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Obaidullah (born approx. 1980) is a citizen of Afghanistan, currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba. He was captured as an Enemy combatant on July 20, 2002 and as of July 15, 2012, he has been held at Guantánamo for nine years nine months.

Intelligence and Capture
On July 20, 2002, two dozen American Special Armed Forces soldiers, acting on an anonymous tip, captured Obaidullah during their search for an individual alleged to be hiding anti-tank missiles for an "insurgent's cell." At the time, Obaidullah was carrying a notebook which the U.S alleges contained diagrams for improvised explosive devices.

About Obaidullah
Obaidullah grew up in a small village called Milani in the Khost province of Afghanistan. Around the time when his father died in the 1980s, his family fled to Pakistan to avoid the occupying Soviet forces. When the family moved back to their home, it had been occupied by an Afghan communist leader named Ali Jan, the man allegedly responsible for mines found near his compound.

Obaidullah received up to an 11th grade education before the pressures of having to take care of his family made him leave school. His household consisted of his mother and extended family who farmed to support themselves, but Obaidullah also worked in a pots-and-pans store. Obaidullah has a wife and one child who was born just days before he was captured by American forces. His wife gave birth in the backseat of a borrowed car on the way to the hospital. These details of his life would later be used to rebut allegations made against him by the U.S Government.

Chapman Airbase Prison
Immediately following capture, Obaidullah was hooded and interrogated throughout the night, with his hands and feet bound together with plastic. Obaidullah was first transferred by the military to Chapman Airbase where personnel coerced statements from him through physical abuse, including a blow to the head with a rifle butt. An American witness later corroborated that Obaidullah was indeed struck in the head. He was held at Chapman for approximately 36 hours before he was transferred to Bagram.

Bagram Airbase Prison
During his detainment in Bagram, Obaidullah allegedly made inculpatory statements linking him to an Al Queda bomb cell. Soon after his transfer to Guantanamo, Obaidullah recanted and explained that he made false statements at Bagram due to abusive interrogation techniques used on him. In Bagram, Obaidullah described being subjected to beatings, stress positions, food and sleep deprivation, and physical threats. Obaidullah’s purported abuse occurred during a time period when other inmates had also reported instances of abuse while held in U.S. custody at Bagram. Thus, the government has since acknowledged that the coerced statements made in both Chapman and Bagram were unreliable.

Guantanamo Bay Prison
The first detainees of Guantanamo Bay arrived on January 11, 2002. They were taken to Guantanamo for interrogation due to the secure environment it offered, as American facilities in Afghanistan were deemed inadequate. Others argued that the reason detainees were transferred there was to minimize legal constraints. At Guantanamo, due process procedures like the presumption of innocence and trial by jury could be withheld. Obaidullah was rendered to Guantanamo after his three month detention in Bagram in October 2002.



Initially the Bush administration asserted they could withhold the protections of the Geneva Conventions from captives in the "War on Terror", while critics argued the Conventions obligated the United States to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently, the US Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals, to determine whether the captives met the new definition of an "enemy combatant". From July 2004 through March 2005, a CSRT was convened to make a determination whether each captive had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". These hearings would allow Guantanamo detainees to challenge their “enemy combatant” status and ultimately their detention.

Administrative Review Board
Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.

Administrative Review
In Guantanamo, Obaidullah participated in the review process to challenge his “enemy combatant” status. He made a sworn statement before a CSRT in 2004 and participated in three administrative review hearings in 2005, 2006 and 2007. To begin the review process, a memo outlining allegations against Obaidullah was prepared titled, Summary of Evidence for CSRT, dated September 16, 2004. These allegations were read to Obaidullah and he verbally contested the evidence against him. His oral remarks were recorded as his sworn statement.

Round One
Round One of the review process was held in Guantanamo in 2005. The evidence that would be presented in this hearing was outlined first in the 2004 memo, Summary of Evidence for CSRT. The primary allegations asserted, first, that Obaidullah was “a member of Al-Qaida and associated with the Taliban” based on his confessions, notebook and anti-tank missiles seized from his home, and the training that he purportedly received on the use of land mines and explosives. Second, the US government alleged that Obaidullah “engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition partners” because he had a notebook with diagrams of how to construct a remote control explosive device, and he had hidden anti-tank mines to attack US troops. On the evidence about his notebook, Obaidullah countered that there were also notes about his work at the pots-and-pans business and that the only reason he held onto the notebook was not for the diagrams, but for those business notes. He was told to copy the explosives diagrams when he was forced to attend a Taliban training school which he ran away from after attending only two days. He also argued that the anti-tank missiles were left behind by Ali Jan, the communist leader, while his family was in Pakistan.

Round Two
Round Two was held in Guantanamo in 2006. A new and much more detailed summary of evidence was created for Round Two dated August 11, 2006. It summarized eleven factors for continued detention and four factors favoring release or transfer.

Round Three
Round Three was held in Guantanamo in 2007. A slightly revised summary of evidence from round two was released, dated October 12, 2007. The following changes were made:

1. A new allegation was included which stated that Obaidullah was “captured with over twenty anti-tank missiles in his home” (3.a.6).

2. The fact that Obaidullah “described the contents of the notebook as directions on how to use the anti-tank mines, not as electronic or explosive schematics” was moved from the heading “factors favoring release” to “factors for continued detention” (3.a.7).

3. A new allegation was included which stated that “the Taliban forced him to attend mechanical school, whose purpose was to provide explosives and firearms training. The detainee stated he left the school after two days” (3.b.2).

On Oct 18, 2007, Obaidullah’s Annual Review Board interview was conducted and a decision that he would remain in U.S custody was released in a memo that same day. All reasons or text that might support a rationale for or against were redacted.

In September 2008, US military prosecutors formally charged Obaidullah for war crimes. He was the 24th Guantanamo prisoner to be charged with war crimes.

Habeas Petition
On November 2010, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S District Court of the District of Columbia ruled that Obaidullah's detention was lawful due to multiple changes in Obaidullah’s testimony Judge Leon denied Obaidullah’s petition for writ of habeas corpus after finding he was "more likely than not" an insurgent.

Since then, Obaidullah has appealed the 2010 ruling. One of the issues in his appeal was whether secret information that was presented to Judge Leon should have been made accessible to Obaidullah’s defense lawyers. Defense lawyers argued that invoking secret privilege requires top-level approval from the U.S. Justice Department and since government lawyers had not invoked this privilege, they should be allowed to see the documents. In addition, Obaidullah’s lawyers argued that the D.C appeals court should refuse to review the top secret documents. If the D.C appeals court reviewed the documents, defense lawyers argued that the fact-finding that would occur "would take [the court] far outside its proper role, jeopardizing the integrity of the appellate process."

On the other hand, government lawyers argued that since Judge Leon had access to this top secret information, it is in fact part of the record and can be used by the appellate court. They also argue that the rules of civil procedure (which dictate that the defense lawyers should see the documents) do not rule Habeas litigation.

Current Status
On Feb 8, 2012, Obaidullah’s lawyers moved to reopen the record, or revive the habeas petition, because new exculpatory evidence had been uncovered that would rebut a key argument in the court's denial of habeas petition and denial of motion for reconsideration. This evidence was attested to in a declaration by Lieutenant Commander Richard Pandis (US naval reserve) who was assigned as investigator to the Obaidullah case. He stated that "[m]y investigation has given me no reason to believe that Obaydullah or any other particular person was actually visually identified at the time of the report about injured persons being ferried in a vehicle. Instead, my investigation leads me to believe that the intelligence was unintentionally mischaracterized by individuals and documents describing it to the District Court"

Currently, there remain 171 inmates in Guantanamo, and 89 of these men have been declared by the government to pose no risk or, deemed as not “enemy combatants.”