Posted on Sun, Mar. 05, 2006

Details of some Guantanamo hearings
Associated Press

Details from transcripts of "enemy combatant" hearings involving Guantanamo detainees:

_ Hafizullah Shah, from the village of Galdon in Afghanistan, was being held based on classified evidence he was not allowed to see. The farmer said he was walking to a bazaar when he was arrested. The United States said Shah was wearing an olive green jacket and was seen by soldiers with a group caching weapons. "I was just walking in the street and I was captured," Shah said. "The next thing I found out is that I am sitting here" in Guantanamo Bay.

_ Mohammed Barak Salem Al-Qurbi, of Saudi Arabia, was identified as an al-Qaida operative by one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, according to the U.S. military tribunal. His passport shows he spent time in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates in 2001. The tribunal said he used a trick to hide his stay in Afghanistan. Al-Qurbi also was alleged to be an operative linked to the suicide bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors on Oct. 12, 2000, in Yemen, and to have managed a hostel for the extremist Islamic Taliban movement.

_ Abdur Sayed Rahman, of Pakistan, identified himself as a poor chicken farmer. The United States alleged he was in the Taliban, either as a military judge or deputy foreign minister. It emerged during the hearing that the deputy minister is Abdur Zahid Rahman, a near homonym of the detainee. Police searched Abdur Sayed Rahman's home in Pakistan in the fall of 2001 and arrested him. "An American told me I was wrongfully taken and that in a couple of days I'd be freed," Rahman said. "I never saw that American again and I'm still here."

_ Zakirjan Asam traveled from Tajikistan to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001. He was accused of being a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which allegedly has ties to the Taliban. Asam said he came to Afghanistan as a refugee and was turned over to U.S. forces because he could not afford to pay a bribe.

_ Salih Uyar, 24 at the time of his tribunal hearing, traveled to Afghanistan from Turkey in 2000. He was accused of living with a known al-Qaida member for two months just before raids began in Kabul, Afghanistan, and of associating with Turkish radical religious groups. At the time of his capture, he had a Casio watch - a model that authorities say was used in bombings. "If it's a crime to carry this watch, your own military personnel also carry this watch, too," Uyar told the military tribunal. "Does that mean that they're just terrorists as well?" Uyar also went to Syria but said his purpose was to study Arabic.

_ Abdalaziz Kareem Salim Al Noofayee, 27 or 28, originally from Saudi Arabia, said he was a student of Arabic, English and physics in the city of Taif who left school at 19 and sold vegetables. He traveled to Pakistan sometime in 2001, saying he went for inexpensive medical treatments for a bad back, and was arrested March 2002 by police in a raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan. He told the tribunal he had been at Guantanamo for three years. He is accused of attending a terrorist training camp in 1997 and of being "captured with a Casio F-91W watch, known to be used by members of al-Qaida." He responded by saying that "the watch I had is like the watch even some of the guards here have. So does that mean they are Taliban and al-Qaida?"

_ Janat Gul ran Afghanistan's Ariana Airline when the Taliban government was in power. Gul, who previously had owned a shop and a mill, said he only took the job to avoid being forced to go to combat for the Taliban. He said the airline was not under government control and denied it provided Taliban fighters free flights to battle the Northern Alliance in the north. Gul said he quit his job several days after Sept. 11. "I was released from the oppression of a government, the Taliban government. I came out of the darkness into the light. ... I had left my job; even before the Americans came I was in my own house and in my own land," he said. He was arrested in January 2003 in Lashkargar, Afghanistan.

_ Abdul Majid Muhammad, an Iranian identified as a "watchman" for the Taliban who went on patrols and acted as a guard. He says he was a poor well-digger in Iran who occasionally bought and sold opium and hashish. He was arrested twice in Iran. He said he went to Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, because he wanted to get rich quick trading drugs, not to join the Taliban or fight Americans. "My plan was to get rich then put it behind me and leave it aside," he said. He says he was picked up by the Northern Alliance near the city of Ghazni.

_ Abdul Aziz Sa'ad Alfaldi. Transcript says one family name is missing. The detainee says his arrest may have been a case of mistaken identity. The Saudi national is accused of being an enemy combatant and fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan. He denied fighting or having any ties to al-Qaida. He said he went to Afghanistan to talk his brother into coming back to Saudi Arabia, not to fight.

_ Hani Abdul Muslih al Shulan, from Yemen. U.S. officials allege he supported the Taliban and was found with a Casio watch. Accused of being in Tora Bora during U.S. air campaign. He said he was just passing through Tora Bora on his way to Pakistan. He said he did not receive military training and was a student who went to Afghanistan to find a job and save money. He found work as a chef's assistant north of Kabul, he said.