Hassan bin Attash

Hassan Muhammad Salih bin Attash (Arabic: حسن محمد علي بن عطاش) is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.[3] Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate that bin Attash was born in 1985, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Hassan Muhammad Salih bin Attash
Hassan bin Attash, wearing an orange uniform issued to non-compliant individuals
Born1982 or 1985[1][2]
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
ArrestedSeptember 11, 2002
Karachi
Pakistani security officials, CIA
CitizenshipSaudi Arabia
Detained at Guantanamo, previously held in "the dark prison"
Other name(s) Hassan Muhammad Ali Bin Attash
ISN1456
Charge(s)Extrajudicial detention
StatusStill held in Guantanamo
Occupationstudent

As of January 2020, Hassan Muhammad Salih bin Attash has been held at Guantanamo for over fifteen years.[4]

Attash was seventeen years old when he was captured.[5][6] Hassan is the brother of Walid bin Attash, who has also been described as an inmate in the CIA's network of secret prisons.[7] Hassan, too, claims he spent time in the other prisons, including "the dark prison", prior to being detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[8]

Human Rights Concern

The circumstances of Hassan bin Attash have triggered the attention of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Reprieve and Human Rights Watch.[7][9][10][11] According to their accounts Hassan bin Attash was captured on September 10, 2002, spent time in the dark prison, spent sixteen months in Jordan, where he was hung upside down, and beaten on the soles of his feet, which were then immersed in salt water. They assert that he underwent this kind of questioning until he was willing to sign anything. They claim that he wasn't interrogated about anything he himself had done, but rather about the activity of his older brother. They assert that his 70-year-old father underwent similar questioning. Bin Attash was flown to Guantanamo in March 2003.

The Boston Globe quoted Guantanamo spokesmen Lieutenant commander Chito Peppler, who insisted, "US policy requires all detainees to be treated humanely,"[11]

Peppler repeated the assertion that none of the captive's assertions of abuse were credible because al-Qaeda trained operatives to lie about abuse.[11]

Transportation to Guantanamo Bay

Human Rights group Reprieve reports that flight records show two captives named Al-Sharqawi and Hassan bin Attash were flown from Kabul in September 2002. The two men were flown aboard N379P, a plane suspected to be part of the CIA's ghost fleet. Flight records showed that the plane originally departed from Diego Garcia, stopped in Morocco, Portugal, then Kabul before landing in Guantánamo Bay.[12]

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.[13] 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.[14][15]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[13][16]

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:[17]

  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who ...[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... traveled to Afghanistan for jihad."[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... took military or terrorist training in Afghanistan."[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees were captured under circumstances that strongly suggest belligerency."[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[17]
  • Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the "82 detainees made no statement to CSRT or ARB tribunals or made statements that do not bear materially on the military's allegations against them."[17]

Habeas corpus

A writ of habeas corpus was filed on behalf of Bin Attash.[18]

Joint Review Task Force

On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated, United States President Barack Obama issued three executive orders related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[19][20][21][22] 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 Guantanamo Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was insufficient evidence to justify charging them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[23] Hassan bin Attash was one of the 71 individuals deemed unable to be charged due to insufficient evidence, but too dangerous to release. Obama said those deemed unable to be charged due to insufficient evidence, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board.

Periodic Review Board

The first review wasn't convened until November 20, 2013.[24] As of 15 April 2016, 29 individuals had reviews, but Hassan bin Attash wasn't one of them. Bin Attash was approved for transfer on April 13, 2022.[25]

See also

References
  1. "JTF-GTMO Detainee Assessment" (PDF). Department of Defense. 2008-06-25. Retrieved 2022-11-12.
  2. "Guantanamo Detainee Profile ISN:SA-1456" (PDF). 2016-03-28. Retrieved 2022-11-12.
  3. OARDEC (May 15, 2006). "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. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
  4. "Hassan Mohammed Ali Bin Attash - The Guantánamo Docket". The New York Times. 18 May 2021.
  5. Kids of Guantanamo Archived 2008-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, cageprisoners.com, June 15, 2005
  6. "WikiLeaks and the 22 Children of Guantánamo | Andy Worthington". Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  7. List of “Ghost Prisoners” Possibly in CIA Custody, Human Rights Watch, December 1, 2005
  8. U.S. Operated Secret 'Dark Prison' in Kabul, Reuters, December 19, 2005
  9. Guantánamo: pain and distress for thousands of children, Amnesty International
  10. Reprieve uncovers evidence indicating German territory may have been used in rendition and abuse Archived 2007-08-04 at the Wayback Machine, Reprieve, October 10, 2006
  11. Stockman, Farah (April 26, 2006). "7 detainees report transfer to nations that use torture". Boston.com. The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on June 19, 2006. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  12. Richard Norton-Taylor, Duncan Campbell (March 10, 2008). "Fresh questions on torture flights spark demands for inquiry". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-03-17. Flight plan records show that one of the aircraft, registered N379P, flew in September 2002 from Diego Garcia to Morocco. From there it flew to Portugal and then to Kabul. Passenger names have been blacked out. However, Reprieve, which represents prisoners faced with the death penalty and torture, said that in Kabul the aircraft picked up Al-Sharqawi and Hassan bin Attash, two suspects who were tortured in Jordan before being rendered to Afghanistan and flown to Guantánamo Bay. Those rendered through Diego Garcia remain unidentified. In a letter to Miliband, Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: 'It is certainly not going to rebuild public confidence if we say that two people were illegally taken through British territory but then refuse to reveal the fates of these men.'
  13. "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. 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.
  14. Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  15. Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  16. "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  17. Benjamin Wittes, Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  18. David H. Remes, Marc D. Falkoff (2008-07-18). "Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation: Doc 152 -- STATUS REPORT" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-09-17. Retrieved 2008-09-23.
  19. Andy Worthington (2012-10-25). "Who Are the 55 Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners on the List Released by the Obama Administration?". Retrieved 2015-02-19. I have already discussed at length the profound injustice of holding Shawali Khan and Abdul Ghani, in articles here and here, and noted how their cases discredit America, as Khan, against whom no evidence of wrongdoing exists, nevertheless had his habeas corpus petition denied, and Ghani, a thoroughly insignificant scrap metal merchant, was put forward for a trial by military commission — a war crimes trial — under President Bush.
  20. Andy Worthington (June 11, 2010). "Does Obama Really Know or Care About Who Is at Guantánamo?". Archived from the original on June 16, 2010. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  21. Peter Finn (January 22, 2010). "Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantanamo detainees be held indefinitely". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-04. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  22. Peter Finn (May 29, 2010). "Most Guantanamo detainees low-level fighters, task force report says". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-10. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  23. "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.
  24. "Periodic Review Secretariat: Review Information". Periodic Review Secretariat. Archived from the original on 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  25. "Unclassified Summary of Final Determination" (PDF). 2022-04-13. Retrieved 2022-11-12.
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