Sha Mohammed Alikhel is a Pakistani who was held in

extrajudicial Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding. Politically motivated Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...

detention 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 ...

.US releases three Pakistanis jailed in Guantanamo
'' Daily Times'', 14 May 2003 On 8 May 2003, Muhammad was released at the same time as two other Pakistanis,

Jehan Wali According to the United States Department of Defense, there were five dozen Pakistani detainees in Guantanamo prior to May 15, 2006. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp was opened on January 11, 2002. In the summer of 2004, following the United ...

and Sahibzada Usman Ali. He was 20 years old. Muhammad is a

baker A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient history Since grains ha ...

from Dir, in the

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. Only one other Pakistani detainee, elderly Mohammed Saghir, had been released prior to his release.Afghans Describe Life Inside Gitmo
''

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

'', 29 October 2002 The oldest of the old: First 'hardcore' suspects freed from Camp Delta.. three Afghans, combined age 196
'' The Mirror'', 30 October 2002 Shah reported that he felt despair, and made four suicide attempts during his time in Guantanamo, even though suicide was against the tenets of

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

.Inmates Released from Guantanamo Tell Tales of Despair
, ''

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 ...

'', 17 June 2003 When ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' interviewed Muhammad, a year after his release, Muhammad reported ongoing after-effects from his incarceration: "The biggest damage is to my brain. My physical and mental state isn't right. I'm a changed person. I don't laugh or enjoy myself much." The Guardian reports that Muhammad's first suicide attempt followed a month of solitary confinement in a punishment cell. Muhammad was not confined there because he had broken any of the camp rules — rather the camp's expansion meant they had run short of ordinary cells. Muhammad reported having his suicidal impulses treated by involuntary injections with extremely powerful, long-lasting,

psychoactive drugs A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. T ...

. 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 (Philipp ...

released a list of all the captives who had been detained in Guantanamo, in military custody on 15 May 2006.List of prisoners (.pdf)
''

US Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

'', 15 May 2006 Muhammad Shah's name is missing from that list.

Mark Bowden Mark Robert Bowden (; born July 17, 1951) is an American journalist and writer. He is a national correspondent for ''The Atlantic''. He is best known for his book ''Black Hawk Down (book), Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War'' (1999) about th ...

, writing in ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'', described traveling to Pakistan to interview Shah Muhammad and Shabidzada Usman, another young Pakistani who was among the first captives to be released. Bowden described being met by "warmth and elaborate courtesy" by the two released men, who he described as "uneducated, unworldly, and dirt poor". Bowden believed their accounts that they were rounded up and sold to the Americans by undiscriminating warlords, for a bounty, who didn't care if they were innocent. On an official list of the captives' departure dates from Guantanamo published in November 2008, his name was published as "Sha Mohammed Alikhel".

Claim that he was killed fighting U.S. forces

On 7 April 2009, the

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...

drafted a report, published on 27 May 2009, that listed a "Shah Mohammed" as having been "killed while fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan". Despite the report, there are tens of thousands of "Shah Mohammeds" in Afghanistan.

References

External links

The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (7) – From Sheberghan to Kandahar
Andy Worthington {{DEFAULTSORT:Alikhel, Sha Mohammed Pakistani extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Shah Muhammad Bakers Pashtun people 1981 births Living people

Claim that he was killed fighting U.S. forces

See also

References

External links