Inayatullah (Guantanamo Detainee 10029) - Detention in Guantanamo

Detention in Guantanamo

The detainee called Inayatullah was later identified as a native-born Afghani named Hajji Nassim, according to his lawyer. He was arrested in an Iranian border town near Afghanistan in 2007. His attorney said he operated a cellphone store there. He was transferred after that date to Guantanamo, after having been held elsewhere by the US. He was among 19 persons transferred to the camp after September 6, 2006.

On May 18, 2011, Inayatullah was found dead either in his cell or in a recreation area. The cause of his death is unknown but the U.S. military released a statement saying that he died in an "apparent suicide". It said he had been an emir and a member of Al Qaeda. He was the eighth prisoner to die at Guantanamo; five of the previous deaths were reported by the Department of Defense (DOD) as suicides. Three of these were contested as manslaughter in an award-winning article by Harper's Magazine in January 2010, based on accounts by four soldiers who had been serving at the camp at the time of the deaths in June 2006.

On June 28, 2011, Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, reported that Pentagon spokesman Dave Oten confirmed that Inayatullah had been classed as an "indefinite detainee" by the Obama administration. "Indefinite detainee" was a new designation used by the joint interagency review boards which President Obama authorized for those captives who had not committed a crime for which they could face charges, but who were not considered safe to release.

Rosenberg quoted doubts expressed by the American Paul Rashkind, Inayatullah's attorney, about the DoD's account. Rashkind told Rosenberg that the man was named Hajji Nassim and that he was not known as "Inayatullah" anywhere other than at Guantanamo. He had not been an "emir". Rashkind confirmed that his client had been living in an Iranian border town near Afghanistan when he was arrested, where he had operated a cellphone store. He had no ties to al Qaeda, the Taliban, or terrorism.

Rashkind told Rosenberg that Nassim had a history of mental illness and had spent long periods in Guantanamo's Psychiatric Ward. He had brought a third-party specialist in to help treat his client, and the attorney had planned to have a psychiatric profile completed, believing that would have helped him be cleared by DOD for release. Rashkind confirmed that his client had made earlier suicide attempts, and he did not doubt that his death was suicide.