Asif Iqbal (Guantanamo detainee)

Last updated

Asif Iqbal
Born (1981-04-24) 24 April 1981 (age 43)
West Bromwich, West Midlands, England
Arrested2001
Pakistan
Released9 March 2004
Citizenship United Kingdom
Detained at  Sheberghan; Guantanamo
ISN 87
Charge(s) extrajudicial detention
Statusreleased

Asif Iqbal (born 24 April 1981) is a British citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention as a terror suspect in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba from early 2002 to 9 March 2004. [1]

Contents

He is one of the Tipton Three, three friends from the same town who were captured together in Afghanistan. Their story was portrayed in the docu-drama, Road to Guantanamo (2006).

Background

Iqbal was born on 24 April 1981 in West Bromwich and later lived in Tipton, both of which are in the West Midlands of England. He had traveled to Pakistan in the fall of 2001 with friends Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, also from Tipton. [2]

The three were captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance and transferred to United States military custody. After the completion of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in January 2002, they were transferred there, where they were interrogated and held without recourse to lawyers.

Iqbal's Guantanamo detainee Internment Serial Number was 87. [2] He and his friends were returned to Britain, where the government released them without charges the day after their arrival.

Report allegations

In August 2004, Iqbal, Ahmed and Rasul released a lengthy report on the physical and mental abuses suffered while in US custody, which included sexual and religious humiliation. [3] According to the BBC, the three describe significant abuse, including being repeatedly punched, kicked, slapped, forcibly injected with drugs, deprived of sleep, hooded, photographed naked, and subjected to body cavity searches, and sexual and religious humiliations. An American guard allegedly told the inmates: "The world does not know you're here - we would kill you and no-one would know." [3]

Iqbal said when he arrived at Guantanamo, one of the soldiers told him: "You killed my family in the towers and now it's time to get you back." [3] Rasul said a British MI5 officer had told him during an interrogation that he would be detained in Guantanamo for life. The men said they saw the beating of mentally ill inmates and that another man was left brain damaged after a beating by soldiers as punishment for attempting suicide. [3] The Britons said an inmate told them he was shown a video of hooded men - apparently inmates - being forced to sodomise one another. [3] Guards threw Qur'ans belonging to prisoners into toilets and tried to force them to give up their religion. [3] In the report they allege that those who identified as being from MI5, or the British Foreign Office, seemed unconcerned with their welfare. [3]

They said that the appointment of General Geoffrey Miller coincided with the alleged introduction of new, harsher, treatment, including short shackling and the forced shaving off of beards, which the men kept for religious purposes. [3]

In the end, the abusive interrogation led the three to falsely confess to being the three previously unidentified faces in a video that showed a meeting between Osama bin Laden and Mohamed Atta, although Rasul was in the UK during the time period when the video was created. [4]

US Court cases

While still in detention, the Tipton Three had filed habeas corpus petitions, which were consolidated under Rasul v. Bush (2004). All the detainees had been prevented from seeing or contacting legal counsel and challenging their detention before a tribunal, under habeas corpus. Two other major cases of habeas corpus petitions were consolidated under Rasul v. Bush, including Habib v. Bush and Al-Odah v. United States . In a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court, made in June 2004 after their release, it determined that detainees were covered by the jurisdiction of US courts and had constitutional rights, including the right to counsel and to habeas corpus. Following that, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) devised the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) to evaluate whether detainees qualified as enemy combatants, and military commissions to try charges against them. CSRTs were held beginning in 2004.

After their release, in 2004, Rasul v. Rumsfeld, the plaintiffs and former detainees Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith, sued former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. They charge that Secretary Rumsfeld and the military chain of command permitted illegal interrogation tactics to be used against them. The plaintiffs each sought compensatory damages for torture and arbitrary detention while being held at Guantánamo. [5]

Some aspects of the case were dismissed at the District Court level. The Appeals Court overturned the lower court ruling on coverage of religious protections. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals, based on the intervening Boumediene v. Bush (2008). In that case, it had ruled that detainees and foreign nationals had the habeas corpus right to bring suit in federal courts.

On 24 April 2009, the Court of Appeals dismissed the Rasul v. Rumsfeld case again, on the grounds of "limited immunity" of government officials. It ruled that the courts at the time of the alleged abuses had not yet clearly established legal prohibitions against the torture and religious abuses suffered by the detainees. On 14 December 2009, the US Supreme Court declined to accept the case for hearing.

Representation in media

The film, The Road to Guantánamo (2006) is a docu-drama by the director Michael Winterbottom based on their accounts of their capture, interrogations and detention. It uses both actors and interviews with the former detainees.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On 25 April 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. [6] [7] The three-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on 28 October 2003. [8] It was signed by camp commandant Major General Geoffrey D. Miller. He recommended continued detention by the Department of Defense.

Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files , called Iqbal's assessment "extremely dubious". [9] He pointed out the following inconsistencies.

See also

Related Research Articles

Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention. The Court's 6–3 judgment on June 28, 2004, reversed a D.C. Circuit decision which had held that the judiciary has no jurisdiction to hear any petitions from foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamedou Ould Slahi</span> Mauritanian author and former Guantanamo Bay detainee

Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a Mauritanian engineer who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17, 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mustafa al-Hawsawi</span> Saudi Arabian terrorist (alleged)

Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi is a Saudi Arabian citizen. He is alleged to have acted as a key financial facilitator for the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Shafiq Rasul is a British citizen who was a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States, which treated him an unlawful combatant. His detainee ID number was 86.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ratner</span> American lawyer (1943–2016)

Michael Ratner was an American attorney. For much of his career, he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City, and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.

Jamal Udeen Al-Harith, born Ronald Fiddler also known as Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, was a British citizen who reportedly died carrying out a suicide bombing in Iraq in February 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algerian Six</span> Six Algerian-born Bosnian men held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2002

The Algerian Six were six Algerian men, who gained citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War, five of whom will continue to hold a dual Algerian and Bosnian citizenship, and who were imprisoned without charges at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002.

<i>The Road to Guantánamo</i> 2006 British docudrama film by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross

The Road to Guantánamo, alternatively The Road to Guantanamo, is a British 2006 docudrama film written and directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British citizens, who were captured in 2001 in Afghanistan and detained by the United States there and for more than two years at the detainment camp in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. It premiered at the Berlinale on 14 February 2006, and was first shown in the UK on Channel 4 on 9 March 2006. The following day it was the first film to be released simultaneously in cinemas, on DVD, and on the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guantanamo Bay detention camp</span> United States military prison in southeastern Cuba

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Gitmo, on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. As of May 2024, of the 779 people detained there since January 2002 when the military prison first opened after the September 11 attacks, 740 had been transferred elsewhere, 30 remained there, and nine had died while in custody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khaled Qasim</span> Yemeni citizen

Khaled Ahmed Qasim is a Yemeni citizen who has been held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, since May 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muhammad Saad Iqbal</span> Pakistani citizen (born 1977)

Muhammad Saad Iqbal is a Pakistani citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Madni's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 743. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on October 17, 1977.

The Tipton Three is the collective name given to three British citizens from Tipton, England who were held in extrajudicial detention by the United States government for two years in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarek Ali Abdullah Ahmed Baada</span> Yemeni detainee

Tarek Ali Abdullah Ahmed Baada is a citizen of Yemen, who was formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His detainee ID number is 178. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimated that Baada was born in 1978 in Shebwa, Yemen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salem Abdul Salem Ghereby</span> Libyan detainee in Guantanamo (1961–2023)

Salem Abdul Salem Ghereby was a citizen of Libya who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba, from 5 May 2002, until 4 April 2016. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports that he was born on 1 March 1961, in Zliten, Libya.

In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international human rights, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. On 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.

Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith, four former Guantánamo Bay detainees, filed suit in 2004 in the United States District Court in Washington, DC against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They charged that illegal interrogation tactics were permitted to be used against them by Secretary Rumsfeld and the military chain of command. The plaintiffs each sought seek compensatory damages for torture and arbitrary detention while being held at Guantánamo.

Tarek Dergoul is a citizen of the United Kingdom of Moroccan origin who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He spent six or seven months in US custody in Afghanistan, prior to his arrival at Guantanamo on 5 May 2002. After he was repatriated to the United Kingdom on 8 March 2004, he asserted that conditions in US detention camps were brutal, and he was coerced to utter false confessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruhal Ahmed</span> British citizen (born 1981)

Ruhal Ahmed is a British citizen who was detained without trial for over two years by the United States government, beginning in Afghanistan in 2001, and then in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. His Internment Serial Number was 110. Ahmed was returned to the United Kingdom in March 2004, where he was released the next day without charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamed Tahar</span>

Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher was a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 679. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1980, in Ibb, Yemen.

References

  1. ↑ Margot Williams (3 November 2008). "Guantanamo Docket: Asif Iqbal". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 21 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Five of nine Britons released from Guantanamo Bay". BBC News. 9 March 2004. Archived from the original on 21 March 2009. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Britons allege Guantanamo abuse". BBC News. 4 August 2004. Archived from the original on 13 June 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  4. ↑ "Britons release devastating account of torture and abuse by US forces at Guantanamo". WSWS. August 2004. Archived from the original on 22 May 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  5. ↑ ”Rasul v. Rumsfeld” Archived 23 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine , Center for Constitutional Rights, 6 March 2008, accessed 2 January 2013
  6. ↑ Christopher Hope; Robert Winnett; Holly Watt; Heidi Blake (27 April 2011). "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 11 July 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2012. 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.
  7. ↑ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 27 April 2011. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  8. ↑ "Asif Iqbal: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Asif Iqbal, US9UK-000087DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 27 April 2011. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Andy Worthington (7 June 2011). "WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004 (Part Two of Ten)". Archived from the original on 26 August 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.