Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad

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Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad is a citizen of Syria, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 330. He is from the Kurdis ethnic group.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal's President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Christopher Mobley

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the [[Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Mouhammad chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

[edit] Identity

The Tribunal President initially addressed detainee 330 as "Kari".

When he swore the Muslim oath the Tribunal's President asked for clarification of his name, and after clarification the Tribunal's President said they would use "Maasoum Abdah" as his name.

The detainee said "I don't have a problem being called "Bilal".

[edit] Allegations

During his Tribunal Maasoum faced the following allegations:

a. The detainee was a member of the Taliban.

The detainee is a Syrian who traveled to Afghanistan in 2000.
The detainee stayed for more than 12 months at the Wazir Akbar Khan Street safe house, located in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The detainee operated a safe house where 5-20 personnel armed with AK-47 rifles could be found at any given time.
The detainee's name was found on a list of Mujahideen trainees for a sniper course.
The detainee confirmed that one of his aliases was on the list for the sniper course.