Abdul Zahir (Guantanamo captive 753)
| Abdul Zahir | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1972 (age 44–45) |
| Arrested | March 2002 Faisalabad |
| Citizenship | Afghanistan |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| ISN | 753 |
| Charge(s) | War crimes charges against Mr. Zahir have been dismissed |
| Status | "temporarily" transferred to Oman |
Abdul Zahir (عبدالظاهر) is a citizen of Afghanistan currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was the tenth captive, and the first Afghan, to face charges before the first, Presidentially authorized Guantanamo military commissions. After the Supreme Court ruled the President lacked the constitutional authority to set up military commissions, the United States Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he was not charged under that system.
Zahir was approved for transfer on July 11, 2016. On January 17, 2017, four days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, ten men were transferred from Guantanamo, while American and Oman officials declined to identify the men Abdul Zahir's lawyer told the Associated Press that he had been released.
Abdul Zahir was transferred to Guantanamo on October 28, 2002, and remains there today.
Zahir was charged with conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attacking civilians in connection with the grenade attack that wounded Canadian reporter Kathleen Kenna. Kenna wrote an op-ed about her feelings about Abdul Zahir's trial on December 27, 2009. She wrote that she and her companions weren't interested in retribution. She wrote that she hopes Abdul Zahir has a truly fair trial. She wrote that she and her companions couldn't identify their attackers. According to historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, Kenna's op-ed should have shamed the US Government.
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. 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.
...
Wikipedia