Tipton Three

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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. [1]

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Ruhal Ahmed was born on 11 March 1981; Asif Iqbal was born on 24 April 1981; the United States Department of Defense estimated that Shafiq Rasul was born in 1977. [2] Other reports state he was only a couple of years older than his friends. The three men in their early 20s were captured in Afghanistan in 2001, transferred to United States Army custody and transported to Guantanamo, where they were detained as enemy combatants. Their families were not told of their whereabouts until the British Foreign Office informed them in January 2002. They were three of nine Britons detained at Guantanamo.

After negotiations between the governments and British assessment of their interrogations, the men were repatriated to the United Kingdom in March 2004. They were released without charge the next day.

With many others, Shafiq Rasul filed a habeas corpus suit in 2004 against the United States government for his detention, in a case that ultimately went to the US Supreme Court. In the landmark, Rasul v. Bush (2004), the court held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge whether their detention is constitutional in the US courts. The three men were represented in the UK by the lawyer Gareth Peirce. [3]

In addition, the Tipton Three and Jamal Udeen Al-Harith filed a suit in 2004 against the US government in Rasul v. Rumsfeld , challenging its use of torture and religious abuses of detainees. This case was dismissed in April 2009 by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, based on "limited immunity" of government officials; the court ruled that such treatment had not been legally defined at the time as prohibited. In December 2009 the US Supreme Court declined to accept the case for hearing, so the lower court ruling stands.

The three men were featured as the subjects of The Road to Guantánamo (2006), a docu-drama about the events directed by the British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom.

The three

The three travelled together, were captured together, and were released together on 9 March 2004, along with two other detainees.

Ruhal Ahmed

Ruhal Ahmed in 2007 Ruhal Ahmed.png
Ruhal Ahmed in 2007

Ruhal Ahmed (born 11 March 1981 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England) is a British citizen. His detainee identification number was 110. [2]

Australia refused Ruhal Ahmed a visa to visit to promote The Road to Guantanamo (2006), a British docudrama made about the events. [4] He has taken part in a campaign against torture, organised by Amnesty International. [5]

Shafiq Rasul

Shafiq Rasul (born 15 April 1977 in Dudley, West Midlands). His detainee ID number was 86. [2]

His family discovered his detention when the British Foreign Office contacted them on 21 January 2002. He was released in March 2004, shortly after his return to the United Kingdom, more than three months before Rasul v. Bush was decided.

Asif Iqbal

Asif Iqbal (born 24 April 1981 in West Bromwich, West Midlands) is a British citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention as a terror suspect in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba. Iqbal's Guantanamo detainee ID number was 87. [2]

Iqbal married on 2 July 2005.

Abuse claims

On 4 August 2004 Iqbal, Ahmed and Rasul released a report on their abuse and humiliation while in US custody. [2] In it, according to the BBC, the three describe significant abuse, including:

After the appointment of General Geoffrey Miller as commander of the camp, they said treatment became more harsh, including short shackling and the forced shaving-off of beards.

In the report, they allege that those who represented themselves as being from MI5, or the British Foreign Office, seemed unconcerned with their welfare.

In the end, the three falsely confessed (under force and abusive interrogation) to being the three previously unidentified faces in an alleged video that showed a meeting between Osama bin Laden and Mohamed Atta. However, evidence produced by MI5 showed that they were in England at the time of the meeting. [6]

The three were among the first detainees released who gave an alternative view of conditions within the camp to that offered by United States Department of Defense. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Representation in other media

The Road to Guantanamo (2006) is a docu-drama about the Tipton Three made by director Michael Winterbottom and based on their accounts. [13] [14] The screenplay was based on the initial account from the three detainees.

Media events

Lie Lab

In May 2007, Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul agreed to appear on the Channel 4 reality show Lie Lab. The technology used on the show was developed by Sean Spence from the University of Sheffield. It uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the activity in the brain's pre-frontal cortex to view how a subject reacts to questioning. [15] [16] Critics of the test have included neuroscientists and legal scholars, who have said the technique is unlikely to accurately measure truth-telling, as there are too many variables affecting results. They think the technique may be useful for additional research. [16]

Although he earlier said that he had entered Afghanistan to do charity work, on the programme, Ahmed said he had visited an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK47. Rasul refused to go through the test. [17]

BBC Five Live interview

In January 2010, Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul were interviewed on Five Live. They both said they had visited a Taliban training camp, but it was because they were trapped in the province. They had wanted to find out "what was happening", and the Taliban was the only government operating at the time. The interviewer Victoria observed that Ahmed had said he had handled AK47 guns.

Shafiq Rasul said:

Being in Afghanistan, we were at that age where… seeing a gun… you'd never seen a gun in the UK… you want to hold it. You want to see what its like. But we were never there to do any training. That's what, that's what, we were just there. We held it to see what it was like. That's how we've explained it. But it has been taken out of context, saying that 'Oh, these guys from the UK, they were at that age, 9/11 had just happened, and they were there for terrorist training'. But, but – that's not the case. That's not what happened

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">Moazzam Begg</span> British Pakistani formerly held in Guantanamo Bay

Moazzam Begg is a British Pakistani who was held in extrajudicial detention by the US government in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, for nearly three years. Seized by Pakistani intelligence at his home in Pakistan in February 2002, he was transferred to the custody of US Army officers, who held him in the detention centre at Bagram, Afghanistan, before transferring him to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held until January 2005.

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">Camp Iguana</span>

Camp Iguana is a small compound in the detention camp complex on the US Naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Camp Iguana originally held three child detainees, who camp spokesmen then claimed were the only detainees under age 16. It was closed in the winter of 2004 when the three were sent back to their native countries.

Asif Iqbal 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.

Bisher Amin Khalil Al-Rawi is an Iraqi citizen, who became a resident of the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Arrested in Gambia on a business trip in November 2002, he was transferred to United States military custody and held until 30 March 2007, in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp at its naval base in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 906. The Department of Defense reports that Al Rawi was born on 23 December 1960, in Baghdad, Iraq.

Richard Dean Belmar is a British man who was held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He was first detained in Pakistan in 2002 and sent to Bagram Theater Internment Facility, then Guantanamo. He was not charged, and was returned to the United Kingdom on 25 January 2005.

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">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">Ali Ahmad Muhammad Al Rahizi</span> Yemeni detainee in Guantanamo Bay

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mashur Abdallah Muqbil Ahmed Al Sabri</span>

Mashur Abdallah Muqbil Ahmed Al Sabri is a citizen of Yemen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba until April 16, 2016. Al Sabri's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 324.

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.

References

  1. Curiel, Jonathan (2 July 2006). "All eyes on Guantanamo: Movie, court ruling intensify focus on military prisons". San Francisco Chronicle .
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). US Department of Defense . 15 May 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 November 2009.
  3. Goodman, Amy (1 February 2005). "British Human Rights Lawyer Gareth Peirce Says Torture 'Is the Recipe for the Destruction' of International Human Rights". Democracy Now! . Retrieved 26 June 2007.
  4. Maddox, Garry (28 October 2006). "ASIO thwarts film promotion". The Sydney Morning Herald .
  5. Hallengren, Mia-Li (28 June 2007). "Amnestys frontfigur förespråkar dödsstraff". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 1 July 2007.
  6. Branigan, Tania (4 August 2004). "Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay – the story of three British detainees". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
  7. Rose, David (14 March 2004). "How we survived jail hell". The Observer .
  8. Rose, David (26 February 2006). "Using terror to fight terror". The Observer .
  9. Rose, David (14 March 2004). "Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons". The Observer .
  10. Rose, David; Hinsliff, Gaby (16 May 2004). "US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp". The Observer .
  11. Rose, David (21 March 2004). "US Afghan allies committed massacre". The Guardian.
  12. "James Yee, the Tipton Three and the legal black hole of Guantanamo". WBAI. 30 March 2004. Archived from the original on 20 September 2005.
  13. Stafford Smith, Clive (14 February 2006). "Out of sight: Can a film right the wrongs committed in Guantanamo?". The Guardian.
  14. Harding, Luke (15 February 2006). "Winterbottom defends film on trio's Guantanamo ordeal". The Guardian.
  15. "Lie Lab". Channel 4. Archived from the original on 27 May 2009.
  16. 1 2 Stix, Gary (13 August 2008). "Can fMRI Really Tell If You're Lying?". Scientific American . Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  17. Anthony, Andrew (3 June 2007). "On Television: "Sisters are doing it for themselves". The Observer . Retrieved 20 May 2012.