Haji Ghalib

A profile of Ghalib published on the front page of the New York Times, on November 27, 2015, noted that Joint Task Force Guantanamo authorities had feared he would return to the battlefield, if he were freed from Guantanamo. However, Joseph Goldstein pointed out that Ghalib had set aside all the bitterness triggered by the injustice and brutality of his treatment in Guantanamo, and relied on his idea of what best served his nation, and had returned to fight on behalf of Aghanistan's central government.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants—rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat—or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

The article noted how the Taliban had assassinated many of his relatives, when he first started fighting against them. It noted that when more senior Taliban leaders noted how effective an opponent he was they reached out to Ghalib and offered to kill the more junior Taliban leaders who were responsible for order the execution of his family members, if only he would retire from fighting them—an offer Ghalib declined.

The Tribune, a newspaper published in Pakistan, compared Ghalib with another captive he made friends with, in Guantanamo -- Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost. Muslim Dost also joined in the hostilities that plagued Afghanistan—but on the other side. In recent years he served as a leader of the IS forces in Afghanistan.

On November 25, 2009, the Department of Defense published a list of the dates captives were transferred from Guantanamo. According to that list Ghalib Hassan was transferred on February 8, 2007. Ghalib is considered a leader in the anti-Taliban resistance under Abdul Haq. Ghalib's tribe, the Shinwari, have signed an Anti-Taliban pact.

Haji Ghalib is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 987. Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate he was born in 1963, in Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Ghalib was repatriated on February 28, 2007.

Ghalib chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. The Department of Defense released a ten-page summarized transcript of the Tribunal on March 3, 2006.

Ghalib chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing. In April 2006 the Department of Defense released a 13-page summarized transcript of the hearing.

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Ghalib's Administrative Review Board hearing on July 25, 2005.

In early September 2007 the Department of Defense released two heavily redacted memos, from his Board, to Gordon England, the Designated Civilian Official. The Board's recommendation was unanimous The Board's recommendation was redacted. England authorized his transfer on 22 October 2005.

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Ghalib's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 1 October 2004. The memo listed the following allegations against him:

The request to the US State Department went out on October 13, 2004, with a deadline of November 8, 2004. By November 24, 2004, the date of the Tribunal, no reply had been received, so the Tribunal's President ruled that those witnesses, and those documents, were "not reasonably available".

The article noted that he had returned to senior positions in the fight against both the Taliban, and new elements of ISIS that were being found in Aghanistan. The article noted that he now faced Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, another Guantanamo captive, who held a senior position in ISIS. The two men had been friends, in GUantanamo, where their cells had been adjacent cells. Ironically, Muslimdost was one of the 38 captives who had been cleared of suspicions of being an enemy combatant, by his 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal, while Ghalib was held for a further two and a half years, and was repatriated without being cleared of suspicion.