Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy - Combatant Status Review

Combatant Status Review

The Bush administration asserted that:

the protections of the Geneva Conventions did not extend to captured prisoners who are not members of the regular Afghan armed force nor meet the criteria for prisoner of war for voluntary forces.

Critics argued the Conventions obliged the U.S. to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), to determine whether detainees met the new definition of an "enemy combatant".

"Enemy combatant" was defined by the U.S. Department of Defense as:

an individual who was part of, or supporting, the Taliban, or al-Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who commits a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.

The CSRTs are not bound by the rules of evidence that would normally apply in civilian court, and the government’s evidence is presumed to be “genuine and accurate.” From July 2004 through March 2005, CSRTs were convened to determine whether each prisoner had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant".

Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy was among the 60% of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings. A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee, listing the allegations that supported their detention as an "enemy combatant".

Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy's memo accused him of the following:

• The detainee is a member of al Qaida:

1. The detainee lived for approximately one year in a Khost, Afghanistan guesthouse.
2. The detainee moved to Kabul to teach in a Taliban madrassas.
3. The detainee admits to fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan, after being wounded by a bomb.
4. The detainee was fleeing Afghanistan with several other people who were all armed with automatic weapons.
5. The detainee was captured in Dec 2001, and when captured used an alias.

On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a seven page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.