Detainee #909: Mohabet Khan

by Katherine

(second in a series. Previous posts: 1)

Mohabet Khan's CSRT begins on page 14 of set 32 of the transcripts.  Khan is Afghan. He was arrested on December 11, 2002, at a place called the Samoud compound, which was run by some sort of opponent of the US or the Karzai government--maybe a Taliban supporter, maybe just some nasty local warlord--the transcript is not clear on this point. He was 18 at the time of his CSRT, so he would have been about 16 years old at the time of his arrest.

He told the tribunal that

I didn't go to the Samoud compound on my own will. Someone took me by force; he broke my arm and he beat on me until he took me to the compound. I didn't go on my own will....

we like the Americans, we were working with the Americans and this is what I want to say. We are poor people but they took me by force. We are happy that the Americans came because we know that they are building our country. We do not want to fight against them because we are not crazy....At the time of the Taliban, they put me in jail for three months. They beat on me, they hurt me, they broke my arm and they beat on my back. The Taliban oppressed us, beat on us, and we lost our dignity to them. They mostly oppressed the whole village.

The personal representative explained how the detainee wound up carrying an unloaded Kalshnikov at this compound.

Personal Representative: Mohabet told me he ran a tractor for his uncle. This was before he was in Samoud's compound....And he was happy driving the tractor. Then Mohabet's cousin came to him  [&] tried to get him to do something else. Tried to get him to come to this Samoud compound....So he did, he went to the compound for two days, but he wasn't happy and he said they were stealing, robbing and he didn't like to do those things so he went home....Home was about 15 minutes away by walking from the Samoud compound. So he went home and 10 days later some soldiers from the Samoud compoud came and they beat him up and took him back to the compound. About 16 days later is when the Americans came to the compound.

In response to the allegation that he was arrested "by U.S. forces during a raid" of the compound, the prisoner replied that "It wasn't really a raid, they opened the doors to let the Americans come in and it really wasn't forceful or an impressive action, they really just let the forces come in."  There were eight people there, with six guns, and "we never fired upon the Americans. When the Americans arrived, with our own will, we went with happiness."

Near the end of the hearing, tribunal members asked Khan about his statement that the Taliban had abused him:

Q: You said earlier that the Taliban once put you in jail and beat you?

A: Yes sir.

Q: Why did they do this?

A: My infant cousin was born. We had a party. We were playing the drums. We were having fun. When they came they broke the tapes, the[y] broke the drums, they took me to jail, they beat me with a cable and then they put salt on it. On my wounds I guess.

Q: Because you were making music and they did want you to make music and noise?

A: Yes sir.

Q: And how long did they keep you in jail?

A: Three months.

You don't have to define "enemy combatants" to include random English teachers and little old ladies in Switzerland to include detainee # 909. He was captured near a combat zone with an AK-47, though he says it was unloaded. Forcefully conscripted 16 year old soldiers who immediately surrender to the first US forces they encounter--he's still a soldier, you can argue, and that's his tough luck. But if the administration is going to define enemy combatants to include unlucky 16-year-olds, I think perhaps we should re-examine the assumption that they need to be detained without charge until the end of a war that may not end in our lifetimes. And maybe we could cool it on the descriptions of them as "trained killers," "terrorists," "murderers," "the kinds of people who will chew through the hydraulic lines of an aircraft...the Hannibal Lecters of south-west Asia," etc. etc.

I don't know for sure whether Khan is still in Guantanamo. He is either not on the Washington Post's list of detainees, or he is on it under a different name. I do know that the CSRTs found that 520 out of 558 prisoners were enemy combatants, and he admitted a closer connection with combat than many detainees, so odds are he still is in Cuba.

Comments

[Jonathan]

While unfortunate 16-year old conscripts who surrender at the first opportunity are undeniably enemy combatants, they are also precisely the kind of people that the Geneva Conventions exist to protect.

If this is the kind of person we are detaining, we need to have a hard think about why we aren't complying with Geneva.

[Uncle Kvetch]

Excellent post. You're doing a great service here.

I think perhaps we should re-examine the assumption that they need to be detained without charge until the end of a war that may not end in our lifetimes.

Maybe I'm picking at the tiniest of nits here, but this phrase leapt out at me. My feeling is that this "war" has been deliberately concocted in such a way that it will not end. And I think that broader assumption needs to be examined at every opportunity.

[Nell]

we need to have a hard think about why we aren't complying with Geneva.

"We" aren't complying because "we" are allowing to stay in office a regime that puts itself above our laws and Constitution. Openly abandoning the Geneva Conventions was just one of the signals that this administration is different from all others.

Another warehouse of clues is the body of four hundred signing statements declaring a nonexistent right for the executive to selectively ignore portions of the laws being signed (compared with 350 signing statements in all previous U.S. history, most not declaring a right to ignore the law being signed and none before the Reagan administration being treated as part of the legislative history).

They've made the the fourth amendment a dead letter as well, and are being allowed to get away with it.

A hard think about the Geneva conventions means not looking at them in isolation.

[Nell]

Katherine, I'm deeply grateful for this series. Thank you.

[Gary Farber]

Here's a story for you, Katherine: CIA made '185 rendition flights through Britain'.

Here is the Amnesty International story, "Below The Radar." You've probably already seen this, I imagine, but probably not everyone has. Here the actual report.

[Anderson]

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