Menhal Al Henali
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Menhal Al Henali is a citizen of Syria held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] Al Henali's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 726. American intelligence analysts estimate Al Henali was born in 1963, in Darna, Syria.
Prior to his capture Menhal Al Henali worked in an United Nations refugee camp in Vershowa, Pakistan, [2] Fellow detainee, Fethi Boucetta, a medical doctor, testified he worked under Al Henali.
[edit] 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.
There is no record that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal reviewed this captive's status.
[edit] Called to testify for Fethi Boucetta
Guantanamo detainee Fethi Boucetta asked that Al Henali be called upon to testify on his behalf during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[2] When a detainee requested a witness who their Tribunal officers don't recognize as a fellow detainee, and the Tribunal's President ruled that they agreed that the witnesses testimony would be "relevant", the Department of Defense would make a request to the Department of State, requesting that they ask the help of the witnesses embassy, in order to locate the witness. However, in practice, testimony from "off-island" witnesses was very rare, and detainees were routinely told that since no reply had come back their witnesses were "not reasonably available".
When Fethi Boucetta requested Al Henali the State Department failed to secure the cooperation of the Syrian government in finding Al Henali.
[edit] References
- ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
- ^ a b Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Fethi Boucetta's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - mirror - pages 50-54
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