Muhammed Ijaz Khan

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Muhammed Ijaz Khan is a citizen of Pakistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 017.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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.

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

[edit] Khan's testimony

Khan's transcript is very brief.

Khan acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan to fight in the Jihad. He did not have an AK-47 assigned to him, but he was issued one on the two or three occasions he had guard duty.

His group of fighters did not engage in any hostilities before he was captured.

Khan said he had never told his interrogators he would try to engage in Jihad again, if he were released.

He did not know that the Americans had allied with the Northern Alliance when he decided to join in the fight against the Northern Alliance.