- Nationality: Libyan
- Residence: Afghanistan
- Married, one young daughter
- Arrested December 2001 (Sold to US Troops) in Afghanistan
- Currently Held: Guantanamo Bay
Please sign this and send letter, if possible! SIGN PETITION TO SAVE Abdel Al-Ghazzawi!
NEW UPDATE: 2/21/2008 Judge Bates to rule on emergency motion - WRITE TO JUDGE BATES! (Click for letter & Address/Fax) by the 13th!
NEW UPDATE: 1/30/2008 Judge Roberts refuses an emergency motion for health records for Mr. Al-Ghizzawi… see article (end)
Background
Abdel Al-Ghazzawi was born on November 8, 1962. He is just 45 years old, from Tripoli, Libya. He is married to an Afgani woman and has one daughter who does not remember him. He was trained as a meteorologist, but at the time of his arrest he and his wife ran a small shop in Jalalabad that sold honey and spices, and which they expanded to include a bakery.
In the fall of 2001 when U.S. Forces began bombing near his city, he took his wife and young child and fled their home and shop to go to seek safety in a rural area of Northwest Afghanistan where his in-laws lived. Not long after they arrived, around December of 2001 armed men came to his in-laws door and demanded the “Arab”. Abdel A-Ghazzawi cooperated in order to avoid any harm toward his family. At that point he was sold to U.S. Forces in return for a bounty under a program that the U.S. Government commenced which provided large sums of money (bounty) for “terrorists and murderers”. See photograph top.
Al-Ghazzari is neither a murderer nor a terrorist but was a victim of greed in an impoverished nation. He has been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.
He is in very poor health, which deteriorates day after day (details to be discussed with u in person). He has a family that is in desperate need of him.” - from another detainee and the only word coming out of Guantanamo about Mr. Al-Ghazawwi in his first four years.
Urgent: An Innocent Man is Dying [Updated]
I cannot improve on what was written on this page. Please visit the page for the full story of Abdul Al-Ghazzawi.
Combatant Status Review Tribunal (From Wiki)
Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.
Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants — rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration’s definition of an enemy combatant.
Al Ghazzawi’s pro bono attorney, H. Candace Gorman, reports that Al Ghazzawi had two Combatant Status Review Tribunals.[2] According to Gorman, when she acquired a copy of his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, she learned:
- His first Tribunal unanimously determined there was no evidence that he had ever been an “enemy combatant”.
- A second Tribunal was convened in Washington DC, five weeks later, in the absence of Al Ghazzawi and his Personal Representative, which unanimously determined he was an “enemy combatant”, based on secret evidence.
- When Gorman visited the secure site where the attorneys of the Guantanamo detainees can review the classified evidence she found that his secure file did not contain any new evidence. All the documents in his classified file had already been made public. The only difference between the classified and unclassified versions was that names that had been redacted in the unclassified version, were in the clear in the classified version.
When captives participated in their Tribunals their transcripts were normally included among the body of documents that Department of Defense was under court order to release.
Earned mention in the “No-hearing hearings” study
According to the study entitled, No-hearing hearings, Al Ghazzawi was one of the captives who had new Tribunals convened, in his absence, when the initial Tribunals determined that they should never have been determined to have been enemy combatants”.[3]
The study quoted from the Legal Sufficiency Review from James R. Crisfield, the Tribunal’s legal advisor:
“On 24 November 2004, a previous Tribunal [unanimously] determined, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Detainee #654 was not properly designated as an enemy combatant.
On 25 January 2005, this Tribunal, upon review of all the evidence, determined that detainee #654 was properly [unanimously] designated as an enemy combatant.
URGENT NOTE: Mr. Al-Ghazawwi is suffering from Hepatitis B, Tuberculosis and needs proper medical treatment immediately.
US Supreme Court rejects request for health files of ailing Guantanamo detainee
2008-01-29 23:26:56 -
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court turned down a lawyer’s request Tuesday for immediate access to the medical files of a Guantanamo prisoner who says he has AIDS.
Chicago attorney H. Candace Gorman said she needs access to her client’s records as she wages a legal fight to make sure he gets adequate medical treatment at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba.
The court rejected the request without comment. Gorman had said earlier this month that her client, Libyan prisoner Abdul Hamid Abdul Salam Al-Ghizzawi, told her in a letter that a Guantanamo doctor had diagnosed him with AIDS.
Gorman said Al-Ghizzawi, who has been held at Guantanamo without charges since June 2002, appeared seriously ill when she visited him in December but has not been able to confirm whether he has AIDS. She said she previously confirmed he had tuberculosis and Hepatitis B.
The U.S. military has declined to comment on Al-Ghizzawi’s health, citing privacy restrictions, or to say whether any detainees have AIDS. Officials insist, however, that all prisoners have access to complete medical treatment.
The U.S. holds about 275 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban and says it plans to prosecute about 80.
A 68-year-old Afghan detainee died from cancer at the prison Dec. 30, and four prisoners have committed suicide.
John Lennon and Mr. Al-Ghizzawi: Two Peas in a Secret Pod
‘Ask Me About Guantánamo’ …by H. Candace Gorman
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PROJECT TO ENFORCE THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS |
