Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi
is a
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
i doctor who was held in
extrajudicial detention
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
s, in
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
.
[
]
His Guantanamo
Internment Serial Number An Internment Serial Number (ISN) is an identification number assigned to captives who come under control of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) during armed conflicts.
History
On March 3, 2006, in compliance with a court order from D ...
was 627.
[The Guantanamo Docket - Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi]
/ref>
He is an orthopedic surgeon who graduated from medical school in Pakistan and pursued postdoctoral studies there.
On 30 March 2009, the Justice Department announced that the administration had decided to release Batarfi.
Batarfi was the second captive to be cleared for release by the Obama administration's review of captives' status.[
][
][
][
]
Press reports
He claimed that he was forced to work as a doctor at the 2001 Battle of Tora Bora, during which time he treated injured mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term th ...
fighters inside the region's complex caves.[
]
At one of his
Administrative Review Board hearings, he confirmed that Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...
was present during the battle, claiming that he had met with him for ten minutes.[
]
On 25 May 2008, the ''Yemen Times
The ''Yemen Times'' was an independent English-language newspaper in Yemen. The paper was published twice weekly.
History and profile
''Yemen Times'' was founded in 1991 by Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf, a leading economist and human rights activist, who ...
'' reported that a number of the Yemeni captives in Guantanamo had gone certifiably insane under the conditions there.[
]
The article quoted the recently released Sudanese journalists Sami Al Hajj
Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj ( ar, سامي محي الدين محمد الحاج), aka Sami Al-Haj (Khartoum, Sudan, February 15, 1969) is a Sudanese journalist for the Al Jazeera network. In 2001, while on his way to do camera work for th ...
, who reported that Yemeni captives had been driven insane through the administration of hallucinogenic drugs.
In his book '' The longest war'', Peter Bergen quoted Batarfi, ''"He did not prepare himself for Tora Bora and to be frank he didn't care about anyone but himself."''
Summary of Evidence memo
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for
Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi's
Combatant Status Review Tribunal,
on 2 November 2004.
The memo listed the following allegations against him:
Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi v. George W. Bush
A writ of habeas corpus, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi's behalf before US District Court Judge
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
Emmet G. Sullivan
Emmet Gael Sullivan (born June 4, 1947) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a Senior status, Senior United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
He earne ...
.[
][
]
In response, on 4 August 2005,
the Department of Defense released seventeen
pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
He is being represented by Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
lawfirm Murphy & Shaffer.
On 12 November 2004, Tribunal panel 15
confirmed his " enemy combatant" status.
According to the decision memo in his dossier:
On 6 January 2009, Sullivan admonished the Bush administration for improperly withholding exculpatory evidence.[
He said that the Department of Justice had withheld as many as ten documents from him.
Sullivan stated that, now that the documents had been made available to him, he would need at least until a hearing scheduled for 9 March to decide whether Batarfi should be released.
In early April 2009, Sullivan admonished the Justice Department for withholding that one of the witnesses against Batarfi was seriously mentally ill.][
]
The Kansas City Star
''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and as ...
newspaper reported that a transcript of the hearing recorded Sullivan saying:
The ''Kansas City Star'' reported that the unredacted portions of the transcript suggested the unnamed witness suffered from "anti-social personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD or infrequently APD) is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard of, or violation of, the rights of others as well as a difficulty sustaining long-term relationships. Lack ...
"—which would have prevented him from understanding the difference between right and wrong, and would make him likely to lie. Bill Murphy, one of Batarfi's lawyers, said:
Administrative Review Board
Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...
labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.[
]
First annual Administrative Review Board
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for
Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi's
first annual
Administrative Review Board,
on 31 October 2005.
The four page memo listed thirty-nine "primary factors favor ngcontinued detention" and two "primary factors favor ngrelease or transfer".
Transcript
In the Spring of 2006, in response to a court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out o ...
from Jed Rakoff
Jed Saul Rakoff (born August 1, 1943) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Education
Rakoff was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 1, 1943. He grew up in ...
the Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philippin ...
published a twenty page summarized transcript from his Administrative Review Board.[
]
Attached to the transcript were three letters from family members.
Second annual Administrative Review Board
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for
Ayman Batarfi's
second annual Administrative Review Board, on 28 November 2006.
The four page memo listed thirty-six "primary factors favor ngcontinued detention" and two "primary factors favor ngrelease or transfer".
Transcript
In September 2007, the Department of Defense released the transcripts from the 2006 Board hearings which captives attended.
Repatriation
On 30 March 2009, it was widely reported that Batarfi was the second captive to be cleared through the new review procedures put in place by United States President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United State ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
.[
The ''BBC'' quoted Dean Boyd, a US justice department spokesman, who indicated Batarfi would be transferred to a third country. Boyd indicated that Batarfi would be transferred: "to an appropriate destination country... in a manner that is consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice."
]Carol Rosenberg
Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist at ''The New York Times.'' Long a military-affairs reporter at the ''Miami Herald'', from January 2002 into 2019 she reported on the operation of the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, at its nav ...
, writing in the ''Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'', reported that US District Court Judge
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
Emmet G. Sullivan
Emmet Gael Sullivan (born June 4, 1947) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a Senior status, Senior United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
He earne ...
had scheduled Batarfi's habeas corpus hearing for early April.[
]William Glaberson
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, writing in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', reported that, according to Justice department filings, Batarfi might face prosecution in the third country he was transferred to.[
Glaberson reported that although Batarfi had agreed to a stay of his habeas petition, to give US diplomats a chance to find a third country to accept him, he reserved the right to re-open the case if he objected to the conditions of his transfer.
]Carol Rosenberg
Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist at ''The New York Times.'' Long a military-affairs reporter at the ''Miami Herald'', from January 2002 into 2019 she reported on the operation of the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, at its nav ...
, writing in the ''Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'' reported that Ayman Batarfi was one of twelve men transferred from Guantanamo on 19 December 2009.[
]
According to Rosenberg Justice Department officials said that Batarfi release had been approved in March 2009.
She reported that he was one of the Guantanamo captives who had described himself as a humanitarian aid worker.
The other eleven men were:
Jamal Alawi Mari,
Farouq Ali Ahmed,
Muhammad Yasir Ahmed Taher,
Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami,
Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf,
Abdul Hafiz ʻAbd al-Ḥafīẓ (ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد الحفيظ) is a Muslim male given name, and in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-Ḥafīẓ'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which give ri ...
,
Sharifullah,
Mohamed Rahim,
Mohammed Hashim
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monothe ...
,
Ismael Arale and
Mohamed Suleiman Barre.[
Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim were ]Afghans
Afghans ( ps, افغانان, translit=afghanan; Persian/ prs, افغان ها, translit=afghānhā; Persian: افغانستانی, romanized: ''Afghanistani'') or Afghan people are nationals or citizens of Afghanistan, or people with ancestry f ...
.
Asmael Arale and Mohamed Suleiman Barre were Somalis
The Somalis ( so, Soomaalida 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒆𐒖, ar, صوماليون) are an ethnic group native to the Horn of Africa who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic Somali language is the shared ...
.
The other five men were fellow Yemenis
Yemenis or Yemenites ( ar, يمنيون) are the nationals of Yemen.
Social hierarchy
There is a system of social stratification in Yemen that was officially abolished at the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1962 but, in practice, this syst ...
.
On 5 January 2010, Jay Solomon, writing in ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' reported that Batarfi, and the five other Yemeni men repatriated with him, faced indefinite detention in Yemen.[
]
Solomon reported that the indefinite detention was part of the secret agreement negotiated between American and Yemeni officials, prior to the Americans agreeing to repatriate the men.
2008 and 2009 assessments of risks posed by Batarfi
In testimony before Congress, on 13 January 2010, White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
official John Brennan John Brennan may refer to:
Public officials
* Jack Brennan (born 1937), U.S. Marine officer and aide of Richard Nixon
* John Brennan (CIA officer) (born 1955), former CIA Director
* John P. Brennan (1864–1943), Democratic politician in the U. ...
was asked to justify the release of Batarfi, in light of the allegations he was associated with an al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction plan.[
]
A follow-up letter, from Brennan, to Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
, was made public in 2011.[
]
On 25 April 2011, the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
published formerly secret documents signed by the Guantanamo camp commandants.[
]
Batarfi's document was 15 pages long, signed by Admiral Mark H Buzby, and dated April 29, 2008.[
]
During his appearance before Congress, Congressional Representative
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...
Frank Wolf, asked Brennan to explain why Batarfi had been cleared for release, when earlier military status reviews concluded there was reason to believe he had met Osama bin Laden, and that there was reason to believe he had played a role in an al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction plan.[
]
In his written reply Brennan stated that the joint task force the Obama administration had put in place had conducted their own more recent review, and concluded the suspicions held against Batarfi weren't substantial enough to justify his detention.[
In commentary on Brennan's justification in '']The Weekly Standard
''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...
'' third-party counter-terrorism analyst Thomas Joscelyn
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the Ap ...
challenged Brennan's defense of the Obama appointed 2009 review, by citing the allegations in the 2008 Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment.[
Joscelyn quoted several passages from the 2008 military assessment that asserted Batarfi had helped provide ]Yazid Sufaat
Yazid Sufaat (born 20 January 1964), also known as Yazud bin Sufaat or Yazid Shufaat, is a Malaysian member of the extremist Islamist terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah from shortly after its foundation in 1993 until his arrest by Malaysian ...
with medical laboratory equipment that was intended to be used to develop an anthrax
Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium ''Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The sk ...
weapon.
Joscelyn quoted another passage from the documents, about Batarfi's ties to Amer Aziz
Amer Aziz is an orthopedic surgeon who is based in Lahore. He earned his medical degree in the United Kingdom and, according to ''The Washington Times'', is a British citizen.
In 2002 the Associated Press profiled Aziz when it became known that ...
, a mentor Batarfi worked under, during his internship.[
Aziz had a long history of making trips to Afghanistan to treat wounded ]mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term th ...
, dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the CIA supported them in their battle against the Soviet Union.[
]
On 21 October 2002, Aziz was seized by American security officials, who held him, and interrogated him for a month. Following his release Aziz acknowledged his travels to Afghanistan to provide medical care, and acknowledged that those he treated had included senior members of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...
. He acknowledged he had treated bin Laden in 1999 and in November 2001. However, Aziz asserted he had no knowledge of any terrorist plans, and that he had not known he would be called upon to treat bin Laden when he travelled to Afghanistan.
Joscelyn quoted the Guantanamo assessment, which said that during his interrogation, Aziz indicated he thought Batarfi was "quite keen" on fighting and "fully believed in al-Qaida."[
]
References
External links
The Story of Ayman Batarfi, a Doctor in Guantánamo
Andy Worthington
{{DEFAULTSORT:Batarfi, Ayman Saeed Abdullah
Yemeni extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
Living people
Guantanamo detainees known to have been released
Yemeni expatriates in Pakistan
Year of birth missing (living people)