Haji Mohammed Ayub

For other uses, see Mohammad Ayub.

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Haji Mohammed Ayub (born April 15, 1984) is a citizen of China, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo detainee ID number was 279. The Department of Defense reports he was born on April 15, 1984, in Toqquztash, China.

Ayub is one of approximately two dozen detainees from the Uyghur ethnic group.

Ayub was one of the five Uyghurs whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined that he was not an enemy combatant, and was transferred to an Albanian refugee camp.

Inconsistent identification

Haji Mohammed Ayub was identified inconsistently on official Department of Defense documents:

• He was identified as Ayoob Haji Mohammed in the "Information paper: Uighur Detainee Population at JTF-GTMO" dated 30 October 2004.

He is one of approximately two dozen Uyghur captives accused by security officials of membership in the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which the People's Republic of China considers to be both terrorist and secessionist in nature.

Documents released in response to the writ of habeas corpus Hassan Anvar v. George W. Bush contained a December 30, 2004 memo which provided one-paragraph information of 22 Uyghur detainees, all the detainees faced allegations from Joint Task Force Guantanamo intelligence officials of having received training at an "ETIM training camp".

The information about Haji Mohammed Ayub stated:

Ayoob Haji Mohammed is a 20-year-old Chinese citizen. who is an ethnic Uighur from Toqquztash China. He was last interviewed in early 2004. Mohammed has had numerous disciplinary actions. His history indicates he was disciplined on 27 May 2003 for spitting and throwing water and urine on guards, on 18 November 2003 for throwing water and prayer oil on guards, on 5 December 2003 for spitting in a guard's face, on 12 January 04 for throwing feces in a guard's face, on 23 August 2004 for threatening a guard and spitting in the guard's face, on 27 September for throwing a bar of soap at a guard, and on 16 October 04 for threatening to kill a guard. Mohammed is suspected as being a probable member of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). He is suspected of having received training in an ETIM training camp in Afghanistan.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

File:Trailer where CSR Tribunals were held.jpg

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive sat with his hands cuffed and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.

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 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.

Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Mohammed Ayub's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 2 November 2004. The memo listed the following allegations against him:

The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.

1. The detainee traveled from China to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001.
2. The detainee went to Afghanistan to receive weapons training.
3. The detainee stayed at a Uighur training camp in the Tora Bora Mountains in Afghanistan.
4. The training camp was destroyed by coalition air strikes in October 2001.
5. The detainee was in Afghanistan during the U.S. bombing campaign.
6. The detainee was traveling with a group of armed [sic] Arabs from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
7. The detainee was captured in a mosque in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities.

Transcript

Mohammed Ayub chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a Summarized transcripts from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Determined not to have been an Enemy Combatant

The Washington Post reports that Ayub was one of 38 detainees who was determined not to have been an enemy combatant during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. They report that Ayub has been released. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants.

Asylum in Albania

A lawsuit demanding release from Guantanamo was scheduled by the attorneys for five of the Uyghur captives who had been determined to have not been enemy combatants, including Haji Mohammed Ayub, to take place in the US District Court on May 8, 2006. However, three days before the trial it was announced that Albania had offered to accept patriation of all five prisoners. The same day, the Department of Justice filed an "Emergency Motion to Dismiss as Moot", asking that the trial be cancelled. Attorney Barbara Olshansky characterized the sudden transfer as an attempt to "avoid having to answer in court for keeping innocent men in jail""

Medical records

On 16 March 2007 the Department of Defense published the captives' height and weight records. Mohammad Ayub was reported to be 66.5 inches tall. According to the published record his weight was recorded 31 times between his arrival at Guantanamo on June 10, 2002 and April 24, 2006.

McClatchy interview

On June 15, 2008 the McClatchy News Service published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Mohammed Ayub. Mohammed Ayub told interviewers he found the conditions in Guantanamo so harsh that he dropped from 164 to 105 pounds, and that he was so hungry he was reduced to eating orange peels. He told interviewers captives were punished harshly for small infractions, like having an extra napkin.

In spite of his treatment in Guantanamo Mohammed Ayub told reporters he would still like to move to the USA. He has relatives who live in America, and in 2001 he had a student visa for the USA. But a friend he was traveling with did not, and he decided to postpone his travel until his friend had a visa too.

Mohammed Ayub described the interrogations the captives went through when Chinese security officials visited Guantanamo as:

"...nothing more than threats. They told me they knew my family, where I'd lived, when I'd left China, where I'd traveled. I would be imprisoned if I ever tried to return to China. It was frightening, they got to us inside that place."

Mohammed Ayub said that he and his companion decided to wait for the visa in Afghanistan, where he was mugged, lost his money and identity papers.

See also

• Minors detained in the War on Terror
• Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay

External links

• Witness - A strange kind of freedom Aljazeera - video
• Escape to Hell - Fleeing China, Landing in Guantanamo Der Spiegel July 14, 2006
• Free and Uneasy. Tale of 5 Muslims: Out of Guantanamo and Into Limbo Cleared by U.S. of Terror Ties, They Won’t Return Home Due to Fear of Punishment. China Demands Repatriation

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