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No Longer Enemy Combatant (NLEC) is a term used by the
U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except th ...
for a group of 38
Guantanamo detainee 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 whose
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 ...
(CSRT) determined they were not "
enemy combatant Enemy combatant is a term for a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict, used by the U.S. government and media during the War on Terror. Usually enemy combatants are members of t ...
s". None of them were released right away. Ten of them were allowed to move to the more comfortable
Camp Iguana Camp Iguana is a small compound in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, detention camp complex on the United States Navy, US Naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Camp Iguana originally held three child detainees, who camp spokesmen then claimed w ...
. Others, such as Sami Al Laithi, remained in solitary confinement. Thirty-eight detainees were finally classified as NLECs. The fifth Denbeaux report, " No-hearing hearings", reported that an additional three Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined that captives should not have been determined to have been enemy combatants, only to have their recommendation overturned.
Mark Denbeaux Mark P. Denbeaux (born July 30, 1943, in Gainesville, Florida) is an American attorney, professor, and author. He is a law professor at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey and the Director of its Center for Policy and Resea ...
et al.
No-hearing hearings
, 17 November 2006
The ''Washington Post'' has published a list of the names of 30 of the 38 individuals who were determined not to have been enemy combatants. The delay in the release of some of the detainees was said to be due to considerations of their safety. Some could not be returned to their home countries, out of fears of retaliation from their fellow citizens, or from the governments of their countries. Some, like Al Laithi, were returned to their home countries after the US secured a promise that they would not be punished by their home countries. Others, like five of the Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo, were released when the US found a third country which would accept them.Albania takes Guantanamo Uighurs
''
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
'', 6 May 2006
Freed from Guantanamo, 5 face danger in Albania
''
Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', 18 May 2006
Three further captives who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, who had been occupants of Camp Iguana since May 2005, were released in Albania in November 2006.U.S. Releases Three Men From Terror Camp In Guantanamo
, ''
All Headline News All Headline News (AHN) was a United States–based news agency or wire service. It was founded in 2000 by W. Jeffrey Brown as an internet news search engine. It grew to become a major worldwide online newswire service, providing news and other c ...
'', 17 November 2006
Albania Agrees To Resettle Three Detainees from Guantanamo
, ''
US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
'', 20 November 2006
Pentagon sends Guantánamo captives to Albania
''
Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by McClatchy, The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County, Fl ...
'', 17 November 2006


Multiple CSRTs

The fifth Denbeaux study, entitled " No-hearing hearings", revealed that some Guantanamo captives had second or third Combatant Status Review Tribunals convened when their first tribunal determined that they had not been enemy combatants after all. H. Candace Gorman, the pro bono lawyer for Abdel Hamid Ibn Abdussalem Ibn Mifta Al Ghazzawi, expressed surprise when she learned that her client had initially been determined not to have been an enemy combatant, after all.Secrets of the War Criminals
''
Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...
'', 12 December 2006
Gorman described traveling to the secure site in Virginia, the only place where lawyers were allowed to review their clients' classified files. She was told that the justification for convening her client's second tribunal had been that the DoD had new evidence. However, when she reviewed the transcript of his second tribunal she found that there had been no new evidence. Lieutenant Colonel
Stephen Abraham Stephen Abraham is an American lawyer and officer in the United States Army Reserve. In June 2007, he became the first officer who had served on a Combatant Status Review Tribunal to publicly criticize its operations. He said the evidence provided ...
came forward and swore an affidavit, describing his experience sitting on Al Ghazzawi's tribunal. It was critical of the process, including the pressure exerted to find against the detainee.


NLEC captives

On 19 November 2007, the Department of Defense published a list of the 38 men finally deemed to be no longer enemy combatants in 2004. On 17 January 2009, Carol Rosenberg, writing in the ''
Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by McClatchy, The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County, Fl ...
'', quoted Guantanamo spokesman Jeffrey Gordon, that a panel of officers had recently reviewed Bismullah's "enemy combatant" status, and determined, "based on new evidence", that he was not an enemy combatant after all. Bismullah was released to Afghanistan on 17 January.


See also

* Seton Hall study *
Statelessness In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are s ...
* Lists of former Guantanamo Bay detainees alleged to have returned to terrorism * Timeline of the release and transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:No Longer Enemy Combatant Law of war Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures