al-Qurashi v. Obama
| Decision Date | 03 August 2010 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 05-2385 (ESH) |
| Citation | 733 F.Supp.2d 69 |
| Parties | Sabry Mohammad Ebrahim AL-QURASHI (ISN 570), Petitioner, v. Barack OBAMA, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Daniel M. Barish, Kristina Ann Wolfe, Roger Alan Keller, R.H. Bowles, Stephen McCoy Elliott, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondents.
Petitioner Sabry Mohammad Ebrahim al-Qurashi, a citizen of Yemen, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan by Pakistani authorities on February 7, 2002. Several weeks later, he was taken into U.S. custody, assigned internment serial number ("ISN") 570, and transferred first to Kandahar, Afghanistan and then to the naval base detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ("Guantanamo"), where he has been held since May 2002. Al-Qurashi has filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, contending that he is unlawfully detained. Respondents, who include President Barack Obama and other high-level government officials, argue that al-Qurashi is lawfully detained.1 They have filed a statement of the material facts upon which they intend to rely in making their case-in-chief for the lawfulness of al-Qurashi's continued detention ( ), which rests in large part on reports that summarize petitioner's statements to U.S. interrogators in Karachi, Pakistan; Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Guantanamo that he attended the al-Farouq military training camp in Afghanistan.
Before the Court is al-Qurashi's motion to suppress on the grounds that these statements were involuntary and procured through coercion and torture. ("Pet.'s Mot.") As narrowed by prior rulings, the sole factual question before the Court at this time is whether petitioner was abused by the Pakistani authorities after his arrest in Karachi on February 7, 2002, but before his interrogation the next day by Special Agent [redacted] of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") Joint Terrorism Task Force ("JTTF"), who was the first U.S. official to question petitioner. On January 19 and 20, February 25, and March 25, 2010, the Court heard argument on the motion, received documentary evidence, and heard live in-court testimony from Agent [redacted] .) Having considered the entire record, the parties' briefs, and their oral arguments, and for the reasons discussed herein, the Court will deny petitioner's motion.
According to a declaration that al-Qurashi submitted with his traverse on November 17, 2009,2 he was raised in Saudi Arabia by Yemeni parents, he is a Yemeni citizen, and he is a permanent legal resident of Saudi Arabia. (Pet. Ex. ("PEX") 3 1 ("Pet. Decl.") ¶ 1.) Petitioner asserts thatafter leaving middle school, he performed a number of jobs, including selling food and perfume in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. ( Id.) It is undisputed that on or about September [redacted] 2000, he flew from Yemen to Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi [redacted] where he checked into a hotel and met a fellow Arab named Abd al-Wahid,4 who suggested that they travel to Afghanistan together. It is also undisputed that shortly thereafter, petitioner and Abd al-Wahid traveled to Afghanistan, where petitioner remained until late 2001 or early 2002, at which time he returned to Karachi.
[redacted] 5 at 2-3 ().) [redacted] ( See Feb. AM Tr. at 20, 29, 34, 125.)
[redacted]
Two of the men arrested with petitioner were Pakistani nationals who went by the names [redacted] ( see [redacted]EC at 58-63), but they do not appear to have been transferred to American custody. The other fourteen arrestees were, like petitioner, later transferred to American custody and assigned ISN numbers. Public sources indicate that five of these men have been transferred to their home countries, while the other nine, listed below, remain in custody and have filed habeas petitions in this Court:
( See generally id. at 3-58.) See also The New York Times-The Guantanamo Docket, at http:// projects. nytimes. com/ guantanamo (last visited Aug. 2, 2010).
Al-Qurashi alleges that the following events occurred after his arrest in the early morning hours of February 7, 2002, all of which are disputed by respondents:
After his arrest, the Pakistani authorities took petitioner and the sixteen other men to a "jail" in Karachi. (Pet. Decl. ¶ 17.) At some point, petitioner's wrists and ankles were bound with rope that "cut[ ] into his skin." (PEX 2 ("2nd Bhargava Decl.") ¶ 4(j) (); see also PEX 2A ¶ 2 ().) Pakistani interrogators told petitioner that he would be turned over to the Americans, who "would never believe that [he] had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan for peaceful purposes." (Pet. Decl. ¶ 18.) They also told him that he had to admit to one of three things: (1) being a member of al-Qaeda, (2) going to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, or (3) going to a military training camp. ( Id.) Although petitioner "told them repeatedly that none of these things was true," they told him that "if [he] admitted to one of these three things, [he] would not be tortured and [he] would be handed over to [his] country." but if he did not admit to any of these things, "the Americans would torture [him] until he confessed." ( Id.)
Petitioner "could hear people being tortured in surrounding cells," and "[o]n bathroom breaks, [he] witnessed other people being tortured when [he] was escorted through the hallways and glanced into other cells." (Pet. Decl. ¶ 19.) For example, he saw Anam (ISN 569) "pinned face-first against a wall, hanging by his hands" ( id. ¶ 20), and also heard the screams of others "through the cell walls," including screams from someone whom he believed to be Bin Amer (ISN 564), who "looked like he had been beaten up" when petitioner saw him after Bin Amer's interrogation sessions. ( Id. ¶ 21.)
Petitioner persisted in asserting his innocence. ( See Pet. Decl. ¶ 23.) One of the interrogators then "threw an ashtray at [him], hitting [him] in the chest"; after this, one interrogator "restrained [him] from behind while another slammed [his] head into the table," and they also "repeatedly punched [him] in the stomach." ( Id.) Petitioner refused to confess, so the interrogators "threw [him] on the floor and continued to beat [him]," with one of them "put[ting] his knee on [petitioner's] head and threaten[ing] to administer electroshocks or worse if [he] did not confess." ( Id. ¶ 24.) Because petitioner still refused to confess, the interrogators "forced [him] to kneel facing a wall and told [him] not to move." ( Id. ¶ 25.) At this point, all but one of the interrogators left the room, with the remaining interrogator forcing petitioner to stay kneeling "for a long time" and striking him with a cane if he moved. ( Id.)
"Later," the interrogators told him that "if [he] did not pick one of the three options, they would accuse [him] of all three," (Pet. Decl. ¶ 26.) When he refused to pick, "[t]hey tied a black bag over [his] head," "tied [his] hands and feet behind [him]," and then "beat [him] severely, including hitting [his] head," causing him to "thr[o]w up blood and los[e] consciousness." ( Id.) Upon waking up, petitioner was thrown onto the floor and lost consciousness again. ( Id. ¶ 27.) The next thing he remembers is "being forced down some stairs where the interrogators removed the hood and ropes" and being told to "wash in a sink," because he "was covered in blood." ( Id.)
Next, "[t]wo new interrogators" told al-Qurashi that they had spoken to the Yemeni embassy and that he could return to Yemen if he spoke to the Americans. (Pet Decl. ¶ 28.) He was told that the Americans "did not care if people said they went to training camps," so long as they "did not join al-Qaeda." ( Id.) The interrogators promised him he "would be freed if [he] confessed to going to" the al-Farouq...
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...with need "for ENT exam"). Gul's medical records thus do not corroborate his assertions that he was tortured. See al-Qurashi v. Obama , 733 F. Supp. 2d 69, 87 (D.D.C. 2010) (noting the absence of "noteworthy" physical evidence of torture undermined claims of mistreatment). And even if the c......