From WikiLeaks

In mid 2004, shortly after the United States Supreme Court made its ruling in Rasul v. Bush, United States Department of Defense set up Combatant Status Review Tribunals to consider the combatant status of captives held in Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Guantanamo Combatant Status Review Tribunal's authority

Tribunals were empowered only to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had been correctly determined to match the Bush Presidency's definition of an "enemy combatant". Tribunals were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants; lawful combatants, or categories other than "enemy combatant" would likely be entitled to full Geneva Convention protections.

From August 2004 to January 2005 Tribunals sat to confirm the enemy combatant status of 558 captives.

Gradual release of Guantanamo documents

In the winter and spring of 2005 the Department of Defense released memos summarizing the allegations against 517 of the captives.

In early 2005 the Associated Press assembled unclassified documents from 58 captives' Combatant Status Review Tribunals, where those captives had writs of habeas corpus filed on their behalf.

On March 3rd 2006, in response to a court order, the Department of Defense released 53 large PDF files containing summarized transcripts and other documents, for 360 captives. The same day the Department also released six PDFs prepared for captive's first annual Administrative Review Board hearings.

Over the next few months the Department of Defense released 16 more files from the Administrative Review Board hearings, and updated versions of some of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal files.

In September 2007 the Department of Defense released 2300 additional documents. It re-released all the files containing summarized transcripts from the captives' Tribunals and first annual Administrative Review Board hearings, and it released transcripts from the second annual Administrative Review Board hearings held in 2006. The Department also released unclassified dossiers from 179 captives who had habeas corpus writs filed on their behalf.

Classified summary of Muhammad Ben Moujan's Tribunal

The very last page of the last of the 53 files containing documents from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals initially contained a "classified summary of basis for tribunal decision". It is the only classified summary the Department released. In later versions of the file the document has been removed.

All 179 dossiers released by the Department contain an "unclassified summary of basis for tribunal decision".^[1] All of the unclassified summaries of the basis for the Tribunal decisions stated that the Tribunals did not find the unclassified evidence sufficient to make a decision, and so had relied on classified documents, and refers the reader to the classified summary.

The first paragraph of Muhammad Ben Moujan's classified summary explains that exhibits R15 and R18 were "convincing", and confirmed allegations in the Summary of Evidence memo prepared for his Tribunal, which listed the allegations against him. The first paragraph asserts that the classified exhibits confirm that Muhammad Ben Moujan attended the al-Farouq training camp -- the main al Qaeda training camp.

Attendance at the al Farouq training camp was not one of the allegations he faced in the Summary of Evidence memo that was given to him a few days prior to his Tribunal.^[2]

The second paragraph explains that the Tribunal had discounted exhibit R12, because it seemed to be about someone with a different name than the captive's.

The third and final paragraph merely tells readers of the existence of an unclassified summary.

Many captives, when they appeared before their Tribunals, asked their Tribunal if they were sure they had the correct file -- because all the allegations were new to them -- their interrogators had never asked them any questions related to those allegations. The classified summary from Muhammad Ben Moujan's Tribunal is the only confirmation that has been made public that indicates that Tribunals did, sometimes, deem evidence unreliable.

The Summary of Evidence memo prepared for Muhammad Ben Moujan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 8 August 2004.^[2] The Department of Defense published it in response to Freedom of Information Act requests in September 2007. It listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is an al-Qaida fighter:

1. The detainee affiliated himself with Muslim fighters in Afghanistan.
2. The detainee participated in weapons training in the mountains north of Qandahar, AF where he learned how to operated and clean an AK-47.
3. The detainee admitted he tried to join with other Arab fighters prior to the commencement of the Coalition air raids.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the coalition.

1. While in Afghanistan, the detainee engaged in Jihad in the Tora Bora region.
2. The detainee was captured while attempting to escape to Pakistan with other Arab fighters.

The Summarized Unsworn Statement on Muhammad Ben Moujan's behalf

The PDF file that initially contained Muhammad Ben Moujan's classified summary was one of the files that was re-issued in an amended form. In the amended version, the final page of the file that had originally contained the classified summary of basis for tribunal decision that had been prepared by Muhammad Ben Moujan's Tribunal was replaced with a document the Department of Defense called a Summarized Unsworn Statement on Behalf of Detainee.^[3] While it contains a signature, authenticating it, the name has been redacted. This statement is just two sentences long.

The detainee did not make an unsworn statement on his behalf. The detainee refused to answer any questions when asked.

This too is an unique document. The Department of Defense did not release any other similar documents.

If it was dated, the date was obscured by redaction. It is possible that it is merely a placeholder, prepared after the fact and designed to obfuscate the withdrawal of the accidental publishing of Muhammad Ben Moujan's classified summary.

Each page in the 53 PDF files was assigned a serial number. Muhammad Ben Moujan's classified summary was assigned serial number 3959. The names of PDF files incorporate the serial numbers of the pages each document contains. The file containing the page with Muhammad Ben Moujan's document was named Set_53_3870-3959.pdf. The 53 files contain occassional placeholder pages that state a range of page numbers that were not used. The 53 files contain occassional placeholder pages that state that a range of page numbers were used but were not published because they were sealed under court order. If Muhammad Ben Moujan's classified summary had not been on the last page in the file -- a page named in the title -- then when the Department of Defense re-issued a new version they could have replaced it with a placeholder page, saying that page number was not used, or was classified.

Instead they issued this new, extraordinary, undated unsworn statement, on the pretense it was drafted by the Tribunal in August 2004, when it was instead prepared in March or April of 2006.

Muhammad Ben Moujan's testimony

Muhammad Ben Moujan did not testify either before his Tribunal, or before his second annual Administrative Review Board hearing. He did testify before his first annual Administrative Review Board hearing.^[4] He denied the allegations against him. He testified the damaging allegations against him were drafted by a visiting delegation of Moroccan intelligence agents, based on a false confession coerced from him by those Moroccan agents.

References

1. ↑ OARDEC (August 8 2007). Index for CSRT Records Publicly Files in Guantanamo Detainee Cases. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2007-09-29.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} OARDEC (8 August 2004). Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- Ben Moujan, Muhammad page 62. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2007-12-05.
3. ↑ OARDEC (date redacted). Summarized Unsworn Statement on Behalf of Detainee pages 90. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.
4. ↑ OARDEC (date redacted). Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings of ISN 160 pages 100-106. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.