Mohammed Mustafa Sohail

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Mohammed Mustafa Sohail is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Sohail's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 1008. American intelligence analysts estimate Sohail was born in 1981, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

[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.

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

The allegations Sohail faced during his Tribunal were:

a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban or al Qaida

The detainee worked at a U.S. military base in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The detainee assisted a member of a terrorist organization, Hezb-E-Islami Gulbuddin, who had plans to plant a bomb at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
Hezb-E-Islami Gulbuddin is a known terrorist organization that has long established ties to al Qaida.
The detainee provided a list of personnel assigned to the Karzai Protection Detail and the serial numbers to their weapons to a member Hezb-E-Islami Gulbuddin.
The detainee provided photographs of a U.S. military base in Afghanistan to a member of Hezb-E-Islami Gulbuddin.
The detainee provided computer media containing a template of the security badge used at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan and digital images of personnel involved with security at the aforementioned base.
The detainee stole his work computer and transferred the information to computer media for the purpose of providing it to a member Hezb~E-Islami Gulbuddin.
The detainee applied for a visa to the United States under a different name.

[edit] Administrative Review Board hearing

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

Sohail chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[3]