Abdel Hamid al-Ghazzawi

Abdel Hamid Ibn Abdussalem Ibn Mifta Al Ghazzawi (عبدالحميد ابن عبدالسلام الغزاوي) (born 8 November 1962) is a citizen of Libya who was held from June 2002 until March 2010 in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba because the United States classified him as an enemy combatant.

His internment number was 654.

His attorney has disputed the determination that al-Ghazzawi was an enemy combatant, which he has denied.

Abdel Hamid Ibn Abdussalem Ibn Mifta Al Ghazzawi was born in Tripoli, Libya in 1962.

He had training at the Ministry of Maritime Transport Trade School and the Abu Sitta Naval Training Center for five to six months in 1979–1980.

Together with nearly 250 Libyan recruits, he was sent to the Kamaya Point Training Center in Bataan, Philippines, but the program failed and they returned to Libya.

In the late 1980s, he went to Pakistan for work, where he taught school for some time.

From 1985 to 1987, he worked as an office assistant for the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority.

He was in Afghanistan in 1988 during the Afghan-Soviet War, but said that he never participated in fighting.

During this period, the United States supported the mujahedin in their resistance to the Soviets.

Al-Ghazzawi received a few weeks' training in 1988–1989, but said he never fired a shot.

By September 2001, al-Ghazzawi had married an Afghan woman and lived in Jalalabad.

They had a daughter together.

Al Ghazzawi's government file says he was arrested in January 2002 by Afghan Intelligence Forces in Konar, Afghanistan.

He has said that armed men came to his house, taking him away and selling him to Northern Alliance forces.

They in turn sold him to the Americans, who were offering bounties for people to be picked up.

Al-Ghazzai was turned over to American forces and first held at Bagram for interrogation.

He was transported to Guantanamo Bay detention camp in June 2002.

Like other detainees, he was held in secrecy and for years deprived of any access to legal counsel and communication with his family.

She has noted that the first Combatant Status Review Tribunal in November 2004 found no evidence of al-Qaeda involvement and ruled he was not an enemy combatant.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham later submitted an affidavit to the United States Supreme Court about the flaws in the CSRT process, based in part on this case, for which he sat on the original tribunal.

As a result of the United States Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Bush (2004), which said that detainees had the habeas corpus right to challenge detention in an impartial tribunal, such as federal court, the United States Department of Defense quickly created the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Beginning weeks after the Supreme Court decision, DOD used the CSRTs to review each of the several hundred detainee case to determine whether detainees should be held as enemy combatants.

The Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law has prepared numerous reports about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the detainees, and the operations.

At the CSRT for al-Ghazzawi, "On 24 November 2004, a ... Tribunal [unanimously] determined, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Detainee #654 was not properly designated as an enemy combatant."

It found he had no al-Qaeda or Taliban involvement.

But, after the results went to Washington, DOD convened a second CSRT there 55 days later.

It was held in Washington, with neither Al-Ghazzawi nor his Personal Representative present.

A second tribunal was called in January 2005, 55 days later and with different members; it determined that al-Ghazzawi as an enemy combatant, claiming new "secret" information.

His attorney found later that no new information had been introduced, and described the proceeding as a "kangaroo court" on behalf of the Bush administration at the time.

Al Ghazzawi's case was not heard by any other forum.

He was never charged or tried by a military commission.

"On 25 January 2005, this Tribunal, upon review of all the evidence, determined that detainee #654 was properly [unanimously] designated as an enemy combatant."

The transcripts of subsequent Administrative Review Board hearings show that al-Ghazzawi continued to deny involvement with al-Qaeda, and said he never fought in Afghanistan, nor against the Americans.

In its review of the CSRTs, No-Hearing Hearings: CSRT: The Modern Habeas Corpus? (2006), the Center for Policy and Research found that all detainees were ultimately declared enemy combatants.

In the few cases in which detainees were first cleared by their CSRTs as enemy combatants, second tribunals were called which overwhelmingly determined the detainees were enemy combatant.

This resulted in hundreds of men being held without charges under harsh conditions at Guantanamo for years more.

Among these was Al Ghazzawi, whose case was noted in the report, by his intern number.

By the summer of 2006, H. Candace Gorman began working as Al Ghazzawi's pro bono attorney, a connection made by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

On March 23, 2010, the United States government released Al Ghazzawi from Guantanamo, transferring him to the custody of the nation of Georgia.