Urgent Action - Abdel Al-Ghazzawi

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Al Ghazzawi's pro bono attorney, H. Candace Gorman, reports that Al Ghazzawi had two Combatant Status Review Tribunals. [2] According to Gorman, when she acquired a copy of his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, she learned:

1. His first Tribunal unanimously determined there was no evidence that he had ever been an "enemy combatant".
2. A second Tribunal was convened in Washington DC, five weeks later, in the absence of Al Ghazzawi and his Personal Representative, which unanimously determined he was an "enemy combatant", based on secret evidence.
3. When Gorman visited the secure site where the attorneys of the Guantanamo detainees can review the classified evidence she found that his secure file did not contain any new evidence. All the documents in his classified file had already been made public. The only difference between the classified and unclassified versions was that names that had been redacted in the unclassified version, were in the clear in the classified version.

When captives participated in their Tribunals their transcripts were normally included among the body of documents that Department of Defense was under court order to release.

According to the study entitled, No-hearing hearings, Al Ghazzawi was one of the captives who had new Tribunals convened, in his absence, when the initial Tribunals determined that they should never have been determined to have been enemy combatants". [3]

The study quoted from the Legal Sufficiency Review from James R. Crisfield, the Tribunal's legal advisor:

"On 24 November 2004, a previous Tribunal [unanimously] determined, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Detainee #654 was not properly designated as an enemy combatant.
On 25 January 2005, this Tribunal, upon review of all the evidence, determined that detainee #654 was properly [unanimously] designated as an enemy combatant.

• Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English or your own language:
• expressing your serious concern that Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi may not be receiving appropriate medical care for his illnesses;
• urging that Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi be given immediate access to a doctor, and to specialist medical attention if necessary as stipulated in the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, 22 (2), so that he can be properly diagnosed and provided with all the necessary treatment he may require;
• urging that independent medical experts be allowed to visit him regularly in Guantánamo to assess his medical condition and treatment requirements;
• urging that he be removed from Camp 6 immediately and transferred to facilities which will not be further detrimental to his physical and psychological health;
• stating that he should be allowed contact with his family through regular mail, with opportunities for phone calls and visits;
• calling for the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay to be closed and for the detainees held there to be released unless they are to be promptly charged with recognizable criminal offences and brought to trial in ordinary civilian courts in full accordance with international standards, without recourse to the death penalty