Mosa Zi Zemmori

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Casio F91W, in daily alarm mode. The watch is currently set to ring an alarm, and flash its light, at 7:30am.

Mosa Zi Zemmori is a Belgian citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Mosa Zi Zemmori's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 270. The Department of Defense reports that his date of birth is August 3, 1978, in Wilrijk, Belgium.

[edit] Captured wearing a Casio F91W digital watch

Zemmori was detained, in part, because he was one of over a dozen detainees who were captured wearing a Casio digital watch.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

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 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.

[edit] Allegations

During the winter and spring of 2005 the Department of Defense complied with a Freedom of Information Act request, and released five files that contained 507 memoranda which each summarized the allegations against a single detainee. These memos, entitled "Summary of Evidence" were prepared for the detainee's Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's names and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of these memos, when they were first released in 2005. But some of them contain notations in pen. 169 of the memos bear a hand-written notation specifying the detainee's ID number. One of the memos had a notation specifying Mosa Zi Zemmori's detainee ID.^[2] The allegations he would have faced, during his Tribunal, were:

a. The detainee is a member of a terrorist organization that was supported by al Qaida and the Taliban and participated in military operations against the United States or its coalition partners:

1. In October 2000, the detainee left Belgium for Afghanistan, traveling through Iran.
2. The detainee was a member of the Theological Commission of the GICM.
3. The GCIM is associated with and supported by other known terrorist groups, including the: Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Hizb-E Islami Gulbuddin ^[sic] (HIG), al Qaida, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), Egyptian National Tarouat Salah, the Taliban, and the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
4. The GICM allies itself with al Qaida and has supplied personnel for al Qaida for operations abroad.
5. The GICM, with assistance from al Qaida, planned to carry out attacks against U.S. citizens in foreign countries.
6. Members of the GICM trained in an area between Kabul and the front lines against the Northern Alliance, where they fired AK-47 rifles.
7. The detainee wanted to go to a military training camp in Afghanistan, but was unable to due to malaria.
8. At the time of his capture, the detainee possessed a letter from a known member of al Qaida that contained a hand-written quote from Usama Bin Ladin, when roughly translated said, "Destroy their economy, crash their planes, and kill them wherever you find them, at land, sea and air."
9. When captured, the detainee had a Casio watch.
10. The Casio watch has been incorporated into improvised explosive devices that have been linked to al Qaida and radical-Islamic terrorist ^[sic].
11. The detainee was apprehended after crossing the Pakistan border, just East of Jalalabad.

[edit] Transcript

Zemmori chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[3]

[edit] Zemmori's Response to the allegations

Zemmori expressed confusion at various points during his Tribunal.

Zemmori denied any knowledge of terrorist organizations.

Zemmori denied any knowledge of the GICM. Zemmori said he didn't know what the GICM was, and no-one at the Tribunal could explain it to him.

The Tribunal recessed, so that the Recorder could go research a definition of the GICM. According to the Recorder: "The GICM stands for Group Islamiste Combatant Du Maroc; better translated as the Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group."

When the allegation that he had wanted to attend a military training camp, but couldn't due to malaria was read to him, Zemmori responded:

"It's not right; this allegation is not right. I didn't train because I was sick with malaria. Somebody has called me to train, but not in a training camp. I didn't want to train because I was sick with malaria. The next reason is because he (someone else he heard of) killed himself by mistake. Because of this I didn't want to train, Your Highness.

Zemmori denied he was carrying a letter with a quote from bin Laden.

"It wasn't a letter first of all. Second, it wasn't meant for me. I was written in one book. It was in the book. This paper was an advertisement, and was not meant for me; it was just an advertisement Maybe you have this paper in America. Some people publish their opinion. This was one of the papers where people published their opinion. This was not mine. It was in a book. It was a book on how to read the Koran right, and this newspaper was in the book. I didn't know this paper was in this book.- Is there something else?"

Zemmori confirmed he was wearing a Casio watch when captured. Zemmori expressed confusion when the next allegation was read out to him. He didn't understand how his watch tied him to terrorism.

Zemmori disputed that he was captured after crossing the Pakistan border. He said he went directly to the Police Station, so they could take him to the Belgian Embassy, because he had no visa.

[edit] Zemmori's statement

Zemmori repeated that he was not a terrorist, and had no relationship with any terrorist group whatsoever.

[edit] Zemmori's reponse to questioning

Zemmori denied ever receiving any kind of military training.

Zemmori confirmed that he was a citizen of both Belgium and Morocco.

Zemmori denied that he had ever been in Afghanistan.

Zemmori said he had lived all his life in Belgium, and knew nothing about Morocco.

Zemmori was asked why the camp authorities had issued him a tan colored uniform. (Compliant detainees had white uniforms. Non-compliant detainees wear orange uniforms.) Zemmori couldn't explain the significance of his tan uniform.

Zemmori confirmed that he visited the Derunta training camp. He said he visited because the person he was with wanted to visit.

Zemmori confirmed that he had been visited by both a Belgian delegation and a Moroccan delegation.

Zemmori said his Pakistani host was a businessman, a trader.

[edit] Administrative Review Board

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

On March 3, 2006, in partial compliance with Justice Jed Rakoff's court order, the US Department of Defense released new documents, revealing new details of the detainees detention. The factors for and against Zemmori's continued detention, summarized in preparation for his Administrative Review Board hearing were:^[4]

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment

1. In October 2000, the detainee left Belgium for Afghanistan, traveling through Iran.
2. The detainee wanted to go to a military training camp in Afghanistan, but was unable to due to malaria.
3. When captured, the detainee had a Casio F91W|Casio watch.
4. The Casio watch has been incorporated into improvised explosive devices that have been linked to al Qaida and radical-Islamic terrorists.
5. At the time of his capture, the detainee possessed a letter from a known member of al Qaida that contained a hand-written quote from Usama Bin Ladin; when roughly translated said, '"Destroy their economy, crush their planes, and kill them wherever you find them, at land, sea and air."
6. The detainee was apprehended after crossing the Pakistan border, just east of Jalalabad.

b. Connection

1. The detainee was a member of the Theological Commission of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).
2. The GICM is associated with and supported by other known terrorist groups, including the: Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Hizb-E Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), al Qaida, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), Egyptian National Tarouat Salah, the Taliban, and the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
3. The GICM allies itself with al Qaida and has supplied personnel for al Qaida for operations abroad.
4. The GICM, with assistance from al Qaida, planned to carry out attacks against U.S. citizens in foreign countries.
5. Members of the GICM trained in an area between Kabul and the front lines against the Northern Alliance, where they fired AK-47 rifles.

[edit] The following primary factors favor release or transfer:

a. CSRT

1. The detainee denied any connection to the GICM during his CSRT.
2. The detainee insists that the letter containing the hand-written quote from Usama Bin Ladin, that was in his possession during capture, was not intended for him, but was an advertisement from a newspaper.

[edit] References

1. ^ [http://www.dod.mil/news/May2006/d20060515%20List.pdf list of prisoners (. pdf)], US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ Summary of Evidence (.pdf) prepared for Mosa Zi Zemmori's Combatant Status Review Tribunals - November 22, 2004 page 209
3. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mosa Zi Zemmori's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 21-31
4. ^ Factors for and against the continued detention (.pdf) of Mosa Zi Zemmori Administrative Review Board - page 101