Majid Khan (Guantanamo detainee)
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- There are multiple individuals named Majid Khan.
Majid Khan is a Pakistan born man whose family emigrated to the United States in 1996.[1] Khan attended Owings Mills High School, in Owing Mills, Maryland, graduating in 1999.[2] Khan returned to Pakistan in early 2002, where he married his wife Rubia, and fathered a child. Khan was secretly captured in 2003, and held in extrajudicial detention in the CIA's controversial covert system of overseas interrogation centres.
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[edit] Capture and final acknowledgement and transfer to Guantanamo
The Washington Post reports that Khan's family had no idea what had happened to Khan until President Bush acknowledged the CIA's black sites.[1] Bush announced that Khan and thirteen other "high-profile detainees" would be transferred from CIA custody to military custody at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.
[edit] Early life
Khan worked at a gas station his family owned. And this played a role in the suspicions of U.S. intelligence analysts that Khan was part of a plot to blow up parts of the U.S. petroleum infrastructure.[1][2]
[edit] Covert detention
Uzair Paracha, the son of Saifullah Paracha, another Guantanamo detainee, stood trial, and was convicted of terrorism charges in a U.S. court for a role in this plot. Paracha had requested Majid Khan as a witness. The U.S. government declined to produce him, even though he was in U.S. custody.[2][3]
[edit] Legal challenges
Khan was the first of fourteen detainees transferred from the CIA'a black-sites to military custody at Guantanamo to challenge the legality of his detention.[4] The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the challenge on October 5, 2006 -- before US President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.[5] The Military Commissions Act of 2006 disallows detainees from mounting challenges through US courts. The act is retroactive. The Center for Constitutional Rights plans to appeal the acts provisions all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Khan's appeal points out that even though he has been in US custody for over three and a half years, he has never had any kind of review of the legality of his detention.[5]
According to the Christian Science Monitor, Khan's appeal alleges that he was was tortured, subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and was coerced into making false and unreliable confessions.[5]
[edit] Pakistani cooperation
Khalid Khawaja, a spokesman for a Pakistani human rights group namedDefense of Human Rights, cited the examples of Majid Khan and Saifullah Paracha as proof that the Pakistani government had lied about whether it had handed over Pakistani citizens to the US. [6] The Associated Press quotes Khawaja as stating that: "Pakistan has sold its own people to the United States for dollars."
[edit] Top secret interrogation techniques
On November 4 2006, the Justice Department said that Khan should not be allowed to speak to an attorney because he might "reveal the agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques".[7]
James Friedman, a professor at the Maine School of Law, wrote that the Bush administration is arguing that Khan, and the other high-value detainees held in the Black Sites, should be gagged from talking about the interrogation techniques they were exposed to, even when talking privately to their own lawyers.[8] Friedman pointed out, "His combatant status was never reviewed as required by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) nor as outlined in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005."
According to an article by Christopher Brauchli:[9]
- Kathleen Blomquist, a Justice Department Spokeswoman explains:
- "information regarding the former C.I.A. detainees [like Mr. Khan] was classified as top secret. She said the information he shares with his counsel should "be appropriately tailored to accommodate a higher security level."
- The D.I.A. told the court that if Mr. Khan told just any person what the [interrogation] procedures were, it would cause "extremely grave damage to the national security."
- Marilyn A. Dorn, an official at the National Clandestine Service that is part of the C.I.A. told the court that "If specific alternative techniques were disclosed, it would permit terrorist organizations to adapt their training to counter the tactics that C.I.A. can employ in interrogations."
[edit] Letters from Guantanamo
Khan is the first of the 14 high value detainees to have been able to get mail to his relatives.[10] The Washington Post reports that four letters from Khan have been received, three to his relatives in Maryland, and one to his wife. Khan's letter to his wife was written in Urdu, and was published on the BBC's Urdu web site. Khan's Maryland relatives have also decided to make the letters public.
According to the Washington Post Khan's letters were heavily redacted.[10]
Khan wrote that he is in solitary confinement, but he can talk to nearby captives.[10] Once a day he gets an hour of solitary access to an exercise yard. His relatives say the letters show he has become much more religious.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c From Baltimore Suburbs to a Secret CIA Prison: Family Learned Last Week That Man Was Among 'High-Value' Terrorism Suspects Moved to Guantanamo, Washington Post, September 11, 2006
- ^ a b c Terrorism suspect has Balto. Co. ties, Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2006
- ^ Maryland Man Named As High-Value Terror Suspect, WBAL-TV, September 11, 2006
- ^ Suspect challenges detention: The detainee is the first transferred from secret CIA prison to argue he is being wrongfully held, Kansas City Star, October 5, 2006
- ^ a b c New lawsuits challenge Congress's detainee act, Christian Science Monitor, October 6, 2006
- ^ 2 Pakistanis in Guantanamo Bay should be released, rights group says, International Herald Tribune, November 23, 2006
- ^ http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/04/terrorism.detainees.ap/index.html
- ^ Secrecy, Interrogation and the Rule of Law, The Jurist, November 13, 2006
- ^ Christopher Brauchli, When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations, Counterpunch, December 22, 2006
- ^ a b c "Detainee's Letters Give Peek at Life At Guantanamo: Bush Named Ex-Maryland Man One of 14 'High-Value' Prisoners", Washington Post, Thursday, January 18, 2007. Retrieved on 18 January.
