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Majid Khan (detainee)

Pakistani detainee (born 1980)

Majid Khan (detainee)

Summary

Pakistani detainee (born 1980)

FieldValue
nameMajid Khan
birth_nameMajid Shoukat Khan
birth_date
birth_placeSaudi Arabia
date_of_arrestMarch 5, 2003
place_of_arrestKarachi, Pakistan
date_of_releaseFebruary 2, 2023
place_of_releaseBelize
death_date
citizenshipPakistan
detained_atPakistan, CIA black sites, Guantanamo
id_number10020
chargeFive war crimes, including murder, attempted murder and spying
statusPleaded guilty

Majid Shoukat Khan (Urdu: ماجد شوکت خان, born February 28, 1980) is a Pakistani who was the only known legal resident of the United States held in the Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp. He was a "high value detainee" and was tortured by U.S. intelligence forces.

Khan originally came to the United States in 1998, where he gained asylum. He lived in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland where he attended high school and became radicalized. The Progressive, and the New York Times. In 2006 he was sent to Guantanamo, where in 2012 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and the murder of 11 innocent civilians in the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia, and also for the attempted assassination of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. He also began cooperating with the U.S. government.

Early life

[[Aafia Siddiqui]], 2011

Khan's family settled in Catonsville, Maryland, near Baltimore, where he attended Owings Mills High School and was "exposed to radical Islam". He was granted asylum in the U.S. in 1998, and graduated the following year.

In 2002, Khan returned to Pakistan, where he married 18-year-old Rabia Yaqoub. According to Deborah Scroggins, author of Wanted Women, Khan had become more religious, after his mother's death, and had asked his aunt to help him find a wife who was also a religious scholar. Rabia was one of his aunt's students. According to the New York Times, it was then he became a courier for Al Qaeda.

He returned to the United States for a short period to continue his work as a database administrator in a Maryland government office. He claims that he helped the FBI investigate and arrest an illegal immigrant from Pakistan during this time.

On December 25, 2002, Aafia Siddiqui made a trip from Pakistan to the U.S., saying that she was looking for a job. She left the U.S. on January 2, 2003. The FBI suspects that the real purpose of her trip was to open a P.O. box for Khan. Siddiqui registered Khan as co-owner of the box, claiming he was her husband. The key to the box was later found held by Uzair Paracha, who was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda and was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2006; fifteen years after his arrest, Uzair's conviction was deemed void on July 3, 2018, by Judge Sidney H. Stein, based on newly discovered statements made by Ammar al-Baluchi, Majid Khan (detainee) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, bringing his involvement and intentions into question.

Arrest and detention

Detainee Assessment written in Guantànamo Prison in 2008

Khan returned to Pakistan on March 5, 2003. He, his brother Mohammed, and other relatives were arrested at their residence in Karachi by Pakistani security agents and taken into custody. Khan and his family were taken to an unknown location. After about a month, the entire family, with the exception of Khan, was released. Rabia Khan and the rest of his family heard nothing of his whereabouts for three years. Then, in September 2006, President George W. Bush announced that Khan, along with 13 other so-called "high value detainees", had been transferred from secret CIA prisons to military custody at Guantánamo Bay detention camp to await prosecution under the new military tribunal system authorized by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Timeline of Majid Khan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal

May 15, 2007
date=2016-03-09 }}, ''[[Financial Times]]'', December 11, 2004</ref>

The three chairs on the left hand side constituted the press gallery. The press was not allowed to attend the Tribunals of the 14 high-value detainees. Thirty-seven of the 558 earlier tribunals were observed by the press.]]

The press release quoted from Gitanjali Gutierrez, Khan's lawyer:

According to the press release, Khan's Tribunal was scheduled to start on April 10, 2007, and to finish by April 13, 2007. Ali Khan made the affidavit on April 6, 2007, when the family confirmed they would not be allowed to testify in person.

According to Department of Defense spokesman Commander Jeffrey Gordon, Khan's Tribunal concluded April 15, 2007.

The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007 that all 14 of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants". mirror Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "illegal enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all 14 men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.

Accusations against U.S.

Iyman Faris told authorities that Khan had referred to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as an "uncle" and spoken of a desire to kill Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Faris later said that his accusations had been "an absolute lie" that he had been coerced into making. Khan made repeated offers to submit to a polygraph test to prove his innocence, but was turned down.

Khan was represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and is one of few so-called "high value detainees" to have legal representation. He has attempted suicide six times while in detention. He complained in writing of having his beard forcibly shaved (in violation of his religious practice) and spending weeks without sunlight; he also complained that detainees are expected to wash with "cheap branded, unscented soap", and that he is forced to read the "poor quality" Joint Task Force Guantanamo's weekly newsletter The Wire.

Letters from Guantanamo

Khan is the first of the 14 high-value detainees to get mail to his relatives. The Washington Post reported that four letters from Khan had been received, three to his relatives in Maryland, and one to his wife. The letters were delivered to his family through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its contact with detainees is contingent on the agency's promise not to publicly disclose any information received during the meetings, which is its standard process. Khan's letter to his wife was written in Urdu and was published on the BBC's Urdu web site. Khan's Maryland relatives also decided to make the letters public to bring more attention to his case. These letters, written on December 17, 2007, and December 21, 2007, were made public on January 18, 2008. The letters were filed as part of a petition in the Washington DC Federal Court of Appeal. The petition asks the court "to rule that he was tortured in U.S. custody." According to The Washington Post, Khan's letters were heavily redacted by military censors.

Khan wrote that he was in solitary confinement, but he could talk to nearby captives through the cell walls. Once a day he is permitted to leave his cell "to get sunburn" during an hour of solitary access in an exercise yard. His relatives said the letters showed he had become much more religious.

According to The Baltimore Sun: :{| class="wikitable" |

In one five-page handwritten account from Khan to his lawyers, only a single sentence survives the censor's pen. It says, 'I was practically an American who lived a comfortable live [sic] under freedoms of America, who never lived in caves or Afghanistan.'

|}

Other quotes from Khan's letters include: :{| class="wikitable" |

  • "Think of me as a human being ... not a terrorist."
  • "I ask you to give me justice ... in the name of what U.S.A. once stood for and in the name of what Thomas Jefferson fought for ... allow me a chance to prove that I am innocent."
  • "Why would I ever want to harm U.S.A., who has never done anything but good to me and my family?" |}

The Baltimore Sun reported that Khan said that when he lived in the United States, he paid $2,400 per month in U.S. taxes. It also reported that the only other captive he had any contact with since he arrived in Guantanamo was Abu Zubaydah.

Pakistani cooperation

In 2006, Khalid Khawaja, a spokesman for the Pakistani human rights group Defense of Human Rights, cited the examples of Majid Khan and Saifullah Paracha as proof that the Pakistani government had lied about whether it had handed over Pakistani citizens to the U.S. The Associated Press quotes Khawaja as stating that: "Pakistan has sold its own people to the United States for dollars."

Khaled el-Masri, a citizen of Germany held for five months in the CIA black site in Afghanistan known as the "Salt Pit" in 2003 and 2004, a victim of mistaken identity, reported that Majid Khan was one of his fellow captives there.{{Cite news |last1=Carol D. Leonnig |last2=Eric Rich |date=2006-11-04 |title=U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons: Court Is Asked to Bar Detainees From Talking About Interrogations |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301793_pf.html |url-status=live |access-date=2009-10-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090731174831/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301793_pf.html |archive-date=2009-07-31 |quote=The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.}}

Enhanced interrogation techniques

According to Khan, during his time imprisoned by the CIA, "the more I cooperated, the more I was tortured", and so he made up lies in order to appease interrogators. In the CIA black site, which he described as resembling a dungeon, "he was kept naked with a hood on his head, his arms chained in ways that made sleep impossible".

On March 13, 2008, the CIA released highly redacted documents from a Combatant Status Review Tribunal in which Khan describes abuse and torture he suffered in CIA custody.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's C.I.A. Torture Report, released December 9, 2014, revealed that Khan was one of the detainees subjected to "rectal feeding", which his lawyers described as a form of rape, as part of his ″torture regime″ at the black site prison. Khan's "lunch tray", consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins was pureed and rectally infused," says the report.

Release and life in Belize

Sentence completion and release

On June 7, 2022, lawyers for Khan petitioned the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition asked the United States inter alia to release him from his unlawful detention in Guantanamo and for the United States to comply with their non-refoulement obligations under international law for relocation to anywhere but his native Pakistan.

On 25 July 2022 the New York Times published that "a senior Pentagon official declared" Khan's sentence was completed on March 1, 2022, Khan was transferred to Belize on February 2, 2023.

Belize

Belize’s foreign minister called its agreement to settle Khan along with his wife and their teenage daughter “a humanitarian act”. Belize had required that the US government provide funds to buy Khan "a home, a phone, a laptop and a car".

In Belize, Khan issued a statement saying:

References

References

  1. (June 13, 2008). "JTF- GTMO Detainee Assessment". [[United States Department of Defense]].
  2. Rosenberg, Carol. (29 October 2021). "For First Time in Public, a Detainee Describes Torture at C.I.A. Black Sites". The New York Times.
  3. Finn, Peter. (March 1, 2012). "National Security". The Washington Post.
  4. "Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan pleads guilty; details of government crimes against him remain classified top secret".
  5. (5 June 2015). "5 Things You Need to Know: The CIA's Horrific Torture of Majid Khan".
  6. Madeline Halpert. (2 February 2023). "US resettles Guantanamo Bay detainee Majid Khan in Belize".
  7. (16 February 2023). "Lessons from Majid Khan's Release from Guantánamo".
  8. (February 13, 2012). "Stipulation of Fact". U.S. Office of Military Commissions.
  9. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR2006090901024_pf.html From Baltimore Suburbs to a Secret CIA Prison: Family Learned Last Week That Man Was Among 'High-Value' Terrorism Suspects Moved to Guantanamo] {{Webarchive. link. (2017-03-02 , ''[[The Washington Post]]'', September 11, 2006)
  10. [[Deborah Scroggins]]. (2012). "Wanted Women – Faith, lies & the war on terror: The lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Aaafia Siddiqui". [[HarperCollins]].
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  30. (March 28, 2007). "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal — Khan, Majid". [[OARDEC]].
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