GITMO LAWYERS URGE REVIEW BOARD TO CLEAR PRISONER FOR RELEASE
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
November 20, 2018, Guantánamo –
Today, attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights urged a
Periodic Review Board (PRB) to recommend that Guled Hassan Duran be
cleared for release from Guantánamo. Mr. Duran has been detained in
Guantánamo since 2006, and before that was held in secret CIA detention,
where he was denied medical care for serious injuries in order to
pressure him to cooperate. He is among 26 men detained at Guantánamo who
are neither cleared for release nor facing charges by military
commission.
“Mr. Duran is among a group of prisoners
who are not cleared for release but whom the government has also said
it will not charge. Essentially, the government claims authority to hold
him for the rest of his life,” said Center for Constitutional Rights
Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal. “He poses no threat to anyone. The PRB should clear him for transfer and put an end to 14 years of unjust legal limbo.”
Mr.
Duran was captured in 2004 while traveling to Sudan for surgery after
being seriously injured by gunfire in a fight with gang members trying
to steal his motorcycle. He was held in secret detention by the CIA, and
flown to several locations before arriving in Guantánamo almost two
years later. Throughout his captivity, the CIA withheld medical
attention for his gunshot wound in an effort to coerce him to cooperate,
including acting as a spy.
A PRB declined to
approve Mr. Duran for transfer in 2016, after a hearing that attorneys
called grossly unfair. They say he was not given adequate time to
prepare for the hearing and appeared before the PRB without counsel. The
Center for Constitutional Rights subsequently filed a habeas petition
on Mr. Duran’s behalf, arguing that his initial capture was unlawful
and that any initial justification for his detention is no longer
tenable more than a decade later.
The PRB is a
forward-looking, administrative process to determine whether “detention
is necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the
security of the United States.” Because of his pending habeas
litigation, on advice of counsel Mr. Duran declined to participate in
today’s hearing. The limited current flight schedule into the base also
made it impossible for an attorney to attend, and no video link option
was made available from Washington, D.C., so the arguments were confined
to paper submissions.
Guled Hassan Duran is a 43-year-old Somali citizen with a large, close-knit family. He is one of seven children, and his brother and sisters speak fondly of their childhood together and describe Mr. Duran as a family man. He is married and has four children.
For more information about Mr. Duran, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ client profile.
For more information about CCR’s lawsuit over Mr. Duran’s continued detention, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.
The
Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over
Guantánamo for more than 16 years – representing clients in two Supreme
Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers
across the country, ensuring that nearly all the men detained at
Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. Among other
Guantánamo cases, the Center represents the families of men who died at
Guantánamo, and men who have been released and are seeking justice in
international courts.
