Mohammed Saghir ''(also transliterated Mohammed Sanghir)'' is an elderly

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

i who was held by the U.S. military in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO ( ), GITMO ( ), or simply Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 by p ...

s, in

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 143.

Joint Task Force Guantanamo Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) is a U.S. military joint task force based at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on the southeastern end of the base. JTF-GTMO falls under US Southern Command. Since January 2002 the command ...

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

analysts estimate he was born in 1952, in

Kohistan District, Pakistan Kohistan District, also known as Indus Kohistan ( Kohistani: ) and Hazara Kohistan, was a district within the Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Consisting of eastern portion of the larger Kohistan region, it was bifurcated into ...

. When

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

interviewed Saghir, following his release, on 22 October 2002, they estimated he was in his sixties.
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Saghir was one of the first four detainees to be released from Guantanamo. He was the first Pakistani to be released from Guantanamo. Saghir was released together with two even more elderly Afghan men, and one younger Afghan man.

Guantanamo documents

No documents about Mr. Saghir had been made public, as he was released before the

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as " enemy combatants". The CSRTs were establi ...

s began. On 25 April 2011, whistleblower organisation

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

published formerly secret assessments drafted by

analysts. Saghir's assessment was dated 27 September 2002, and was two pages long. His assessment was signed by camp commandant Michael E. Dunlavey who recommended release or transfer to the control of another country. Historian

Andy Worthington Andy Worthington is a British historian, investigative journalist, and film director. He has published three books, two on Stonehenge and one on the war on terror, been published in numerous publications and directed documentary films. Art ...

, author of ''

The Guantanamo Files The Guantánamo Bay files leak (also known as The Guantánamo Files, or colloquially, Gitmo Files) began on 24 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with ''The New York Times'', NPR and ''The Guardian'' and other independent news organizations, began ...

'', repeated the justification for Saghir's detention -- "his knowledge of General Dostum's treatment of captured personnel transported from Kunduz to Sheberghan". Worthington called it "...a low point in the feeble reasons given for transfer to Guantánamo, as it involved US forces suggesting that they took him halfway round the world to an experimental prison outside the law simply to find out more about how their close ally had been murdering prisoners of war."

Suing the USA

Saghir initiated a lawsuit against the United States for $10.4 million for the

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

and abuse he reports he endured.- mirror
LHC to hear damages suit by former Guantanamo detainee
''

Daily Times ''Daily Times'' may refer to the following national newspapers: * ''Daily Times'' (Nigeria), newspaper published in Nigeria * ''Daily Times'' (Pakistan), newspaper published in Pakistan ''The Daily Times'' may refer to the following newspapers: * ...

'', June 24, 2004 Saghir says that when he was released he was promised compensation. In September 2012, Saghir reminded ''

The Express Tribune ''The Express Tribune'' is a daily English-language newspaper based in Pakistan. It is the flagship publication of the '' Lakson Group'' media group. It is Pakistan's only internationally affiliated newspaper in a partnership with the '' Intern ...

'' that President Barack Obama had broken his promise to close Guantanamo.

Le Monde interview

Saghir reportedly still wears the green ID bracelet issued to him in

camp delta Camp Delta is a permanent American Guantanamo Bay detention camp, detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay that replaced the temporary facilities of Camp X-Ray. Its first facilities were built between 27 February and mid-April 2002 by Seabee (US Navy), ...

. His bracelet says: US 9PK 0001 43 DP According to ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

,'' Mohammed Saghir said he had been in Afghanistan for three months prior to the al Qaeda attacks of

11 September 2001 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. He was Captured in Kunduz, a Taliban enclave in the North of Afghanistan, with 250 other people, who were loaded into a large shipping container, for the trip to General Dostum's prison at

Sheberghan Sheberghān or Shaburghān or shāhpurgān ( Uzbek, Pashto, ), also spelled ''Shebirghan'' and ''Shibarghan'', is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan. The city of Sheberghan has a population of 175,599. It has four ...

: Saghir said 50 of his companions died: Mohammed Saghir said he was held for 45 days in Sheberghan before he was first interrogated. After several months in Afghanistan, where he was forcibly shaved, Saghir said a female interrogator told him he was being sent to a better place. However, he reported, while still bound, he and his companions were thrown off the plane that took them to Guantanamo, and endured a brutal beating. Mohammed Saghir said he was interrogated twenty times while at Guantanamo:

McClatchy News Service interview

On 15 June 2008, the

McClatchy News Service McClatchy Media Company, or simply McClatchy and MCC, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law. Originally based in Sacramento, California, United States, and known as The McClatchy Company, it b ...

published a series of articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives.
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Saghir was one of the former captives who had an article profiling him.
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Saghir reports that when he was repatriated he found that his family had incurred debts of 1.2 million rupees in his absence—to search for his body, and to support themselves without his income. He acknowledged that he had traveled to Afghanistan with a group from the

Tablighi Jamaat Tablighi Jamaat ( , also translated as "propagation party" or "preaching party") is an international Islamic schools and branches, Islamic religious movement. It focuses on exhorting Muslims to be more religiously observant and encourages f ...

, a non-political religious organization that American counter-terrorism analysts tie to terrorism. Mohammed Saghir told his McClatchy interviewer that he was captured in a stream of refugees, not on a battlefield. He said he was shipped in a metal shipping container to General Dostum's

Sherberghan Sheberghān or Shaburghān or shāhpurgān ( Uzbek, Pashto, ), also spelled ''Shebirghan'' and ''Shibarghan'', is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan. The city of Sheberghan has a population of 175,599. It has four ...

prison. He said he saw many other captives die during the months he spent there. He describe religious persecution in Guantanamo. He participated in a

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...

and was subjected to

force-feeding Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose (nasogastric tube, nasogastric) or mouth (o ...

Pakistan Observer interview

The ''

Pakistan Observer ''Pakistan Observer'' is an English-language daily newspaper of Pakistan. It is published from six cities – Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Muzaffarabad. The newspaper was founded in 1988 by Zahid Malik. The newspaper wa ...

'' published a new interview with Saghir on 8 March 2012. According to the article he asserted "No one among the prisoners knew as to who had planned the 9/11 attacks ... Person like me neither knew WTC nor Osama or

Al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

," Saghir also described female GIs sexually harassing him.

References

External links

The Convoy of Death: Will Obama Investigate The Afghan Massacre Of November 2001?
Andy Worthington
McClatchy News Service - video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saghir, Mohammed Living people Guantanamo detainees known to have been released 1952 births Pakistani extrajudicial prisoners of the United States