|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ibrahim al Qosi |
| Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born: | July 3, 1960 Khartoum, Sudan |
| Detained at: | Guantanamo |
| ID number: | 054 |
| Charge(s): | One of the ten captives to originally face charges before a military commission. |
Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi (إبراهيم أحمد محمود القوسي) (born 1960) is a Sudanese citizen and alleged paymaster for al-Qaida.1 He was captured in December, 2001 in Afghanistan. Qosi is held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.2 Qosi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 54. The Department of Defense reports that Qosi was born on July 3, 1960, in Khartoum, Sudan.
Contents |
Al Qosi has a brother named Abdullah.
Al Qosi is one of approximately two dozen captives who has faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission.
Initially the Bush administration asserted they could withhold the protections of the Geneva Conventions from captives in the War on Terror, while critics argued the Conventions obligated the United States to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals, to determine whether the captives met the new definition of an "enemy combatant".
From July 2004 through March 2005, a CSRT was convened to make a determination whether each captive had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Ibrahim al Qosi was among the one-third of prisoners for whom there was no indication they chose to participate in their tribunals.3
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal, listing the alleged facts that led to his detainment. His memo accused him of the following:
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi's Combatant Status Review Tribunal on 4 September 2004.4 The memo listed the following allegations:
|
A petition of habeas corpus was filed on Al Qosi's behalf.5 Over two hundred captives had habeas corpus petitions filed on their behalf before the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 closed off the captives' access to the US civilian justice system. On June 12, 2008, in its ruling on the Boumediene v. Bush habeas corpus petition, the United States Supreme Court over-rode the Congress and Presidency, and restored the captives' access to habeas corpus.
In September 2007 the Department of Defense published the unclassified dossiers arising from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of 179 captives.6 The Department of Defense withheld the unclassified documents from Al Qosi's Tribunal. The Department of Defense did not explain why it withheld the unclassified documents from Al Qosi's Tribunal.
On February 24, 2004, he was named in documents for the first military commissions to be held for detainees.7 The U.S. alleges that he joined al-Qaida in 1989 and worked as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, as well as working as a quartermaster for al-Qaida. He is also alleged to have been the treasurer of a business which was an al-Qaida front.
He was indicted along with Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul. The indictment should allow them access to defense lawyers to prepare their defenses. He is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, including attacking civilians, murder, destruction of property and terrorism.
Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Shaffer USAF was appointed Qosi's lawyer on February 6, 2004.8
On August 27, 2004 Shaffer complained that she was not being provided with information she needed for her defense of Qosi, that Qosi had informed her that the quality of translation at his military commission was insufficient for him to understand what was happening.9 She told the Tribunal that she had to resign as Qosi's attorney.
According to the Voice of America, Chief Prosecutor Colonel Robert L. Swann assured the commission that:
On November 9, 2004 legal action against Qosi was suspended,10 US District Court Justice James Robertson of the US District Court's had ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that the military commissions violated International agreements to which the United States was a signatory. This ruling applied to all four of the detainees who had been charged by the military commission.
On July 15, 2005 a three judge appeal panel over-turned Robertson's ruling, setting the commissions back in motion.
On November 7, 2005 the US Supreme Court announced that they would be reviewing Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Qosi's case was stayed, pending the outcome of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.11
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in July 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to set up the military commissions. Only Congress had the authority to set up military commissions. Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But,
On February 9, 2008 Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi and Ali Hamza Suleiman Al Bahlul were charged before the Congressionally authorized Guantanamo military commissions authorized by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.1213
On May 22, 2008 Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Paul, the Presiding Officer of his Commission ordered, that Ibrahim al Qosi be permitted his first phone call home.1415 He has declined to leave his cell to meet with Commander Suzanne Lachelier his assigned legal counsel, and the Camp's security rules do not permit her going to his cell to talk to him -- so they have never discussed his case. During a preliminary hearing Ibrahim Al Qosi told Paul he does not want to be represented by an American lawyer. He said that he had been unable to hire the lawyer of his choice because he had been isolated in Guantanamo, and had been unable to contact his family.
Later that day Commander Pauline Storum, a Guantanamo spokesman, reported that the call had been completed, and that he had spoken with his family for an hour.141617
On May 23, 2008 Storum sent an apology by e-mail to reporters to retract her claim the phone call had been completed.1617
|
Ibrahim Al Qosi's appointed counsel, Suzanne Lachelier, told Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, that she was surprised to learn, through press reports, that the call had been completed.16 She said she had only begun to initiate the co-ordination with the Red Cross to arrange for his family to be set up to receive the call when she learned the call had already been completed. According to Rosenberg:
|
The Department of Defense has until July 1, 2008 to arrange the phone call.17
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
