Factual errors cited in cases against detainees

WASHINGTON -- The US military's accusations against detainees at Guantanamo Bay contain factual errors and some easily disproved assertions, according to declassified records, raising questions about whether the US military has thoroughly investigated its cases against the roughly 400 inmates.

For instance, one detainee is accused of belonging to an Al Qaeda cell ``circa 1998," according to the summary of evidence prepared for his hearing. But Pentagon records show the detainee was born in 1986, making him 11 or 12 in 1998.

In another case, a detainee stands accused of attending a terrorist training camp in July 2001. But copies of pay stubs show he was a chef in London at the time.

Defense lawyers say the cases underscore the need for new judicial procedures at Guantanamo, as the Bush administration grapples with a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the system of military trials at the base.

``We have been hearing about errors like this for years from numerous lawyers across the country," said Emi MacLean , a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which helps defend Guantanamo detainees.

Administration lawyers argued this week in hearings before Congress that giving detainees the legal rights available in US courts would hinder the war on terror.

``It is simply not feasible in time of war to gather evidence in a manner that meets strict criminal procedural requirements," Daniel J. Dell'Orto , the Defense Department's principal deputy general counsel, said Tuesday.

But two Republican senators said yesterday that the White House was considering whether to create a system of trials for Guantanamo detainees based on the uniform code of military justice. The code was established to try US soldiers accused of crimes, and would give detainees far more legal rights than they have now.

The current system includes initial hearings, annual reviews, and then, for a small minority of detainees, military trials.

At each stage, the military is allowed to present anonymous witnesses, secret evidence, and hearsay evidence -- all of which are difficult for the defense to challenge.

The obvious errors in some of the accusations, lawyers say, raise deeper questions about the care with which the still-secret portions of the cases were prepared and make it that much more important that the system be revamped.

``You can see why they are afraid to present the evidence before an open and transparent system," MacLean said.

One of the most visible errors became public in 2004, when three British detainees who had been accused of appearing in an Al Qaeda video in Afghanistan were released after the British government proved that they were in London at the time.

Defense lawyers say such errors are more widespread.

In an ongoing case, the US military has accused Ahmed Errachidi , a Moroccan detainee, of ``receiving training at the Al Farooq training camp in July 2001, to include weapons training, war tactics, and bomb making," according to a summary of evidence for his initial hearing provided to the Globe by his lawyers at Reprieve, a British legal-services organization.

But Chris Chang , an investigator for Reprieve, uncovered pay stubs showing that Errachidi had been a chef in two London restaurants, the Westbury and the Archduke, in July 2001. Chang's office provided copies of the pay stubs to the Globe.

``Presumably, the US military, in combination with the intelligence services of the United States, has exponentially more resources than we do and could easily have obtained the evidence discussed below, were it of a mind to look for it," Chang wrote in an affidavit submitted to Guantanamo officials.

Errachidi, who had worked as a chef in London since 1985, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since his 2002 arrest in Pakistan.

In another case, military interrogators made significant translation mistakes when they first interrogated Mohamed el Gharani , one of Guantanamo's youngest detainees, according to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith .

Gharani, whose name the US military spells ``Qarani," was only 14 when he was arrested in Pakistan in October 2001. He was later interrogated using a translator from Yemen who spoke a different dialect of Arabic than was spoken in his native Saudi Arabia, according to Gharani's lawyer.

``The word `zalata' in Yemen means money, but in his Saudi Arabian dialect, it means tomato," said Smith. ``They asked him, `When you went to Pakistan, where did you get your zalata?' and he tells them all these different shops where you could buy tomatoes in Karachi. They write them all down, thinking that this 14-year-old kid is a big financier who was able to get money from all these different places."

The mistake was soon caught, Smith said. Financing terrorism did not show up in the list of accusations against Gharani.

But another key accusation appeared: that ``the detainee was identified as belonging to a London, United Kingdom cell led by Abu Qatada al Masri, circa 1998." Yet, according to the Pentagon's own records, Gharani was born in 1986, making him just 11 or 12 at the time.

Chito Peppler , a Pentagon spokesman, said the date referred to when ``Abu Qatada became active." He maintained that it was possible that Gharani had been a part of the cell before his arrest at 14.

Smith said Gharani has never been to London.

Peppler said he could not provide specifics on other cases.

Sam Zia-Zarifi , a Human Rights Watch researcher, said transcripts of Guantanamo proceedings show widespread confusion over names, places, and events in Afghanistan that are relevant to the detainees' classification as ``enemy combatants."

``That happened in a handful of occasions," Zia-Zarifi said. ``I found enough of a pattern to be alarming."

It is not the first time the military has been under fire for its Guantanamo investigations. Last month, the Globe reported that the government routinely failed to locate key defense witnesses.

According to the transcripts, 34 detainees had witnesses approved to testify at the tribunal, but in all 34 cases, the detainees were told that the witnesses could not be found. Yet a Globe reporter tracked down three witnesses in three days of work.

``It's no surprise that it is often very difficult to find the necessary evidence, yet the administration doesn't even try," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said on the Senate floor shortly after the article ran.

``The shocking ease with which The Boston Globe located these witnesses suggests that the government didn't make an effort to find them, and raises serious questions about the administration's good faith in dealing with the detainees at Guantanamo."