Mawlawi Mohammad Nabi Omari
Nabi Omari at a conference
First Deputy Minister for Interior Affairs
Assumed office
6 October 2022
PresidentHibatullah Akhundzada
Preceded byMohmand Katawazaii
Acting Governor of Khost Province
Assumed office
24 August 2021
Personal details
Born1968 (age 55–56)[1]
Khost Province, Afghanistan
Professionpolitician

Mawlawi Mohammad Nabi Omari is an Afghan politician serving as First Deputy Minister for Interior Affairs[2] under the Taliban since 6 October 2022.[3] He was also appointed Acting Governor of Khost Province in late August 2021.[4] Omari was held for nearly twelve years in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[5] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 832. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1968, in Khowst, Afghanistan. He arrived at the Guantanamo detention camps on October 28, 2002.[6]

He was transported from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar on June 1, 2014.[7] Omari and four other men known as the Taliban five were exchanged for captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl. The men were held by the Qataris in a form of house arrest. The swap was brokered by the Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Emir of Qatar. Omari and the others were required to stay in Qatar for a year as a condition of their release.[8]

Official status reviews

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[9] In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[10][11]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[9][12]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[13]

  • Mohammad Nabi Omari was listed as one of the captives who the military alleges were members of either al Qaeda or the Taliban and associated with the other group.[13]
  • Mohammad Nabi Omari was listed as one of the captives whose "names or aliases were found on material seized in raids on Al Qaeda safehouses and facilities."[13]
  • Mohammad Nabi Omari was listed as one of the captives who was a member of the Taliban leadership.[13]
  • Mohammad Nabi Omari was listed as one of "36 [captives who] openly admit either membership or significant association with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or some other group the government considers militarily hostile to the United States."[13]
  • Mohammad Nabi Omari was listed as one of the captives who admitted "serving Al Qaeda or the Taliban in some non-military capacity."[13]

During his Combatant Status Review Tribunal Omari acknowledged he had worked for the Taliban, but claimed that was prior to 9–11.[14] He claimed that after the US invasion he had been a loyal supporter of the Hamid Karzai government, and that he had been a covert operative for a US intelligence officer he knew only as "Mark".

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[15][16] WikiLeaks published an 11-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment that had been drafted on January 28, 2008.[17] The assessment was signed by camp commandant Mark H. Buzby, who recommended continued detention.

Guantanamo Joint Task Force review

When he assumed office in January 2009, President Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo.[18][19][20] He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[21] Mohammed Nabi Omari was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release. Although Obama promised that those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board. Less than a quarter of men have received a review.

Transfer negotiations and post-hoc criticisms

Negotiations over exchanging Bowe Bergdahl for five Guantanamo went on for years.[7] After the exchange, and after Bergdahl was charged with desertion, critics claimed the Obama did not inform Congress in advance, and so the transfer was illegal.[7][22][23] Critics claimed the men were likely to, certain to, or had already "re-engaged with terrorism"—even before their first year of house arrest was over. On May 31, 2015, The New York Times quoted a State Department official who insisted on anonymity that Qatar had unofficially "agreed to maintain the current restrictive conditions".[7] They reported that this further restriction would last for at least six months, while negotiations were finalized.

References

  1. ↑ JTF- GTMO Detainee Assessment Department of Defense
  2. ↑ "Charge d'Affaires Dr.Zhao Haihan Meets with Mohammad Nabi Omari, First Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs of Afghanistan". af.china-embassy.gov.cn. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  3. ↑ "Taliban names former Guantanamo detainee deputy interior minister | FDD's Long War Journal". www.longwarjournal.org. 2022-10-11. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  4. ↑ "Taliban appoints former Guantanamo Bay detainee released under Obama to leadership post in Afghanistan". news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-09-19.
  5. ↑ OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-05-15. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  6. ↑ "Measurements of Heights and Weights of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (ordered and consolidated version)" (PDF). Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, from DoD data. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Rod Nordland (2015-05-31). "For Swapped Taliban Prisoners From Guantánamo Bay, Few Doors to Exit Qatar". New York Times. Kabul. p. A1. The fifth, lesser-known figure, is Mohammad Nabi Omari, a suspected associate of the Haqqani network, allies of the Taliban who supply the bulk of the insurgents' suicide bombers, mostly young men indoctrinated at madrasas in Pakistan.
  8. ↑ "American soldier held captive in Afghanistan is now free". MSNBC. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  9. 1 2 "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  10. ↑ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  12. ↑ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Benjamin Wittes; Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  14. ↑ "Summarized Unsworn Detainee Statement: ISN 832" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. 2004. pp. 37–41. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-22. Retrieved 2013-08-14.
  15. ↑ Christopher Hope; Robert Winnett; Holly Watt; Heidi Blake (2011-04-27). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 2012-07-15. Retrieved 2012-07-13. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
  16. ↑ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2011-04-29. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  17. ↑ "Mohammad Nabi Omari: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Mohammad Nabi Omari, US9AF-000832DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  18. ↑ Peter Finn (January 22, 2010). "Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantanamo detainees be held indefinitely". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-04. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  19. ↑ Peter Finn (May 29, 2010). "Most Guantanamo detainees low-level fighters, task force report says". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2015-05-10. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  20. ↑ Andy Worthington (June 11, 2010). "Does Obama Really Know or Care About Who Is at Guantánamo?". Archived from the original on 2010-06-16. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
  21. ↑ "71 Guantanamo Detainees Determined Eligible to Receive a Periodic Review Board as of April 19, 2013". Joint Review Task Force. 2013-04-09. Archived from the original on 2015-05-19. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  22. ↑ "Qatar extends travel ban on ex-Guantanamo detainees 'Taliban 5'". Fox News. 2015-05-31. Archived from the original on 2015-06-01. The official said the ban would remain in place until diplomatic talks for a longer-term solution are completed. The restrictions had been due to expire on Monday under a May 2014 exchange for Bergdahl. U.S. officials said Friday the Obama administration was closing in on an agreement with Qatar to extend the restrictions for six months that could be announced this weekend. It was not immediately clear why that agreement had not been finalized.
  23. ↑ "Qatar extends travel ban on ex-Guantanamo inmates". Al Jazeera. 2015-06-01. Archived from the original on 2015-06-01. Under the terms of the exchange, the five detainees were sent to Qatar, where government officials agreed to monitor their activities and prevent them from travelling out of the country for one year.
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