Said Muhammed Salih Hatim

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Said Muhammed Salih Hatim is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Hatim's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 255. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1976, in Ibb, Yemen.

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 Hatim prepared for his Combatan Status Reiew Tribunal, was among those released in March of 2005.^[2] The allegations Hatim faced during his Tribunal were:

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban or al Qaida:

The detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight in support of the Jihad.
The detainee received weapons training at al Farouq.
While detainee was training at al Farouq, Usama Bin Laden visited and lectured to the camp.
The detainee joined the Taliban on 11 September 2001.