Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad, a citizen of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, was formerly 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

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO ( ), GITMO ( ), or simply Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 by p ...

s, in

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. Guantanamo

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

analysts estimate he was born in 1972, in Al Qameshle, Syria. He is from the

Kurd Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

ish ethnic group. Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was held at Guantanamo for almost eight years until he was released to

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

on May 4, 2010.

Official status reviews

Originally the Bush

Presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

asserted that captives apprehended in the ''" war on terror"'' were not covered by the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004 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 turn on question ...

ruled, in

Rasul v. Bush ''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corp ...

, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants. Scholars at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

, led by

Benjamin Wittes Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is an American legal journalist. He is editor in chief of '' Lawfare'' and senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, where he is the research director in public law, and co-director ...

, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations: * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ... are

members of the Taliban Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

."'' * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."'' * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ... took

military or terrorist training in Afghanistan A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

."'' * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ...

were at Tora Bora ''Were'' and ''wer'' are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (, , , , , , ). In Anglo-Saxon law ''wer'' was the value of a man's life. He could be ...

."'' * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives whose ''"

names or aliases were found on material seized in raids on Al Qaeda safehouses and facilities A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...

."'' * Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad was listed as one of the captives who was a

foreign fighter A foreign fighter is someone who travels abroad to participate in a non-international armed conflict or fight for a country of which he or she is not a national. See also *French Foreign Legion * Spanish Foreign Legion * Portuguese Foreign Legion ...

Habeas corpus petition

A writ of

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...

was filed on Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad's behalf. On July 15, 2008, Kristine A. Huskey filed a ''"notice of petitioners' request for 30 days' notice of transfer"'' on behalf of several dozen captives including Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

published formerly secret assessments drafted by

Joint Task Force Guantanamo Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) is a U.S. military joint task force based at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on the southeastern end of the base. JTF-GTMO falls under US Southern Command. Since January 2002 the command ...

analysts. His 14-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on April 5, 2008. It was signed by camp commandant

Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral. Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...

Mark Buzby, who recommended continued detention.

Asylum in Canada

On February 10, 2009, ''

CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

'' reported that Maassoum Abdah Mouhammad was the fifth Guantanamo captive to attract a refugee-sponsoring group, in Canada. The other four men were Djamel Ameziane, who had lived in Canada prior to traveling to Afghanistan, and Hassan Anvar and two other Uyghur captives from Guantanamo.

Asylum in Bulgaria

Reuters reported that Bulgaria was negotiating accepting former Guantanamo captives in December 2009. On May 4, 2010, the USA transferred three Guantanamo captives to three European countries, publishing their nationalities, without publishing their identities. On May 19, 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. Art ...

, 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 the Syrian transferred to

was Maasoum. Worthington was told by local journalists that Maasoum's family had been allowed to join him in Bulgaria. Worthington's conclusion was that Maasoum and three other Syrians captured with him were probably told their interrogators the truth about being in Afghanistan as

economic migrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

, not jihadists. Local reporters asserted that Maasoum said that he had gone to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

to find a wife, that he was not a fighter, and that his detention was due to being mistaken for another man, named ''Bilal''. ''

Balkan Insight ''Balkan Insight'' is a website of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that focuses on news, socio-political analysis, commentary, and investigative reporting from Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is ...

'' quoted Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who said that Bulgaria wanted to accept a former captive who was a married man, under 40, who had not been a trouble-maker while in detention. In December 2010, ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' reported that formerly secret diplomatic cables, published by whistleblower organization ''

'', revealed details of Bulgaria's negotiations with the US, over accepting former Guantanamo captives. They reported that, in return for granting refugee status to two former captives the USA would lift the restriction that visitors from Bulgaria would require a

travel visa A visa (; also known as visa stamp) is a conditional authorization granted by a polity to a foreigner that allows them to enter, remain within, or leave its territory. Visas typically include limits on the duration of the foreigner's stay, area ...

References

External links

Who is the Syrian Released from Guantánamo to Bulgaria?
Andy Worthington {{DEFAULTSORT:Mouhammad, Maasoum Abdah Syrian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Living people 1972 births Guantanamo detainees known to have been released