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Mohamed Jawad is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His detainee ID number is 900. The Department of Defense estimated that Jawad was born in 1985, in Miran Shah, Pakistan.

Combatant 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 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.

Allegations

In March 2005 the Department of Defense complied with a Freedom of Information Act request and published additional memoranda that each summarized the evidence against a single detainee. Jawad's memorandum was among those published, and it contained the following allegations:

a. The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners:

1. Originally from ############### the detainee was recruited by six men while attending the local Qari mosque.
2. The detainee was recruited to clear Russian [sic] mines in Kabul, Afghanistan.
3. The detainee was affiliated with the Hezb-E-Islami [sic] organization.
4. The Hezb-E-Islami [sic] organization is a terrorist organization with long-established ties to Bin Laden.
5. The detainee attended a Jihad Madrassas [sic] where he prepared to fight on the front lines.
6. The detainee attended a training camp in late 2002 and received instruction on the AK-47, shoulder-held rocket launchers, and grenades.
7. The detainee admits to telling a terrorist organization associate that he would kill Northern Alliance and American forces.
8. The detainee was captured approximately 17 December 2002, in Kabul, Afgahnistan while fleeing from the scene of a grenade attack targeting American soldiers.

Testimony

Jawad chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Confusion

Jawad was confused about the purpose of the Tribunal. When his Tribunal's President asked him if he understood the Tribunal procedure he responded that it was supposed to determine if he was a criminal. His Tribunal's President tried to explain that the Tribunal was not concerned with whether he was a criminal, but rather was supposed to determine whether he was an "enemy combatant".

In spite of this explanation Jawad continued to try to explain, throughout his Tribunal, that he was not a criminal.

Jawad's statment

Jawad described being approached by a man at the mosque who invited him to take a job clearing mines. Jawad told his Tribunal that he told the man he wanted his mother's permission before he took the job. The man told him to tell his family he had accepted a job in Afghanistan, but not to worry them by telling them he was going to be clearing mines. Various family members told him he was too young to take a job. His mother had left to visit relatives, so he left for Afghanistan without her permission.

Jawad testified that when he arrived in Afghanistan he was given a Hezb-e-Islami ID card. He testified that he was made to take pills that left him sleepy and disoriented. He also testified: "The men gave me injections in the leg and I hallucinated about many things, like my nose coming off and giving my ear to people."

Jawad testified that he was taught how to throw grenades, that a mine went off near him, but he wasn't injured.

According to Jawad that staff at the camp where he was trained were known by numbers, not names.

Jawad told his Tribunal that the staff members gave him orange gum, chocolate candy, and a tablet that made him go out of his mind.

Jawad's Personal Representative tried to repeat to his Tribunal the account he recorded of Jawad, "number thirty-nine", "number forty-two" another trainee named Nadir and himself traveling to Khowst. Jawad's Personal Representative's account included Jawad being given some bombs. Then "something happened", everyone was running. Then he got arrested, taken to Bagram, and finally to Guantanamo.

While the Personal Representative tried to repeat the account he recorded Jawad kept interrupting him with corrections.

Jawad said he didn't know whether Nadir, "number 38" and "number 42" were arrested at the same time he was. He was told they were. He was told they weren't. And he was told they were killed.

Jawad's transcript does not record the Tribunal members asking him any questions.

Administrative Review Board hearing

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

Jawad chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.

References

1. list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, April 20 2006
2. Summary of Evidence (.pdf), from Mohamed Jawad's Combatant Status Review Tribunal October 19 2004 - page 149
3. Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mohamed Jawad's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 33-38
4. Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Mohamed Jawad's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 131

• Guantanamo Bay detainees
• Afghan extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
• Living people