Draft:Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani

Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani
Name	Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani
Other Names	{{{other_names}}}
Personal Details
Birth Place	Nangarhar region, Afghanistan
Brith Date	1965 (CE)
Death Place	{{{death_place}}}
Death Date	{{{death_date}}}
Religion	Islam

Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani is an Afghan individual who is held in custody by the United States government at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He was born in eastern Afghanistan. Mohammad Rahim worked for a government agency in Afghanistan to eradicate narcotics from the country. He was forced by the Taliban to leave his job. Rahim and his brother left Afghanistan in 1979 and crossed the border into Pakistan. The reason for this departure was the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union.

Political Activities

In 2007, Mohammad Rahim and Sheikh Ilyas Khil were arrested by Pakistani security authorities. He was introduced as a "Special Assistant to Osama bin Laden".

Mohammad Rahim, while residing in Pakistan, was arrested and handed over to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to be interrogated regarding his connection with the Taliban. While in CIA custody, Rahim was subjected to various torture methods, including sleep deprivation for long periods, which was part of the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Programme. He is the last known individual to have been subjected to the Central Intelligence Agency's programme.

Rahim, after several months of torture and interrogation by the CIA, was sent to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in March 2008 and was placed there under administrative detention (without trial). Rahim, whom the head of the Central Intelligence Agency described as a "hardcore and seasoned jihadist", was accused of helping Osama bin Laden escape arrest and working as his translator and assistant. Rahim is the last prisoner sent to Guantanamo. Although he spent five years in Guantanamo, no verdict was issued against Mohammad Rahim. The United States Armed Forces stated that they had no intention of trying him in a Military Commission. The United States government also, through the Periodic Review Board secretariat, announced that it did not intend to recommend his release. Therefore, he is a "permanent prisoner". He is also not considered a potential candidate for prisoner exchange based on peace talks. The United States Department of Defense announced that he was transferred to military custody on 14 March 2008.

According to a note from the AFP news agency: Rahim is the sixteenth so-called "high-value" prisoner transferred to Guantanamo after September 2006, when George W. Bush confirmed the existence of a Central Intelligence Agency extraterritorial prison.

The New York Times reported that he is the first prisoner to be transferred to Guantanamo after approximately one year of custody with the Central Intelligence Agency.

He was arrested in June 2007 in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, and was tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency, as part of the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Programme, until he was transferred to Guantanamo around 28 March 2008. According to official press, his transfer to Guantanamo was announced; before being transferred to Guantanamo, he was held in the network of secret CIA torture centres. The Pentagon described him as a high-value detainee, a title given to 14 other prisoners who were transferred from CIA sites to Guantanamo on 6 September 2006.

Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani was one of the close associates of Osama bin Laden and had connections with Al-Qaeda organisations across the Middle East. Before he was arrested, he was one of the most trusted individuals for bin Laden in facilitation and logistics affairs.

Detention in Guantanamo Bay

Mohammad Rahim was detained in Camp 7 during his time on Guantanamo Island, a place for men whom the United States government considers "high-value" detainees. While Rahim was under custody in Guantanamo Bay prison, no verdict had been issued for him nor had he been summoned to court to defend himself.

The New York Times stated in late November 2008 that there were no other official documents related to his imprisonment. No review of his judicial status has been published. They identify him under the prisoner number 10030.

BBC reported in 2002 that one of the drivers of senior Taliban leader Mohammad Omar was a person named "Mohammad Rahim". According to the BBC, Mohammad Rahim described in an interview with Reuters in January 2002 how the senior Taliban leader escaped two missile attacks by the United States.

In his interview, Mohammad Rahim said that when Mohammad Omar's house in Kandahar was hit by a missile attack, Mohammad Omar asked him to get into a taxi and take Mohammad Omar, his second wife, and several of his children to Sangisar, which is one hour away. Almost immediately after they arrived and exited the taxi, the taxi was also hit by a missile attack. The missile only hit the taxi and nothing else in the village was targeted. Mohammad Rahim said that he fled in one direction and Mohammad Omar in the other, and since then he has never been in contact with him.

Carlos Warner, from Akron, Ohio, who is Mohammad Rahim's defense lawyer, says that even when he met with his client, Rahim was chained. Warner filed a civil habeas corpus petition after five years of Rahim's imprisonment and requested his release due to the lack of sufficient documents against his client.

Rahim wrote several letters to Carlos Warner during his imprisonment in Guantanamo, and Carlos recently made them public.

Rahim wrote to his defense lawyer: "Tell the guards to leave [his] friend alone. They should behave softly." These letters do not depict the suffering and despair expected from a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Carlos Warner believes that Rahim's letters show that "he is different... Imagine that he is doing all these things under the restrictions placed on him there. He has extraordinary humor."