch, May 16, 2008.

84 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Michael Mone, May 12, 2008.

85 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Michael Mone, January 15, 2008.

86 Belbacha v. Bush, 520 F.3d 452 (D.C. Cir. 2008).

87 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Zachary Katznelson, attorney for Ahmed Belbacha, May 19, 2008.

88 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Zachary Katznelson, attorney for Mohammad El-Gharani, May 29, 2008.

89 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Zachary Katznelson, attorney for Ayman Al Shurafa, May 19, 2008.

90 Name and nationality withheld at attorney’s request.

91 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Stephen H. Oleskey, attorney for B, May 12, 2008.

92 The psychiatrist’s name has been withheld at the request of B’s attorney.

93 Letter from psychiatrist to attorney Stephen H. Oleskey, January 29, 2008, p. 2 (copy on file with Human Rights Watch).

94 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Stephen H. Oleskey, May 19, 2008.

95 Email communication from attorney Maj. David Frakt, , attorney for Mohammed Jawad, to Human Rights Watch, May 22, 2008.

96 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. David Frakt, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, May 7, 2008. Email from Maj. Frakt to Human Rights Watch, June 10, 2008.

97 Human Rights Watch, which has been granted observer status at the military commissions, was present in Guantanamo at this hearing.

98 Ibid.

99 Defense Motion for Relief from Punitive Conditions of Confinement, Declaration of Andrea Prasow, Military Commission, United States v. Hamdan, Feb. 1, 2008, Attachment G, para. 17.

100 Defense Motion for RMC 909 Competency Hearing and Authorization for Funding of Examination, Declaration of Dr. Emily Keram, Military Commission, United States v. Hamdan, May 14, 2008, Attachment A, para. 9.

101 Defense Motion for Relief from Punitive Conditions of Confinement, Declaration of Dr. Emily Keram, Military Commission, United States v. Hamdan, Feb. 1, 2008, Attachment B, para. 5.

102 Keram Declaration, May 14, 2008, para. 33.

103 Defense Motion for RMC 909 Competency Hearing and Authorization for Funding of Examination, Military Commission, United States v. Hamdan, May 14, 2008, pp. 1-2.