Muhamad Naji Subhi Al Juhani

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Muhamad Naji Subhi Al Juhani is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 062.

[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.

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

[edit] Testimony

Al Juhani denied all the allegations against him. During most Tribunals the allegations against the detainee are read aloud, and included in the transcript. The allegations against Al Juhani were not included in the transcript.

Al Juhani did not make an opening statement. The Tribunal's President confirmed that Al Juhani opted not to make an opening statement. The transcript records:

Al Juhani:	I have nothing to say. All of this information is incorrect.
President:	The Tribunal [sic] President confirmed that the Detainee didn't wish to make statement [sic].
Al Juhani:	There is no reason for me even to be here.
President:	The Tribunal [sic] President assured the Detainee that he was welcome in Tribunal [sic] whether he made a statement or not. She went on to state that the Personal Representative, Recorder, and the Tribunal Members may have questions for the detainee. The detainee was then asked if he would be willing to anser questions if asked.
Al Juhani:	I have no problem with that, as long as it's not a question that has been answered before.
President:	The Tribunal [sic] President explained that the Tribunal had only seen the Unclassified Summary. Therefore, there was no way to know if the any [sic] questions that may be posed were redundant or not.
Al Juhani:	If you want to find out about a question, get my file and get all the questions.

Neither of the other two Tribunal members had any questions for Al Juhani, neither did the Recorder, or Personal Representative. The Tribunal's President asked Al Juhani four questions. He answered the first three, confirming that he traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, in order to teach the Koran.

President's fourth question	Did you have a place to do that? Did you already contact the mosque or something [sic] where you were going to teach?
Al Juhani:	All these questions are in my files. Go back to the file and read the file.

After this fourth question the Tribunal's President gave Al Juhani one last chance to speak for himself, and then terminated the open session of the Tribunal.

Note: The Tribunals did not have access to the detainee's interrogation files. When the open session of the Tribunal, open to the detainee, and to the occasional invited journalist, was over, the Tribunals re-convened in closed session, where they were presented with the classified evidence and allegations. But even then they were not given access to the detainee's interrogation files, only to summaries prepared from them.