Haji Wali Mohammed

Nationality: Afghan

ISN: 560

Age: 49

In Afghanistan, there’s a fable about those who have been falsely accused.

A king had 20 prisoners who were chained together. Guards were walking the prisoners to their execution. One prisoner bribed a guard and was set free. Another guard asked, “Where is prisoner number 20?” The guard who had taken the bribe grabbed a random person and said, “Here is number 20.”

Haji Wali Mohammed said he is like the innocent person who was chosen to take the place of the 20^th prisoner.

The US military believes Mohammed served as a high-ranking financial manager for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mohammed, however, said he only handled a single investment for a bank associated with the Taliban, which ended very badly.

The Allegations

According to the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, Mohammed was a wealth money changer who worked with Hezb-e-Islami, a militant group that fought against the US and its allies in Afghanistan. Pakistani intelligence also reported Mohammed was very close to Mohammad Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban, and to Mohammad Rabbani, a senior Taliban official.

An unspecified foreign government service claimed Mohammed was an associate of Osama Bin Laden who did business with the Taliban.

Jordanian intelligence reported Mohammed was Al Qaeda’s primary financial manager. They also said Mohammed financed the bombings of two US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed and wounded over 200 people. They also reported Mohammed financed an Al Qaeda cell in Jordan, which planned to conduct terrorist operations in the country on New Year’s Eve in 1999.

Qari Hasan Ulla Peerzai (AF-562), an Afghan previously imprisoned at Guantanamo, said Mohammed was a financial manager for Osama Bin Laden.

According to sensitive reporting, Mohammed facilitated the financing of the purchase of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles for Al Qaeda. The terrorist group reportedly bought the weapons for fighters in Chechnya.

It is unclear what, exactly “sensitive reporting” means in Bush-era national security documents. It could refer to intelligence derived from the torture of high value detainees. I first made this guess when I profiled Sufyian Barhoumi, an alleged Al Qaeda explosives expert imprisoned at Guantanamo. 

However, the phrase could mean something else entirely. 

According to an informant, Mohammed was involved in three large money transfers that were suspicious because of their large size and possible connection to individuals involved in terrorist activity. The transfers ranged from $45,000 to $70,000.

Mohammed’s Defense

The story provided by Mohammed himself, however, is far different.

As a child, he said he fled with his family to Pakistan in 1978 or 1979, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His family started a business that sold clothing, jewelry and exchanged money between currencies. Eventually, Mohammed made a lot of money in the currency exchange business.

In 1991, Mohammed completed the Hajj, a religious requirement in Islam, by traveling the Mecca. That is why he was given the nickname “Haji” Wali Mohammed.

In 1996, he obtained a loan for $1.5 million from Abdul Rahman Zahid, the director of the Bank of Afghanistan. Mohammed planned to use the money to purchase gold in Dubai to sell at a profit in Afghanistan. The bank was to receive 75 percent of the profit and Mohammed would receive the rest.

However, things didn’t go as planned.

Due to fluxuations in exchange rates, Mohammed lost $500,000 during the endeavor.

Mohammed’s cousin, who managed a business with him, was arrested by the Taliban to ensure he would return to the country. Upon Mohammed’s return, he was arrested and told he had to pay back the entire loss by himself. Mohammed agreed and both he and his cousin were released.

The Taliban, who were in control of Afghanistan at the time, said the arrangement was an example of embezzlement because the government hadn’t approved the deal. As a result, Zahid was fired from his job as director of the bank.

Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Guantanamo prisoner, supported Mohammed’s claim that he lost a substantial amount of money he borrowed from the central bank. Zaeef said he was a member of the Economic Council of Afghanistan and Minister of Transportation at the time.

After his release, Mohammed created several businesses that failed. By the time of his capture, he said he owed $1.1 million to about 40 people.

Mohammed said he first heard about Al Qaeda after it was reported on TV that the organization had attacked the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

He transported gold and jewelry from Dubai for customers in Pakistan. In January 2002, he was arrested by soldiers working for the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, a powerful branch of Pakistan’s military.

Mohammed was told to pay a bribe or be sent, “to an unknown place that you will never know.” He said another ISI agent told him to sell his house and give them half the money, “to save yourself from the bad ending.” He said he refused to pay the bribe.

Pakistani forces turned Mohammed over to US custody in February 2002, claiming he was a suspected drug smuggler. He was sent to Guantanamo in April 2002.

Conclusion

The cover stories of many prisoners at Guantanamo are laughably implausible. Mohammed’s, on the other hand, is incredibly detailed, specific and believable.

He told a consistent story to both his 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal and his 2005 Administrative Review Board. These were both committees created by the Bush Administration to determine whether prisoners at Guantanamo should continue to be detained.

However, the allegations against Mohammed from other sources, which said he was a key money manager for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are also consistent.

The Transcript of his 2006 Administrative Review Board is classified because the US government said its disclosure would, “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

In January 2010, Mohammed was recommended for continued detention by Obama’s Interagency Guantanamo Task Force. While Mohammed is eligible for a Periodic Review Board to reconsider his status, he has not yet received one. 

Grandview Plaza plans to build Splash Park

During the hot days of summer, children in Grandview Plaza may be cooling off and enjoying themselves in a brand new splash park.

Last month, the city council moved closer to creating the splash park by submitting a grant application to the Bramlage Family Foundation.

Shelley Carver is a grant administrator for the Flint Hills Regional Council. She’s helping Grandview Plaza find public and private funding to help pay for the new park.

Carver told the council the Bramlage Family Foundation is interested in helping create the project. However, the foundation wants to know Grandview Plaza is willing to adequately fund the park’s construction.

“They want to see there aren’t the only funder in the room — that the city has a significant stake in the project,” she said.

Carver asked the council to approve an application to submit to the private charity showing the city plans to spend $252,000 for the park. The remaining $200,000 of the $452,000 project would come from grants provided by the Bramlage Family Foundation and others.

Council member Marvin Edison worried about the potential consequences of the council spending that much money to build the park.

“I don’t feel comfortable right now with all the problems we have with infrastructure, too many foregoing problems that could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “We should be putting money away in case of emergencies.”

Other council members didn’t share Edison’s concerns. The grant application was approved 4 to 1. 

Grandview Plaza approves raises for city employees

Every employee cares deeply about their paycheck — and public employees are no exception. Last month, the city council of Grandview Plaza decided to give their employees a three percent raise.  

In November, City Clerk Janet Young, Police Chief Shawn Peirano and City Superintendent Jerome Thomas requested they receive a 5 percent raise and other city workers receive a three percent raise.

Council member Marvin Edison agreed with the recommendation.

“I want to give the supervisors the 5 percent raise they requested because they didn’t have one in three years,” he said.

Fellow council member Jack Rider disagreed and said the supervisors had received a raise last year through a cost-of-living increase.

Council member Honey Grant added the supervisors already have a larger salary than other city employees.

Several council members stated their support for a 3 percent across-the-board pay increase, which was approved by a unanimous vote. 

Intersex Babies and Contentious Surgeries

 

 

A mother and father sit and talk in a hospital room the day after the birth of their child. A doctor enters the room and shares an unexpected and unwelcome bit of news.

Upon closer examination, a nurse discovered their infant has both male and female reproductive anatomy.

The doctor tells the parents they need to decide if they are going to leave their baby’s genitals alone or if they are going to authorize the removal of either the male or female anatomy.

The controversy surrounding whether these kinds of surgeries should be performed has been fiercely debated for decades. 

 

Background

Babies whose bodies don’t match our understanding of what it means to be physically male or female are known as intersex. In earlier times, some of them were referred to as hermaphrodites, but that term is considered by some to be insensitive.

There are many different reasons a person could be classified as intersex.

Intersex individuals may have both male and female reproductive tissue, mismatching internal and external genital anatomy, unusual hormone levels or an additional sex chromosome.

These conditions are known in the medical community as “disorders of sex development.”

However, University of Oregon professor and intersex expert Elizabeth Reis advocates changing the phrase to “divergence of sex development” to avoid the negative feeling associated with the term “disorder.”

While not all doctors agree which conditions should fall under that category, it’s estimated that about 1 in 2,000 people, or 0.05% of the population as a whole, are intersex.

Several intersex people were featured in this video created by Buzzfeed. 

 

 

 

The Debate Begins

In the 1950s, a team of medical specialists at John Hopkins University pioneered genital reconstruction surgeries for Intersex babies. The team was under the leadership of psychologist John Money, who believed that a child’s gender identity, whether they feel like a boy or a girl, is determined at an early age by how the child is treated by his or her caregivers.

By choosing a gender for the child and modifying their genitals to match, Money and his followers believed the child would be spared the confusion and potential mental illness created by their medical condition.

Genital reconstruction quickly became the norm for intersex babies across the United States. It remains a widespread practice to this day.

One pediatrician talked to the Atlantic magazine about the practice. He said four of his patients who did not receive the surgery were mocked and ridiculed in school locker rooms after other children saw their genitals. He said some of their families had to move to other cities to due to the bullying that followed.

In the 1960s, Money applied his approach to a baby boy whose penis was mutilated in a circumcision accident. I discussed his unfortunate story in an earlier article. Money’s conclusion that the boy would be happiest if raised as a girl proved to be inaccurate. The boy, David Reimer, later told his father that he was uncomfortable being a girl. After his father told him what happened, he went back to living as male.

Money’s beliefs concerning gender identity proved equally detrimental to intersex children. Physicians and parents have chosen genders for intersex babies, and removed conflicting anatomy, that ended up being different than the gender their child ended up choosing for themselves.

These intersex individuals dislike that a part of their body, which they wish they still had, was taken from them without their consent.

 

 

 

An Alternate Approach

In 1993, several Intersex activists created the Intersex Society of North America to “build a world free of shame, secrecy and unwanted sexual surgeries.”

In addition to gender identity concerns, the group also said the surgeries carry risks to, “life, fertility, continence and sensation.”

Instead, they said surgeries shouldn’t be performed on intersex babies, unless there’s a medical reason, such as a urinary infection, to do so.  

If Intersex individuals later decide for themselves to have genital surgeries for non-medical reasons, ISNA believes they should be allowed to do so.

ISNA, does however, believe that parents, in consultation with doctors, should choose a gender for their child. Nonetheless, the organization stresses that this gender assignment is preliminary and that the child may wish to choose a different gender later on.

The group said Intersex children have higher rates of gender transition than the population as a whole and that parents should be aware of this possibility.

Some intersex infants grow up to identify as male, some as female. Others end up identifying as genderqueer. I explained what it means to be genderqueer and shared the experiences of several genderqueer people in an earlier article.

While ISNA closed its doors in 2008, it helped create a new organization, Accord Alliance, which continues to help support Intersex individuals and their families.

 

 

 

The Legal Battle

The controversy over genital reconstruction for Intersex infants is rooted deeply in gender, medicine and psychology.

And soon, hospitals may be taking into account the possible legal consequences of performing the surgeries as well.

The adoptive parents of an Intersex child have launched state and federal lawsuits against hospitals, doctors and officials at the South Carolina Department of Social Services. They contend the professionals they are suing authorized genital reconstruction surgery to be performed on the child they adopted.

The surgery made the child’s genitals appear female, even though he ended up identifying as a boy.

The Atlantic has a wonderful article on the lawsuit full of comments from parents, Intersex people, and doctors about the disputed practice. I couldn’t more highly recommend their reporting.

 

 

Conclusion

The scenario described at the beginning of this article is one faced by parents and medical professionals today. And it’s far from new. 

The debate over genital reconstruction surgery has taken place for decades. Variations on sex development have presumably existed as long as humans have been around. 

The fight for how parents, doctors and society should interact with Intersex people in the future continues to spark discussions on gender, identity and psychology today. 

 

 

Salem Abdul Salem Ghereby

Nationality: Libyan

ISN: 189

Age: 53

The following is a summary of the allegations against Salem Abdul Salem Ghereby found in publicly available US military documents. If US military documents about this prisoner are inaccurate or misleading then this summary will be as well. The introduction to this set of summaries explains some of the terms used below. 

The US military believes Salem Ghereby was a member of a militant organization known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The US also believes Ghereby fought against US and coalition forces during the battle of Tora Bora, in Afghanistan, in 2001.

Like many prisoners at Guantanamo, Ghereby denied fighting against the United States and claimed to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

According to Ghereby, his troubles began in his home country of Libya. He told others not to attend Libyan government-sponsored public meetings. After the Libyan government sent him a letter asking him to stop, he left for Saudi Arabia.

But Ghereby worried about being sent back to Libya because he didn’t have a valid passport. Instead, a person by the name of Ahmed Al Masri helped him obtain a visa so he could travel to Pakistan.

In 1994, Ghereby said he traveled to Tajikistan as an Islamic missionary. However, when he was there, he said he lost some of his fingers during a fishing accident.

Later, Ghereby said he traveled to Afghanistan to teach at a school. After the US began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, he fled to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Other prisoners captured during the War on Terror presented a different picture of Ghereby’s activities in Afghanistan and surrounding countries.

Abdul Zahir said Ghereby often visited the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s main office in Kabul. Zahir also said Ghereby was a Libyan Al Qaeda member who often talked to Abdal Hadi Al Iraqi, an Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

Abu Zubaydah and Ibn Al Shaykh Al Libi both identified Ghereby as a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who participated in hostilities against the Russians in Tajikistan in the mid-1990s.

Abu Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding during his interrogations by the CIA. Al Shaykh was beaten and put through a mock burial by Egyptian interrogators.

It is unclear whether their allegations against Ghereby occurred before, during or after the torture of these alleged terrorist leaders.

Guantanamo prisoner Ashraf Sultan (LY-263) and Abu Zubaydah both said Ghereby fled to Osama Bin Laden’s Tora Bora Mountain complex in December 2001.

Al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab Al Masri wrote in his diary that Ghereby lost some of his fingers, and the ability to use one of his eyes, during an accident. Ghereby was trying to extract a substance from a mine fuse so he could use it during explosives training.

Al Masri also wrote in his diary that he and Ghereby agreed to throw a short piece of cord with a mortar shell into the water to catch fish. Masri slipped and fell after lighting the cord, but was able to throw it into the water just before the bomb went off. The explosion killed 10 fish.

Abu Zubaydah identified Ghereby as Luqman Al Libi. Zahir also said Ghereby went by the alias Luqman during his time in Afghanistan.

A person using the alias Luqman wrote a letter to Al Masri asking about explosives. The letter was uncovered during raids in Afghanistan in February 2002. 

The Libyan External Security Organization reported Ghereby received militant training at Al Shaykh’s Khaldan Training Camp and fought in Tajikistan.

Al Shaykh Al Libi and Sultan both said they were captured alongside Ghereby. They attempted to flee with a group of suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan after the beginning of the Afghan War. They were arrested by Pakistani forces following their arrival in the country.

Ghereby was tranferred to US custody on December 31, 2001. He arrived at Guantanamo on May 5, 2002.

In January 2010, Ghereby was approved for transfer by Obama’s Guantanamo task force.

After Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011, the country was divided by rival militias. To this day, those militias continue to fight each other to control as much territory as possible.