Zia Khalid Najib

Zia Ul Shah (; born 5 January 1975) is a Pakistani citizen best known for the time he spent in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 15.

Ul Shah was a delivery driver for the Taliban in Afghanistan's Kunduz Province, who was captured in 2001. transferred to Pakistan on 11 October 2006.

Background

Ul Shah travelled to Afghanistan in 2000 in search of work. The reigning Taliban government was in short supply of drivers for transport purposes and Ul Shah was hired as he owned a truck. Ul Shah was able to negotiate the terms of his contract, refusing to transport militants to fighting locations. He was instead put in charge of a route to supply a Taliban base in Kunduz, primarily delivering food.

In October 2001, Ul Shah was stopped by Northern Alliance forces led by Punjabi troop commander Qari Saleem while on his usual delivery run. According to Ul Shah, he was not immediately detained, but obliged their request to transport several surrendered Taliban fighters for them to a compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, controlled by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, in exchange for his freedom, which he said was a common arrangement for accosted Taliban drivers. At Dostum's camp, the Northern Alliance soldiers did not uphold their end of the deal because Ul Shah was a foreigner and that the group left Ul Shah behind as they bickered over ownership of his now-confiscated vehicle. Ul Shah was briefly sheltered and fed by an Afghan local, who kept him captive after Ul Shah told him that he was from Pakistan. Ul Shah was sold twice to other Afghans, one of whom severely beat the detainee and broke his nose, before being handed to U.S. military authorities in Kandahar on 26 November.

Combatant Status Review

Ul Shah was among the 60% of prisoners who participated in the tribunal hearings. A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee. The memo for his hearing lists the following allegations:

Administrative Review Board

Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.

Shah chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing. Summarized transcript (.pdf) from Zia Ul Shah's ''Administrative Review Board hearing'' - page 1

''The following factors favor continued detention''

''The following primary factors favor release or transfer''

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On 25 April 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.

His 5 page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on.
It was signed by camp commandant Brigadier General Jay W. Hood. He recommended transfer to another country for continued detention. The assessment noted an earlier assessment had recommended release or transfer, but that new information escalated concern.

McClatchy News Service interview

On 15 June 2008, the McClatchy News Service published a series of articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives.mirror
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Zia Khalid Najib was one of the former captives who had an article profiling him.

The McClatchy article quoted Abdul Jabar Sabit, the Attorney General of Afghanistan, who visited Guantanamo and had interview Zia Khalid Najib.
The Attorney General commented on how the USA seemed to base its release decisions on how compliant captives were, while in custody. He noted that the USA had released senior Taliban leaders who complied with the camp rules, while continuing to hold low-level foot-soldiers, or innocent victims of mistaken identity, who did not comply.

Zia Khalid Najib acknowledged that he had poor impulse control, and was routinely being punished by the guards provocations and Koran desecration:

Zia Khalid Najib told his McClatchy interviewers that his first interrogators asked him about serving as one of Osama bin Laden's drivers—an allegation he denied.
He confirmed he had driven low level Taliban fighters, but he had never driven anyone from Al Qaeda. He said that interrogators stopped asking him about driving Bin Laden, but that many of his later interrogation sessions consisted largely of personality clashes:

The McClatchy article noted that among the justifications for Zia Khalid Najib's continued detention was that he knew senior Taliban members, and his rebuttal.
He attributed these allegations to incompetent translation.

References

External links

McClatchy News Service - video

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ul Shah, Zia
1975 births
People from Karachi
Guantanamo detainees known to have been released
Pakistani extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
Living people