The Seton Hall reports, also known as the Denbeaux studies, are several studies published by the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University Law School in the United States beginning in 2006, about the detainees and United States government policy related to operations at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. At a time when the government revealed little about these operations, the reports were based on analysis of data maintained and released by the Department of Defense. The director of the Law School's Center, Mark P. Denbeaux, supervised law student teams in their analysis and writing the studies. [1] The first study was Report on Guantanamo Detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data (February 8, 2006).
By late 2009, Denbeaux had supervised fifteen studies on Guantanamo for the Center for Policy and Research. The studies have been cited in both houses of Congress, for instance, by the Senate Armed Services Committee, and by national and international press.
Denbeaux and his son, Joshua Denbeaux, were listed as the lead names on the first and several succeeding studies. They have a law firm together and are the legal representatives for the Guantanamo detainees Rafiq Bin Bashir Bin Jalud Al Hami and Mohammed Abdul Rahman, both from Tunisia. [2]
Report on Guantanamo Detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data (February 8, 2006) |
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Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy (20 March 2006) |
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The Guantanamo Detainees During Detention: Data from Department of Defense Records (July 10, 2006) |
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June 10th Suicides at Guantanamo (August 21, 2006) | |
No-Hearing Hearings (November 17, 2006) |
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The 14 Myths of Guantánamo: Senate Armed Services Committee Statement of Mark P. Denbeaux. Denbeaux testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 26, 2007 |
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The Empty Battlefield and the Thirteenth Criterion (November 8, 2007) |
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The Meaning of "Battlefield": An Analysis of the Government's Representations of 'Battlefield Capture' and 'Recidivism' of the Guantánamo Detainees (12/10/07), Professor Denbeaux's Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on C-SPAN | |
Captured on Tape: Interrogation and Videotaping of Detainees in Guantánamo (February 7, 2008) [11] |
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Justice Scalia, the Department of Defense, and The Perpetuation of an Urban Legend: The Truth about Recidivism of Released Guantánamo Detainees (June 16, 2008) [12] |
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Profile of Released Guantánamo Detainees: The Government's Story Then and Now (August 4, 2008) | |
Released Guantánamo Detainees and the Department of Defense: Propaganda by the Numbers? (January 15, 2009) |
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Torture: Who Knew -- An Analysis of the FBI and Department of Defense Reactions to Harsh Interrogation Methods at Guantánamo (April 1, 2009) | |
Death in Camp Delta (November 2000) |
The Report on Guantanamo Detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data February 8, 2006, also known as the Denbeaux study (2006), was the first study on Guantanamo prepared under the supervision of Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University, the director of its Center for Policy and Research. [20] Denbeaux and his son Joshua Denbeaux, an attorney for two Guantánamo detainees, oversaw a statistical analysis by law students of the unclassified information available from the Department of Defense about the Guantánamo Bay detainees. The study was published by Seton Hall University's Center for Policy and Research.
The students analyzed:
Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice opined: [21]
Already, however, we now know much more about how "dangerous" they really are because of a stunning, heavily documented investigation by the Seton Hall (New Jersey) School of Law. Titled "Report on Guantánamo Detainees," it profiles 517 of the prisoners at Gitmo entirely based on "analysis of Department of Defense data.
An editorial by the BBC's John Simpson summarized the study: [22]
The study reveals that the 92% of the detainees who were not alleged to be al-Qaeda fighters were alleged to be either al-Qaeda or Taliban members, or members of affiliated hostile groups. Of these "other affiliated groups," a second Center report notes that some of the groups are not included in the government's published lists of terrorist organizations. [23]
The cited primary sources in the study did not include data on actual bounties. One example of a bounty was given in the references: that of Salim Hamdan, who was known to have worked directly for Osama bin Laden. The reference comes from an article in the New York Times Magazine . [24]
The study says:
In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
Several international news sources noticed this use of the possession of a model of watch as evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay [26] with detainees "shocked" that wearing a cheap popular watch sold worldwide could be used against them when "millions and millions of people have these types of Casio watches". [27] Abdulla Kamel al Kandari told his tribunal he had no idea that the watch was associated with terrorism, [28] that the four Muslim chaplains at Guantanamo all wore this model of watch [29] and described the features of his watch that signal the call to prayers to a devout Muslim. [30] Salih Uyar told his tribunal: "If it's a crime to carry this watch? Your own military personnel also carry this watch, too. Does that mean that they're just terrorists as well?" [31] [32] [33] Other detainees described how its compass was used to face Mecca, [34] and being waterproof it endured ritual wash up before prayer. [27]
The lead authors are the legal representatives of two Guantánamo Bay detainees: Rafiq Bin Bashir Bin Jalud Al Hami and Mohammed Abdul Rahman [2]
Major Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman, called the 2006 study about the detainees "flawed because its authors didn't have access to classified evidence." [35]
Colonel Michael Bumgarner has been a career officer in the military police of the United States Army. He is most noted for having been the commander of the Joint Detention Group, the guard force component of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, from April 2005 through June 2006, at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. During this period there was a widespread hunger strike in 2005, which he helped end. On June 10, 2006, three detainees were found dead, in what the United States Department of Defense announced as suicides. Bumgarner had other assignments after Guantanamo and retired from the military in 2010.
Faiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba, from 2002 to 2016. He has never been charged with war crimes.
Mohamed Atiq Awayd Al Harbi is a citizen of Saudi Arabia formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internee Security Number was 333. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born on July 13, 1973, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi was a Kuwaiti citizen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 220. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports indicated that he was born on 2 August 1978, in Almadi, Kuwait.
Ali Ahmad Muhammad Al Rahizi is a citizen of Yemen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 45. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports he was born on October 13, 1979, in Taiz, Yemen.
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) had stopped reporting Guantanamo suicide attempts in 2002. In mid-2002 the DoD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, and enumerated them under other acts of "self-injurious behavior".
Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi (1976 – June 10, 2006) was a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who was arrested in 2001 in Pakistan and held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba from early 2002. Al-Utaybi died in custody on June 10, 2006. The Department of Defense reported his death and those of two other detainees the same day as suicides.
Ali Abdullah Ahmed, also known as Salah Ahmed al-Salami, was a citizen of Yemen who died whilst being held as an enemy combatant in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 693. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terror analysts estimated he was born in 1977, in Ibb, Yemen.
No Longer Enemy Combatant (NLEC) is a term used by the U.S. military for a group of 38 Guantanamo detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) determined they were not "enemy combatants". None of them were released right away. Ten of them were allowed to move to the more comfortable Camp Iguana. Others, such as Sami Al Laithi, remained in solitary confinement.
Mark P. Denbeaux is an American attorney, professor, and author. He is a law professor at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey and the Director of its Center for Policy and Research.
Baher Azmy is an American lawyer and professor of law at Seton Hall University, specializing in constitutional law.
No-Hearing Hearings (2006) is the title of a study published by Professor Mark P. Denbeaux of the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law, his son Joshua Denbeaux, and prepared under his supervision by research fellows at the center. It was released on October 17, 2006. It is one of a series of studies on the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the detainees, and government operations that the Center for Policy and Research has prepared based on Department of Defense data.
Semiannually, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publishes an unclassified "Summary of the Reengagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba". According to ODNI's most recent Reengagement Report, since 2009, when current rules and processes governing transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo were put in place, ODNI assess that 5.1% of detainees – 10 men total, 2 of whom are deceased – are more likely than not to have reengaged in terrorist activities.
Harakat-e-Mulavi is a militia group that resisted the Soviet Union during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Does 1-570 v. Bush, No. 1:05-cv-00313, is a combined writ of habeas corpus submitted on behalf of detainees held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
The Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law is a research organization that analyzes national policies and practices. Law students, participating in the Center as Research Fellows, work to identify factual patterns and inconsistencies in areas that help shape the law and public policy.
Daniel Mann is a lawyer in Newark, New Jersey and a fellow of the Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law. He also gained public exposure beyond the legal and academic communities with his co-authorship of "Report on Guantanamo Detainees, A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data," co-authored with Professor Mark Denbeaux, son, Joshua Denbeaux, and four credited co-authors, commonly referred to as the "Denbeaux Study." Additional Guantanamo studies were to follow, including:
Guantanamo Bay homicide accusations were made regarding the deaths of three prisoners on June 10, 2006, at the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp for enemy combatants at its naval base in Cuba. Two of the men had been cleared by the military for release. The United States Department of Defense (DOD) claimed their deaths at the time as suicides, although their families and the Saudi government argued against the findings, and numerous journalists have raised questions then and since. The DOD undertook an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, published in redacted form in 2008.
Al-Qaeda is understood to have operated a number of safe houses, some of which were used as training centres.
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