Posted on 03/05/2006 8:00:20 PM PST by NewLand
Guantanamo Inmates Despair of Ever Leaving
Sunday, March 5, 2006 9:13 PM EST
The Associated Press
By MIRANDA LEITSINGER
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Ahamed Abdul Aziz has been in the Guantanamo Bay prison for more than three years and, by his account, has been interrogated 50 times without being charged with any crime. He waits with anguish for freedom but fears it will never come.
"We are in a grave here," he told his lawyers, echoing the despair felt by many of the roughly 490 prisoners held as suspected terrorists at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba. Charges have been filed against only 10 of them.
Transcripts of hearings, which the Pentagon released Friday after a successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press, show the frustration among prisoners waiting for the military to decide whether to charge them, transfer them or release them.
"I don't want to spend any more time here. Not one more minute," Afghan prisoner Mohammed Gul said at a combat status review tribunal.
Another unidentified Afghan man told his tribunal: "I was not a Taliban. I was not against the Americans. I want to go home."
An Afghan man, identified only as Abdul in one of the transcripts, urged U.S. military officers overseeing his tribunal to free him so he could feed his family.
"I don't know what they have to eat," he said.
The United States has released or transferred to authorities in their home countries about 270 detainees since the prison opened in January 2002, months after the U.S.-led military campaign that ousted Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bases.
Major Paul Swiergosz, a Defense Department spokesman, said that holding detainees who are considered a risk is necessary in time of war, while the review process ensures innocent detainees are released.
"Holding detainees in Guantanamo is not a punitive measure, it's preventive," Swiergosz said. "That keeps them from continuing to fight against the United States and its allies. The Defense Department will continue to work diligently to process all the detainee cases we have."
U.S. officials say the camp houses only people who want to kill American troops or civilians.
"The folks that are at Guantanamo Bay all have a valid reason for being sent here," said Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a prison spokesman. "Some are mainly security, others are intelligence. It's across the board."
Aziz, who is from Mauritania in West Africa, was captured in Pakistan in 2002, according to one of his lawyers, Anna Cayton-Holland. His lawyers do not know what he is accused of.
"He thinks he's going to die here," said another member of his defense team, Agnieszka Fryszman.
Many detainees are accused of specific deeds, but some complain they spend years in confinement before learning the allegations.
Boudella al Hajj, an Algerian cleric who said he worked with orphans in Bosnia for a humanitarian group and the Bosnian army, was accused of being in contact with al-Qaida member Abu Zubaydah and belonging to an Algerian militant organization, among other things.
In the transcripts, he denied the allegations and asked why he had never heard them before.
"I've been here for three years, been through many interrogations and no interrogator ever mentioned any of these accusations, so how did they just come now?" he said. "It's weird how this just came up now."
One tribunal member, who was not identified, later said: "We didn't realize you had never been confronted with these allegations."
Another man, Pakistani millionaire Saifullah A. Paracha, was told by a U.S. Air Force colonel running his hearing that he would one day be able to pursue his case in American courts.
"I've been here 17 months — would that be before I expire?" Paracha asked.
With some Bush administration officials now referring to the war against terrorism as the "long war," Guantanamo appears to be turning into a more permanent detention site.
A two-story prison building that can house 200 detainees is slated to open this summer. It is modeled after a mainland maximum-security prison and will be located near a similar facility that can house 100 detainees.
"It's becoming clear that we will need to continue to house some number of detainees for an extended period," said a Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Michael Shavers.
U.S. to File Terrorism Charges Against Pakistani Detainee (Uzair Paracha)
Washington Post ^ | August 6, 2003 | Dan Eggen
Posted on 08/05/2003 10:55:54 PM PDT by Shermy
Federal authorities expect to file terrorism charges soon against a detained Pakistani man with ties to the shipping industry and links to a senior al Qaeda leader, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Uzair Paracha, 23, has been secretly detained as a material witness since his arrest March 31 in the offices of a New York clothing import firm owned by his father, sources said. Authorities believe the Paracha family business may have been used as cover for attempts to smuggle al Qaeda operatives or weapons into the United States, according to several sources familiar with the case.
Paracha's father, who owns a Pakistani textile company that routinely shipped large containers of clothing and other goods into Newark, was last seen as he tried to board an airplane in Karachi a month ago. He was arrested by Pakistani police and has been held incommunicado ever since, according to local press reports and two U.S. officials with knowledge of the case.
.....snip.....
In addition, two law enforcement officials said, Paracha has been linked to Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty May 1 to providing material support to a terrorist organization. Ricco said he does not know of any ties between the two.
Faris met with Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, and plotted to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge and launch a terrorist attack against Washington, according to court papers. Faris had numerous ties to the shipping and cargo business, and had considered starting a garment-shipping business like the one associated with Paracha, according to officials and court documents.
....snip...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They said [Uzair/Ozair] Paracha [son of Saifullah Paracha] met with a man believed to be an al-Qaida associate in Pakistan earlier this year [2003 before Aug]. The man asked him to contact U.S. immigration authorities and pose as the associate to get a travel document that would permit the associate to re-enter and possibly remain in the United States, prosecutors said. The al-Qaida associate, however, has remained overseas, prosecutors said.[Uzair] Paracha was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday.
Prosecutors said [Uzair] Paracha told the FBI in March that he possessed several items of identification belonging to the al-Qaida associate. A search of his belongings revealed that he had a Maryland driver's license and a bank ATM card in the associate's name, prosecutors said. Paracha's lawyer, Anthony Ricco, has said in recent days that Paracha was innocent. He was arrested about six weeks after he came to the United States to raise money for a real estate venture in Pakistan, Ricco said.
-------"Feds Charge Suspect With Aiding al-Qaida Federal Prosecutors Charge a Pakistani Man With Providing Support to al-Qaida Network," The Associated Press, Aug. 8, 2003
THANK YOU for the update Piasa.
If they really wanna leave, we could just cut their heads off.
That's what they seem to do to our guys.
Heck, they'll even get their 72 virgins or whatever!
Seriously: The words smallest violin is playing a song for them.
MARCH 31, 2003 : (USA : NY : [UZAIR] PARACHA DETAINED FOR ACTING AS COVER FOR AL QAEDA OPERATIVE MAJID KHAN- WHO IS ASSOCIATED WITH SIDDIQUI - See BALTIMORE "CELL?", IMG) Details of the alleged smuggling plot came to light in the case of Uzair Parachas, 23, the son of IMG's co-owner. Parachas has been detained by the FBI since being picked up in the IMG [International Management Group] office March 31, shortly after he arrived from Pakistan. He was charged this month with acting as cover for one of [Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed's Baltimore-based associates, an Al Qaeda operative whom sources identified as Majid Khan. (* My note: Majid Khan is the person the woman Siddiqui aided in setting up a new identity in the US) -- "Rag trade terror plot: Al Qaeda sought Garment Center tie," by GREG B. SMITH, New York Daily News, August 22, 2003
FEBRUARY 2003 : (AL QAEDA'S KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED aka "KSM" MEETS WITH THE PARACHAS - See SAIFULLAH PARACHA & UZAIR/OZAIR PARACHA) Days before he was captured in Pakistan in March, suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed met in Karachi with the owner of a W. 35th St., [NY] clothing importing company and his son, law enforcement sources said. Al Qaeda's No. 3 man offered to invest $200,000 in International Management Group in exchange, federal authorities now believe, for access to IMG's Port Newark-bound shipping containers, sources say.
Mohammed "is obsessed with attacking the United States, and New York has always been at the top of the list for Al Qaeda," said one law enforcement source. After learning of the plot, federal authorities began monitoring IMG's containers, though sources said no weapons were found in them. -- "Rag trade terror plot: Al Qaeda sought Garment Center tie," by GREG B. SMITH, New York Daily News, August 22, 2003
...The guy's son, actually.
HOLY MOLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're welcome- here's more.
"...has been interrogated 50 times without being charged with any crime."
He's not there because he may have committed a crime, he's there because he is a terrorist and we are at war against terrorists. Its not a difficult concept to understand.
I'm sure I could help him find death if only the Government would let me at him, or any of the others.
Transcripts of hearings, which the Pentagon released Friday after a successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press
SNIP
Aziz, who is from Mauritania in West Africa, was captured in Pakistan in 2002, according to one of his lawyers, Anna Cayton-Holland. His lawyers do not know what he is accused of.
"He thinks he's going to die here," said another member of his defense team, Agnieszka Fryszman.
SNIP
Boudella al Hajj, an Algerian cleric who said he worked with orphans in Bosnia for a humanitarian group
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