User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo Captives who had weight(s) recorded, or who were recorded as having refused to be weighed -- AFTER their release

Guantanamo captives who had weight(s) recorded, or who were recorded as having refused to be weighed -- AFTER their release

Most of the formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo detainee assessments state, without any details, that the captive was "evasive", or offered conflicting accounts of themselves. However there are several reasons to suspect interrogators regularly posed questions to one captive, that were intended for a different captive, and that they recorded the first captives answers in the second captives dossier.

This table is based on weight records the DoD published, and it suggests that five percent of the time the wrong captive was delivered to medical staff, and they didn't notice they had the wrong guy.

Several years ago Carol Rosenberg wrote about Tariq al Sawah, when he was charged before a military commission. She reproduced his height and weight records, and noted how they showed occasion of wild weight fluctations. They certainly did! When I graphed those fluctuations I reached a different conclusion than she did. Tariq al Sawah was someone who had fought beside Bosnian muslims, during the civil war that lead to Bosnian independence from Yugoslavia. But, he seems to have grown disenchanted with jihadism by the time he arrived in Guantanamo. He arrived weighing over 200 pounds. During the next four and a half years (the weight records only go to 2006), he gained another 200 pounds.

When graphed I think it was clear the apparent weight fluctuations could only be explained by someone else's weight being recorded in his file. In 2004 he suddenly lost about 100 pounds, his weight was stable for a few months, then he suddenly gained that weight back. Then, in August 2006 his weight plummeted to barely 120 pounds -- an impossible loss of almost 300 pounds. The captives whose weight was dangerously low had their weight recorded daily, or several times per week. And Tariq's weight record show him being weighed ever second day or so for the last half of August. Finally, on August 30th, he had two weights recorded. If those records were to be taken at face value he gained 280 pounds in a single day.

The captives' habeas attorney have described how they would come to see their clients, would wait in the interview room for guards to bring their captive to them, only to have a stranger brought to them. The guards failed to distinguish between the captives.

One of the saddest stories is that of an Afghan of Uzbek descent, named Abdullah Khan. The Taliban are recruited exclusively from Afghanistan's (and Pakistan's) Pashtun ethnic group. Abdullah Khan was a middleaged man who had worked as a migrant farm worker in Kandahar, in his youth.

The good news part of this story is that in 2003, after the Taliban ouster, he thought it was safe to travel back to Kandahar, the heart of Pashtun territory. The bad news part of the story is that he was recognized by individuals who held a grudge against him, and denounced him to highly credulous American intelligence officials. They told those officials he was not who he said he was -- that he was really a former Taliban governor -- Khirullah Khairkhwa.

What those shockingly credulous American intelligence officials should have checked was whether Khairkhwa was already in US custody. Khan is eventually shipped to Guantanamo when American interrogators in Bagram grow impatient with his unwillingness to confess that he is really Khairkhwa.

As soon as he arrives in Guantanamo, and has a chance to talk with other captives , what do they inform him? Khairkhwa, the real Khairkhwa, in only a few hundred yards away, in another compound. He has been in Guantanamo for almost two years. Abdullah Khan testified at his 2004 Tribunal that every interrogation started with his interrogators insisting they knew he was lying about his identity, and that, at every interrogation, he pleaded with his interrogators to check the prison roster, so they could see for themselves that they already held the real Khairkwa.

documents that 5 percent of the time

Captives who had weight(s) recorded, or who were recorded as having refused to be weighed -- AFTER their release

isn	name	inprocess date	last weighin	release date	gap	notes
ISN 60	Adil Kamil al-Wadi	2002-01-17	2005-09	2004-11-04	300	[1]	Records state he refused to be weighed 2004-12-01, 2005-01-01, 2005-02-01, 2005-03-01, 2005-05-01, 2005-06-01, 2005-09-01
ISN 82	Abdullah D. Kafkas		2005-06-12	2004-02-27	471	[2]	Never weighed in 2003 or 2004 2 bogus weighins in 2005
ISN 83	Yusef Nabied	2002-02-08	2004-08	2004-07-17	14	[3]	Records state he refused to be weighed in August 2004
ISN 164	Imad Achab Kanouni	2002-02-12	2004-08	2004-07-26	5	[4]	Records state he refused to be weighed in August 2004
ISN 203	Ravil Shafeyavich Gumarov	2002-01-21	2004-03	2004-02-27	2	[5]	Records state he refused to be weighed in March 2004
ISN 209	Almasm Rabilavich Sharipov	2002-01-21	2005-08-07	2004-02-27	527	[6]	12 bogus weighins in 2005-07 & 2 bogus weighins in 2005-08
ISN 228	Abdullah Kamel Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari	2002-05-01	2006-09-11	2006-09-06	5	[7]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 247	Kay Fiyatullah	2002-06-12	2005-09	2004-09-17	348	[8]	Record states he refused to be weighed on 2005-02, 2005-03, 2005-04, 2005-09
ISN 325	Nizar Sassi	2002-02-15	2005-04	2004-07-26	248	[9]	bogus weighins in 2005-01, 2005-02, 2005-03, 2005-04
ISN 346	Said Bezan Ashek Shayban	2002-02-14	2006-12-31	2006-05-18	227	[10]	just one bogus entry
ISN 364	Mohammed Raz-Mohammed Kakar	2002-06-12	2006-02-28	2003-05-09	1026	[11]	Just one bogus entry
ISN 366	Hazrat Sangin Khan	2002-05-03	2004-05-10	2004-03-14	57	[12]	One bogus entry on 2004-05-10 One bogus "refused"
ISN 460	Khan Zaman	2002-06-16	2006-06-04	2006-02-08	116	[13]	Just one bogus entry
ISN 515	Israr Ul Haq	2002-06-12	2005-02	2004-03-14	323	[14]	A bogus weighin on 2005-01, and a bogus refusal on 2005-02
ISN 529	Bacha Khan (Guantanamo captive 529)	2002-06-16	2004-10	2004-09-17	13	[15]	Just one bogus entry
ISN 530	Dawd Gul	2002-06-10	2004-10	2004-09-18	12	[16]	Just one bogus entry
ISN 561	Abdul Rahim Muslimdost	2002-05-01	2005-05	2005-04-18	12	[17]	Just one bogus entry
ISN 573	Rustam Akhmyarov	2002-05-01	2004-03	2004-02-27	2	[18]	Bogus "refused weight"
ISN 641	Abdul Karim Irgashive	2002-06-08	2004-08	2004-07-17	14	[19]	A bogus refusal
ISN 674	Timur Ravilich Ishmurat	2002-06-14	2004-03	2004-02-27	2	[20]	A bogus refusal
ISN 699	Din Mohammed Farhad	2002-08-05	2004-12	2004-09-18	73	[21]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 783	Shamsullah	2002-10-28	2006-11-09	2006-10-11	29	[22]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 909	Mohabet Khan	2003-02-07	2006-12-02	2006-10-11	52	[23]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 912	Asad Ullah (Guantanamo captive 912)	2003-03-23	2004-03	2004-01-28	32	[24]	Claimed to have refused weighins on 2004-02 and 2004-03
ISN 913	Ullah Naqib	2003-02-07	2004-03	2004-01-28	32	[25]	Claimed to have refused weighins on 2004-02 and 2004-03
ISN 930	Mohammed Ismail	2003-02-07	2004-03	2004-01-28	32	[26]	Claimed to have refused weighins on 2004-02 and 2004-03
ISN 1005	Bashir Ahmad	2003-05-09	2006-04-18	2004-09-17	578	[27]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 1006	Mohammed Irfan (Guantanamo captive 1006)	2003-05-09	2006-04-18	2004-09-17	578	[28]	Just one bogus weighin
ISN 10007	Martin Mubanga	2002-04-20	2005-03	2005-01-25	34	[29]	Bogus weighin on 2005-03