Mahrar Rafat Al Quwari

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Mahrar Rafat Al Quwari is a citizen of the West Bank, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Quwari's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 519. The Department of Defense reports that Al Quwari was born on February 18, 1965, in Gaza, Palestine.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 1.1 Allegations
- 1.2 Testimony
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 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.

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.

[edit] Allegations

A memorandum summarizing the evidence against Al Quwari prepared for his Combatan Status Reiew Tribunal, was among those released in March of 2005.^[2] The allegations Al Quwari faced during his Tribunal were:

a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban and al Qaida:

The detainee left Mashad [sic], Iran and headed to Afghanistan seven to eight days before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
While at the al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, the detainee was in charge of delivering food to caves.
When Jalalabad was overrun by the Northern Alliance, the detainee fled into the Tora Bora mountain region.
The detainee admits that he was at the Tora Bora camp and was responsible for distributing supplies from the central supply point.
The detainee was trying to get to Pakistan and was captured by Norther Alliance forces as he fled Tora Bora, through Wazir Village [sic] and on the way to Jalalabad.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the United States or its coalition partners:

The detainee trained in hand weapons at al Farouq and later fought at Kandahar.
The detainee was at Tora Bora and had responsibility for distributing food and weapons supplies to Taliban and al Qaida soldiers throughout the Tora Bora area, and he often met with and talked on the radio with Usama Bin Laden.