Second Detainee Released in Ireland Identified

The Obama administration released three detainees over the weekend; one to Yemen, whom the administration identified, and two to Ireland, whom they did not.

We reported at the time that it was likely that one of those released in Ireland was Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov, whom the local Amnesty International had been lobbying to come to Ireland. The Irish Times has confirmed that and identified the other detainee — Shakhrukh Hamiduva.

According to military documents, Hamiduva, originally from Uzbekistan, was captured by the Northern Alliance in a camp near Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

He was charged with having spent one and a half years in an Islamic Movement of Tajikistan camp near Dushanbe; willingly becoming a soldier in the Mujahideen Army; and traveling to Afghanistan to participate in jihad against the Russians and the Northern Alliance. The Pentagon said that the leader of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan is also the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the latter of which is a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Hamiduva told the military tribunal that he'd fled Uzbekistan because the government persecuted his family because of their Muslim faith. He became a refugee in the camp where he was captured, and that he was not a soldier in the mujahideen army, nor was he a member of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. (He also said those two groups have two different leaders.) After the war began, he was turned in as an enemy to U.S.-allied members of the Northern Alliance, after which he ended up at Guantanamo.

“I just want to let you know that they torture me a lot here at the camp," he testified. "They would not let me sleep thru (sic) the night; they were taken (sic) me to interrogations. I saw them beating other detainees, breaking their arms and legs…"

He was cleared for release several years ago, but only recently did the U.S. government find a country willing to take him in.

-jpt