Shawki Awad Balzuhair

Shawki Awad Balzuhair (born July 24, 1981) is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His detainee ID number is 838. The Department of Defense reports that Balzuhair was born on July 24, 1981, in Hadramout, Yemen.

Shawki Awad Balzuhair
Shawqi Awad Ba Zahir's identity portrait, showing him wearing the white uniform issued to compliant individuals
Arrested2002-9-11
Karachi
Pakistani security officials
Released2016-12-04
Cape Verde
CitizenshipYemen
Detained atCIA black sites, Guantanamo
ISN838
Charge(s)extrajudicial detention
StatusA former "forever prisoner", transferred to Cape Verde on December 4, 2016

Prior to his transfer to Guantanamo Balzuhair spent a month in the CIA's archipelago of black sites, where torture was routinely practiced.[2]

Initially the United States claimed Balzuhair and five other men seized in Karachi formed an underground al-Qaeda cell they called the "Karachi Six".[3] Eventually analysts would acknowledge that this cell had never existed.[4][5][6]

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.[7] 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.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[8][9]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[7][10]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, lead by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[11]

  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with Al Qaeda."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... traveled to Afghanistan for jihad."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... took military or terrorist training in Afghanistan."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... fought for the Taliban."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees were captured under circumstances that strongly suggest belligerency."[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[11]
  • Shawki Awad Balzuhair was listed as one of the "82 detainees made no statement to CSRT or ARB tribunals or made statements that do not bear materially on the military's allegations against them."[11]

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.[12][13] His 12-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on May 18, 2008.[14] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral David M. Thomas Jr.. He recommended continued detention.

Joint Review Task Force

When he assumed office in January 2009 President Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo.[15][16][17] He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[18] Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald was to call Balzuhair and 78 other men "forever prisoners".[4][19][20]

Periodic Review

In 2016, Bulzhair had his long delayed Period Review Board hearing.[3] The officials who made recommendations following that review were told that the Karachi Six cell had never existed, after all.

Transfer to Cape Verde

In 2009, following an attempted bombing by a Nigerian jihadist who had been trained and equipped in Yemen, the United States stopped repatriating Yemenis to Yemen.[21] Bulzhair was transferred to Cape Verde on December 4, 2016.[3][6][22]

According to Angela Viramontes, his lawyer, Bulzahair is a private person, who looks forward to anonymity upon his release.[22] She said he wishes to get married, and raise a family, "He looks forward to having a wife, children, and a job, the experiences most young men hope for that Shawqi has yet to experience."

gollark: Then try and park as soon as possible and/or turn over control to a human.
gollark: Object recognition is already a... capability which exists.
gollark: I think you can detect children and balls without massively advanced "AI" stuff now.
gollark: As long as they can automatically drive through big urban centers, and they can get cities on board, it would probably do the job.
gollark: Instead of trying to make them work *everywhere*, and having massively overspecced batteries for most journeys.

References
  1. OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-05-15. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  2. "SHAWQI AWAD". The Rendition Project. Retrieved 2016-12-04. Shawqi Awad is a Yemeni man who – according to calculations published by the SSCI – was held by the CIA for around a month (30-39 days).
  3. Charlie Savage (2016-12-04). "Guantánamo Detainee Is Sent to Cape Verde in First Transfer Since Trump Victory". New York Times. Retrieved 2016-12-04. Mr. Balzuhair is the second detainee that Cape Verde has resettled. In 2010, it took in a low-level detainee from Syria.
  4. Carol Rosenberg (2016-09-30). "New Guantánamo intelligence upends old 'worst of the worst' assumptions". Guantanamo Bay Naval Base: Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2016-10-01. Retrieved 2016-12-04. Yemeni Shawki Balzuhair got to Guantánamo in 2002 and was held as a member of the Karachi 6. He "was probably awaiting a chance to return to Yemen when he was arrested" at a Karachi safehouse on Sept. 11, 2002, a new intel assessment wrote in January. He was cleared and remains at Guantánamo.
  5. Andy Worthington (2010-10-13). "Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo? Part Seven: Captured in Pakistan (3 of 3)". Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  6. Andy Worthington (2016-12-04). "Yemeni Freed in Cape Verde: 59 Men Left in Guantánamo". Retrieved 2016-12-04. Seized in one of a series of house raids in Karachi, Pakistan on September 11, 2002, Balzuhair and five other men were originally — and mistakenly — regarded as members of an al-Qaeda cell-in-waiting, and described as the "Karachi Six."
  7. "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  8. Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  10. "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 24 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  11. Benjamin Wittes; Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  12. Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt, Heidi Blake (2011-04-27). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 2012-07-13. Retrieved 2012-07-13. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  14. "Shawki Awad Balzuhair: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Shawki Awad Balzuhair, US9YM-000838DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2016-07-09. Recommendation: Continued detention under DoD control
  15. Peter Finn (January 22, 2010). "Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantanamo detainees be held indefinitely". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  16. Peter Finn (May 29, 2010). "Most Guantanamo detainees low-level fighters, task force report says". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  17. Andy Worthington (June 11, 2010). "Does Obama Really Know or Care About Who Is at Guantánamo?". Archived from the original on 2010-06-16. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  18. "71 Guantanamo Detainees Determined Eligible to Receive a Periodic Review Board as of April 19, 2013". Joint Review Task Force. 2013-04-09. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  19. Carol Rosenberg (2013-06-17). "FOAI suit reveals Guantanamo's 'indefinite detainees'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2014-11-21. Retrieved 2016-08-18. The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg, with the assistance of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at the Yale Law School, filed suit in federal court in Washington D.C., in March for the list under the Freedom of Information Act. The students, in collaboration with Washington attorney Jay Brown, represented Rosenberg in a lawsuit that specifically sought the names of the 46 surviving prisoners.
  20. Carol Rosenberg (2013-06-17). "List of 'indefinite detainees'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  21. "US releases Guantanamo prisoner, resettles him in Cape Verde". Fox News. 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2016-12-04. The U.S. does not send prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war and had to find another country to accept him.
  22. "Yemeni Guantanamo prisoner freed after 14 years without charge". The New Arab. 2016-12-04. Archived from the original on 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2016-12-04. The US military has sent Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, 35, to resettle in the West African country of Cape Verde, downsizing the controversial detention centre to 59 captives, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
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