Yunus Rahmatullah

Last updated

Yunus Rahmatullah
Born (1982-10-27) 27 October 1982 (age 42)
Arrested2004
Iraq
UK forces
Citizenship Pakistani
Detained at  Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Other name(s) Salahuddin [1]
ISN 1433
StatusWrit of habeas corpus granted, UK ordered to obtain his freedom until 18 January 2012 Released without charge from US detention in May 2014. [2]

Yunus Rahmatullah (born 27 October 1982) is a citizen of Pakistan arrested in Iraq by British forces in 2004 and then rendered to a US prison in Afghanistan where he was secretly held without charge or trial for at least seven years. [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

The legal charity Reprieve said: "Rahmatullah had been unable to contact his family or a lawyer and was in a legal black hole". [7]

Rahmatullah's mother, Fatima, said: "Our family was shocked when we learnt that the British Government might have been behind Yunus's disappearance. My plea to the British Government is simple: Tell me whether you picked my son Yunus up, and gave him to the Americans. It is my basic right as a mother to know whether my son is still alive. I cannot bear further suspense. You have the power to help me recover my disappeared child." [7]

Request for release in Pakistani court

After seven years Rahmatullah's family asked the Lahore Court in Pakistan to secure his immediate release. Reprieve's Legal Director Cori Crider said: "We hope that tomorrow the families of seven Pakistanis languishing in Bagram may finally get some answers from Lahore's High Court. After years of grief these mothers deserve to know how and why their sons - including an innocent 14-year-old kid - have not been brought home by the government of Pakistan." [8] [9]

Request for release in UK courts

The Court of Appeal by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Sullivan granted a writ of habeas corpus to Rahmatullah on 14 December 2011. [10] They determined that because he was captured in Iraq by British Forces the UK justice system had standing to rule on his detention. Lord David Neuberger, the senior judge on the three-judge panel, said there was:

a substantial case for saying that the UK government is under an international legal obligation to demand the return of the applicant, and the US government is bound to accede to such an[ sic ] request. [10]

The Court of Appeal agreed Rahmatullah's detention was "unlawful" and ordered Britain to pursue his release until 18 January 2012. [11] [12]

Supreme Court judgment

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binyam Mohamed</span> Ethiopian Guantanamo detainee

Binyam Ahmed Mohamed, also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian national and United Kingdom resident, who was detained as a suspected enemy combatant by the US Government in Guantanamo Bay prison between 2004 and 2009 without charges. He was arrested in Pakistan and transported first to Morocco under the US's extraordinary rendition program, where he claimed to have been interrogated under torture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omar Deghayes</span> Libyan citizen

Omar Amer Deghayes is a Libyan citizen who had legal residency status with surviving members of his family in the United Kingdom since childhood. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He was held by the United States as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 until December 18, 2007. He was released without charges and returned to Britain, where he lives. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 727. Deghayes says he was blinded permanently in one eye, after a guard at Guantanamo gouged his eyes with his fingers. Deghayes was never charged with any crime at Guantanamo.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Odah</span> Kuwaiti former Guantanamo Bay detainee (born 1977)

Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Odah is a Kuwaiti citizen formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. He had been detained without charge in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He was a plaintiff in the ongoing case, Al Odah v. United States, which challenged his detention, along with that of fellow detainees. The case was widely acknowledged to be one of the most significant to be heard by the Supreme Court in the current term. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born in 1977, in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Reprieve is a nonprofit organization of international lawyers and investigators whose stated goal is to "fight for the victims of extreme human rights abuses with legal action and public education". Their main focus is on the death penalty, indefinite detention without trial, extraordinary rendition and extrajudicial killing. The founding Reprieve organization is in the UK, and there are also organizations in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, with additional supporters and volunteers worldwide.

Ghassan Abdallah Ghazi al-Sharbi is a Saudi citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 682.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saifullah Paracha</span> Pakistani Guantanamo detainee

Saifullah Abdullah Paracha is a citizen of Pakistan who was held, without any charge, in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba for over 18 years. He was released on October 29, 2022. As of 18 May 2021, Saifullah Paracha was approved for release by American authorities after his son Uzair Paracha's conviction was overturned in 2018 and the younger Paracha was repatriated to Pakistan in March 2020.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obaidullah (detainee)</span> Afghan Guantanamo detainee

Obaidullah is a citizen of Afghanistan who was one of the last remaining Afghan detainees held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba. He was captured as an Enemy combatant on July 20, 2002, transferred to Guantanamo on October 28, 2002, and transferred to the United Arab Emirates on August 15, 2016. Obaidullah was released and repatriated to Afghanistan on 23 December 2019.

Mohammed el Gharani is a citizen of Chad and native of Saudi Arabia born in 1986, in Medina. He was one of the juveniles held for seven years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp where they estimated his age to be 15–16, though Al Jazeera reports his age to have been 14 at the time of his arrest. Human Rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith identified el Gharani as one of a dozen teenage boys held in the adult portion of the prison.

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

Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan refugee born in 1985 in Miranshah, Pakistan, was accused of attempted murder before a Guantanamo military commission on charges that he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy on December 17, 2002. Jawad's family says that he was 12 years old at the time of his detention in 2002. The United States Department of Defense maintains that a bone scan showed he was about 17 when taken into custody.

The Parwan Detention Facility is Afghanistan's main military prison. Situated next to the Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, the prison was built by the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration. The Parwan Detention Facility, which housed foreign and local combatants, was maintained by the Afghan National Army.

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.

Haji Rohullah is a citizen of Afghanistan held in the United States' Bagram Theater detention facility, in Afghanistan. Rohullah worked as a driver before being seized at his farm in Jalalabad in August 2006.

Haji Wazir is a citizen of Afghanistan who was taken into custody in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2002, and has, since then, been held in extrajudicial detention as an enemy combatant in the United States' Bagram Theater internment facility. He is notable because he is one of the very few detainees in Bagram who has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William K. Lietzau</span>

William K. Lietzau is an American lawyer, former U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, and former director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.

<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.

<i>Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Rahmatullah</i>

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Yunus Rahmatullah [2012] UKSC 48 is a UK constitutional law case concerning the detention of Yunus Rahmatullah, a Pakistani citizen detained in Iraq, and later Afghanistan, who is alleged to have travelled to Iraq to fight for Al-Qaeda during the Second Iraq War.

References

  1. ↑ "Yunus Rahmatullah and Amanatullah Ali". The Rendition Project. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  2. ↑ "MoD accused of refusing former detainee Yunus Rahmatullah justice". The Guardian . 30 March 2015.
  3. ↑ Casciani, Dominic (23 June 2011). "UK 'must help release detainee' in Afghanistan, High Court told". BBC News. Archived from the original on 1 September 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  4. ↑ "Habeas corpus bid to free detainee | UK news". The Guardian . 13 May 2011. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  5. ↑ "Yunus Rahmatullah - Reprieve" . Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  6. ↑ "Britain Shouldn't Aid a Lawless America". The New York Times. 13 February 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  7. 1 2 Verkaik, Robert (16 April 2010). "Family of rendition victim begins legal action against Government - Home News - UK". The Independent . Archived from the original on 1 September 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  8. ↑ McGuffin, Paddy (23 June 2011). "Yunus Rahmatullah: Seven years of injustice / Britain / Home - Morning Star". Morning Star. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  9. ↑ McGuffin, Paddy (21 November 2011). "Bagram detainee case reaches court". Morning Star. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2011. All seven are Pakistani citizens who are being held indefinitely at Bagram without access to lawyers and without having been informed of the evidence against them.
  10. 1 2 Norton-Taylor, Richard (14 December 2011). "Bagram jail detainee unlawfully held, court rules: Appeal court tells British ministers to ask US to end Yunus Rahmatullah's seven-year ordeal at notorious Afghan prison". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 December 2011. The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, Lord Justice Maurice Kay, and Lord Justice Sullivan, said the case raised important principles of law. Their court ruling is the latest in a series relating to the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been highly critical of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The judges rejected a claim by a senior MoD official, Damian Parmenter, that granting a writ for habeas corpus would be "futile".
  11. ↑ AP (21 December 2011). "UK has 4 weeks to free US-held Pakistani: Judges - World - DAWN.COM". dawn.com. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  12. ↑ Smith, Clive Stafford (23 February 2012). "The US has broken its promise over Yunus Rahmatullah". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
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.