Hassan bin Attash

Hassan Mohammed Ali bin Attash
Born	c. 1985 (age 39–40) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Detained at	Guantanamo, previously held in "the dark prison"
Alternate name	Hassan Mohammed Salih Bin Attash
ISN	1456
Status	Still held in Guantanamo

Hassan Mohammed Ali bin Attash (Arabic: حسن محمد علي بن عطاش‎‎, Ḥasan Muḥammad ʿAlī bin ‘Aṭṭash) is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate that bin Attash was born in 1985, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

As of July 11, 2012, Hassan Mohammed Ali bin Attash has been held at Guantanamo for seven years ten months.

Attash was just sixteen or seventeen when he was captured. Hassin is the brother of Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, who has also been described as an inmate in the CIA's network of secret prisons. Hassin too claims he spent time in the other prisons, including "the dark prison", prior to being detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Human Rights Concern

The circumstances of Hassan bin Attash have triggered the attention of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Reprieve and Human Rights Watch. According to their accounts Hassan bin Attash was captured on September 10, 2002, spent time in the dark prison, spent sixteen months in Jordan, where he was hung upside down, and beaten on the soles of his feet, which were then immersed in salt water. They assert that he underwent this kind of questioning until he was willing to sign anything. They claim that he wasn't interrogated about anything he himself had done, but rather about the activity of his older brother. They assert that his 70-year-old father underwent similar questioning. Bin Attash was flown to Guantanamo in March 2003.

The Boston Globe quoted Guantanamo spokesmen Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler, who insisted, "US policy requires all detainees to be treated humanely,"

Peppler repeated the assertion that none of the captive's assertions of abuse were credible because al Qaeda trained operatives to lie about abuse.

Transportation to Guantanamo Bay

Human Rights group Reprieve reports that flight records show two captives named Al-Sharqawi and Hassan bin Attash were flown from Kabul in September 2002. The two men were flown aboard N379P, a plane suspected to be part of the CIA's ghost fleet. Flight records showed that the plane originally departed from Diego Garcia, stopped in Morocco, Portugal, then Kabul before landing in Guantanamo Bay.

Habeas corpus

A writ of habeas corpus was filed on behalf of Bin Attash.

Joint Review Task Force

When he assumed office in January 2009 President Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo. 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. Hassan bin Attash 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.

See also

• Minors detained in the global war on terror
• Extraordinary rendition by the United States

External links

• The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo Andy Worthington
• UN Secret Detention Report (Part Three): Proxy Detention, Other Countries’ Complicity, and Obama’s Record Andy Worthington