Guantanamo Attorneys Urge Review Board To Clear Prisoner For Release
By The Center for Constitutional Rights
An attorney from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged Tuesday a Periodic Review Board (PRB) at Guantánamo to recommend that Mohammed Kamin be cleared for release.
Kamin, who is from Afghanistan and has been held in U.S. custody for more than 11 years, is among those designated for indefinite detention at Guantánamo: men who are not cleared for release or transfer, but who will also never be charged with a crime. The PRB is a forward-looking, administrative process to determine whether “detention is necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”
“There is no reason to continue to hold Mr. Kamin at Guantánamo. He will be welcomed home, into a stable and supportive family and village life,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal. “If the president is ever to close Guantánamo, he must end the legal limbo in which men like Kamin are trapped and, once they are cleared, must transfer cleared men without delay. The only way to close the Guantánamo is to reduce the prisoner population to zero.”
There are currently 52 cleared prisoners at Guantánamo, many of whom have been cleared for release or transfer for several years. As it has with all of its Guantánamo clients, CCR submitted a letter to the PRB offering to provide appropriate support in order to aid Kamin in his transition home.
Kamin was charged in April 2008 with one count of material support for terrorism. However, the convening authority withdrew the charges in 2009, and subsequent rulings in federal court have held that material support is not a charge triable by military commission. Kamin will therefore never be charged with a crime.
Moreover, his attorneys note that President Obama has repeatedly stated that the US’s direct involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan has ended, definitively terminating any purported legal authority to continue detaining Kamin.
Kamin is also represented by Paul Rashkind at the Florida Federal Public Defender’s Office. Additionally, two military officers appeared at today’s hearing as Mr. Kamin’s “personal representatives,” to advocate on his behalf.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for more than 13 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation.
