Yasim Muhammed Basardah is a citizen of
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 ...
who was detained 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 ...
's
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 ...
is 252.
[
]
Basardah was an informant for the interrogators in Guantanamo where he was rewarded with his own cell, McDonald's apple pies, chewing tobacco, a truck magazine and other "comfort items".
[
]
Habeas corpus appeal, and appeal under the Detainee Treatment Act
Yasim Muhammed Basardah had a
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
petition filed on his behalf.
In September 2007, the Department of Justice published dossiers of unclassified documents arising from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of 179 captives.
[
]
His documents were not among those the Department of Defense published.
The Detainee Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act
The
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed the
Detainee Treatment Act of 2005
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) is an Act of the United States Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on 30 December 2005. Offered as an amendment to a supplemental defense spending bill, it contains provisions re ...
and the
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of ...
. Both these Acts included provisions to close off Guantanamo captives' ability to file habeas corpus petitions.
[
][
]
The Detainee Treatment Act included a provision to proscribe Guantanamo captives who had not already initiated a habeas corpus petition from initiating new habeas corpus petitions.
[
The Act included provision for an alternate, more limited form of appeal for captives. Captives were allowed to submit limited appeals to panels of three judges in a Washington DC appeals court. The appeals were limited, they could not be based on general principles of human rights. They could only be based on arguments that their ]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 ...
had not followed the rules laid out for the operation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
Nine months later Congress passed the Military Commissions Act.[
This Act contained provision to close off all the remaining outstanding habeas corpus petitions. After the closure of the habeas corpus petitions some Guantanamo captives had appeals in the Washington DC court submitted on their behalf, as described in the Detainee Treatment Act.
The ]DTA appeal Guantanamo Bay detainees have been allowed to initiate appeals in Washington, D.C., courts since the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) closed off the right of Guantanamo captives to submit new petitions of habeas corpus.
It subst ...
s progressed very slowly.[
Initially the Department of Justice argued that the captive's lawyers, and the judges on the panel, needed consider no more evidence than the "Summary of Evidence memos" prepared for the captives' CSR Tribunals. By September 2007, the Washington DC court ruled that the evidence that formed the basis of the summaries had to be made available.
The Administration then argued that it was not possible to present the evidence the Tribunals considered in 2004—because the evidence had not been preserved.][
Only one captive, a Uyghur captive named Hufaiza Parhat, had his DTA appeal run to completion. On June 20, 2008, his three judge panel concluded that his Tribunal had erred and that he never should have been confirmed as an enemy combatant.
]
Boumediene v. Bush
On 12 June 2008, the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush
''Boumediene v. Bush'', 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of ''habeas corpus'' submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by ...
, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives
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 ...
to access the US Federal Court system. Further, per the ruling, all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated.
The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations the men and boys were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant".[
]
Basardah's appeal under the DTA
Basardah's appeal under the DTA
was suspended by the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...
examining his case.[
][
]
On 5 November 2008, the panel suspended his appeal on jurisdictional grounds.
The panel wrote that when Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act,
stripping captives of the right to habeas corpus, they didn't anticipate
that the Supreme Court would restore it, and that it was a mistake to
proceed on two separate mechanisms for proceeding towards the same end.
Lyle Denniston
Lyle Denniston (born March 16, 1931) is an American legal journalist, professor, and author, who has reported on the Supreme Court of the United States since 1958. He wrote for SCOTUSblog, an online blog featuring news and analysis of the Suprem ...
, writing in ''Scotusblog
''SCOTUSblog'' is a law blog written by lawyers, law professors, and law students about the Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes abbreviated "SCOTUS"). Formerly sponsored by Bloomberg Law, the site tracks cases before the Court from t ...
'', commented that this ruling implied that DTA appeals were closed for all future petitioners.[
]
He speculated that the other 190 outstanding DTA appeals would regard it as a precedent.
Denniston wrote that Basardah had been waiting for his DTA appeal, 07-cv-1192, to be heard since June 2007.
Asylum in Spain
On 19 May 2010, historian Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington is a British historian, investigative journalist, and film director.
He has published three books, two on Stonehenge and one on the war on terror, been published in numerous publications and directed documentary films. Artic ...
, author of ''The Guantanamo Files
The Guantánamo Bay files leak (also known as The Guantánamo Files, or colloquially, Gitmo Files) began on 24 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with ''The New York Times'', NPR and ''The Guardian'' and other independent news organizations, began ...
'', reported that
''Saba News Saba may refer to:
Places
* Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea
* Şaba (Romanian for Shabo), a town of the Odesa Oblast, Ukraine
* Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras
* Saba (river), L ...
'' was reporting Yasin had been transferred to Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
.[
]
References
External links
Guantánamo And The Courts (Part Two): Obama’s Shame
Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington is a British historian, investigative journalist, and film director.
He has published three books, two on Stonehenge and one on the war on terror, been published in numerous publications and directed documentary films. Artic ...
November 8, 2009
Judge Ellen Huvelle’s unclassified opinion
*Human Rights First
Habeas Works: Federal Courts’ Proven Capacity to Handle Guantánamo Cases (2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basardah, Yasim Muhammed
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Guantanamo detainees known to have been released