Binyam Mohammad Ahmed al Habashi

Born: Addis, Ababa ET
DOB: July 24,1978
Residence: UK

Binyam Ahmed Mohamed (also described as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam (Ahmed) Mohammed and Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi ) (born 24 July 1978) is an Ethiopian national who is detained in Guantanamo Bay prison.

In 1994, Mohamed sought asylum in the UK. He was captured and transported in the frame of the US extraordinary rendition program and subsequently tortured.

In June 2001, Mohamed traveled to Afghanistan. The reasons for the trip are in dispute. UK and U.S. authorities contend that Mohamed trained in a paramilitary Al-Qaeda camp. Mohamed’s supporters contend that he had gone to conquer his drug problems and to see Muslim countries “with his own eyes”.[1] After 9/11, he went to Pakistan. On April 10, 2002, Mohamed was arrested at the Karachi airport by Pakistani authorities as a suspected terrorist. Mohamed contends that he was a subject of the United States extraordinary rendition policy, and entered a “ghost prison system” run by US and UK intelligence agents.[2]

Before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Mohamed states that he was incarcerated in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, and that while in Morocco, interrogators tortured him by using scalpels to cut his chest and penis.[3] Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, states that Mohamed participated in recent hunger strikes to protest against the harsh conditions and lack of access to any judicial review.[4] The hunger strike started in July 2005, and resumed in August 2005 because the detainees believed the US authorities failed to honour promises to meet their demands. From a written statement by Mohamed dated 11 August, 2005:

“The administration promised that if we gave them 10 days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington DC. As a result of these promises, we agreed to end the strike on July 28.

“It is now August 11. They have betrayed our trust (again). Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation and they publicly desecrated the Qur’an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF’d [visited by the Extreme Reaction Force] for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 hours _ Therefore, the strike must begin again.”[5][6]

On August 7, 2007, he was one of five Guantanamo detainees that British Foreign Secretary David Miliband requested be freed, citing the fact they had all been granted refugee status, or similar leave, to remain in Britain prior to their capture by US forces.[7]

Charged with conspiracy

On November 7, 2005, Benyam was charged with conspiracy. The complaint alleges that Binyam was trained in Kabul to build dirty bombs (weapons combining conventional explosives with radioactive material intended to be dispersed over a large area). According to the complaint, he was planning terror attacks against high-rise apartment buildings in the United States and was arrested at an airport in Pakistan, attempting to go to London while using a forged passport.[8][9]

Further claims of abusive incarceration

In December 2005 the declassification of his lawyer’s notes permitted further claims of abusive interrogation to be made public.[10] Binyam further claims include that he was transported to a black site known as “the dark prison“, where captives were permanently chained to the wall, kept in constant darkness, and constantly bombarded by loud noises and rap & heavy metal music.[11] Benyam claims that, while in the dark prison, his captors purposely injected him with heroin, to get him addicted, in order to use his addiction against him.

According to Wall Street Journal, Ralph Kohlmann, the President of Mohamed’s military commission, led a discussion, at his child’s high school, entitled “Torture, Terrorism and National Security.”[12]

Status Review Tribunal

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 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 Tribunal. 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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee’s name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee’s ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee’s names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Mohamed Ahmed Binyam was one of those 169 detainees.[13]

Allegations

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida or the Taliban.

The detainee is ########## who lived in the United States from 1992 to 1994, and in London, United Kingdom, until he departed for Pakistan in 2001.
The detainee arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, in June 2001, and traveled to the al Faruq training camp in Afghanistan, to receive paramilitary training.
At the al Faruq camp, the detainee received 40 days of training in light arms handling, explosives, and principles of topography.
The detainee was taught to falsify documents, and received instruction from a senior al Qaida operative on how to encode telephone numbers before passing them to another individual.
The detainee proposed, to senior-al Qaida leaders, the idea of attacking subway trains in the United States.
The detainee was extracted from Afghanistan to Karachi, Pakistan, where he received explosives and remote-controlled-detonator training from an al Qaida operative.
The detainee met with an al Qaida operative and was directed to travel to the United States to assist in terrorist operations.
The detainee attempted to leave Pakistan for the United States but was detained and interrogated by Pakistani authorities, revealing his membership in al Qaida, the identities of Mujahidins he knew, and his plan to use a “dirty bomb” ^[^sic^] to carry out a terrorist attack in the United States.

Release negotiation

On August 7, 2007 the United Kingdom government requested the release of Binyam Mohamed and four other men who had been legal British residents without being British citizens.[14] The UK government warned that the negotiations might take months.

References

Stafford Smith, Clive (2008). Bad Men. United Kingdom: Phoenix. ISBN 978-0-7538-2352-1 pages=49-127.

External links

From Andy Worthington:

PLEASE write to David Miliband (milibandd@parliament.uk) to request that he insists on Mr. Mohamed’s return to the UK.

This is the text of Mr. Stafford Smith’s letter that accompanied the report:

Dear Mr. Miliband,
There is an urgent need for humanitarian intervention on behalf of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident from Kensington who the US apparently plans to continue holding in Guantánamo Bay, and who I am representing in his habeas corpus proceedings.
As we hope to see three British residents home in the next few days, Mr. Mohamed’s plight becomes ever more stark. I am sure that you are aware that Mr. Mohamed has suffered torture and abuse by US foederati [proxy torturers] in Pakistan and Morocco, and by US personnel themselves in the Dark Prison of Kabul and in Guantánamo Bay itself. That the Bush Administration continues to deny its role in the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners such as Mr. Mohamed is, sad to say, simply dishonest.
I doubt either you or I ever thought we would be dealing with the consequences of torture committed by the US on someone from Britain. It is sad that this is the case, but our horror must motivate us into vigorous action.
Yours sincerely,
Clive Stafford Smith

For more on the story of Binyam Mohamed – and the other Guantánamo detainees subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and imprisonment in “black sites” run by the CIA – see Andy’s newly published book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison.

[Note: Binyam Mohamed is also referred to as Binyam Mohammed al-Habashi].