User:Geo Swan/Gholam Ruhani

Gholam Ruhani is a citizen of Afghanistan, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 3.

When he was captured by US intelligence official with Abdul Haq Wasiq in Ghazni in late 2001. Their capture was called the capture of "number two and number three in Taliban intelligence". On his release, Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, noted that he had been included in the very first flight to Guantanamo, quoting camp commandant Michael Lehnert, that they wanted the worst captives first.

Background
A widely distributed Associated Press story said that Ruhani was a clerk for the Taliban intelligence service. AP quoted from Ruhani's testimony before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
 * ''"The Taliban law was that young people had to join the Taliban, I had to join, but protested several times that I had an old father and I wanted to go back to my family. ... If I had not cooperated with the Taliban Intelligence service member, I would have been sent to the front lines. I was afraid I would be killed."

Capture
According to Ruhani, he was a recently married store clerk at his father's electrical supply store where he learned a little English to make some sense of the electronics manuals in his family's shop. Ruhani was seized near his hometown of Ghazni on December 9, 2001 when he agreed to translate for Abdul Haq Wasiq, a Taliban government official seeking a meeting with a U.S. soldier.

Held aboard the USS Bataan
Former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef described being flown to the United States Navy's amphibious warfare vessel, the USS Bataan, for special interrogation. Zaeef wrote that the cells were located six decks down, were only 1 meter by 2 meters. He wrote that the captives weren't allowed to speak with one another, but that he "eventually saw that Mullahs Fazal, Noori, Burhan, Wasseeq Sahib and Rohani were all among the other prisoners." Historian Andy Worthington, author of the The Guantanamo Files, identified Ruhani as one of the men Zaeef recognized. He identified Mullah Wasseeq as Abdul-Haq Wasiq, Mullah Noori as Norullah Noori and Mullah Fazal as Mohammed Fazil.

Ruhani arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp on January 11, 2002.

Official status reviews
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.

Gholam Ruhani v. George W. Bush
Human Rights lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus on Ruhani's behalf in 2005. The Associated Press forced the Department of Defense to publish a dossier of 22 pages of documents prepared for his 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants


Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.

Annual reviews were convened to review Ruhani's status from 2004 to 2008. Rohani attended all his reviews.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment
On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. His seven page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on January 14, 2007. It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris. He recommended transfer.

Repatriation
A captive named "Ghulam Ruhani" was transferred to Afghan custody in "a U.S-sponsored lockup near Kabul. An American sponsored wing of the Pul-e-charkhi prison was opened near Kabul, in mid 2007. This 316 cell prison was built at a cost of $30 million, to enable captives to be transferred from Guantanamo and the Bagram Theater internment facility.

According to an article by Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, Ghulam Ruhani had initially been held with David Hicks and John Walker Lindh, aboard a USN warship. Ruhani was one of the first twenty captives transferred to Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, whose images were captured in a widely republished picture of kneeling captives.

On November 25, 2008 the Department of Defense published a list of when Guantanamo captives were repatriated. According to that list he was repatriated on December 12, 2007.

The Center for Constitutional Rights reports that all of the Afghans repatriated to Afghanistan from April 2007 were sent to Afghan custody in the American built and supervised wing of the Pul-e-Charkhi prison near Kabul.

Post transfer claims
Slate magazine described Ruhani as "having simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time."

When five Taliban leaders were exchanged for captured GI Bowe Bergdahl, Anand Gopal, writing for CNN, reported Ruhani was believed to have re-engaged in hostilities.

Thomas Josceyln reported Guantanamo officials had compared Ruhani's DNA with other captives, and believed he and Mohommod Zahir were brothers.