Sufyian Barhoumi

When he assumed office in January 2009, President Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo. He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request. Sufiyan Barhoumi was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release.

Barhoumi has not been re-charged. Jess Bravin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reported that, by 2013, Barhoumi had decided he would plead guilty, to any charge, because he saw a plea bargain as a way to win himself a fixed release date to look forward to. Barhoumi was to have been charged with "providing material support for terrorism." But appeals court judges had overturned the convictions of other men who pled guilty to that charge.

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. A four-page JTF-GTMO assessment was drafted on June 11, 2004. It was signed by camp commandant Jay W. Hood, who recommended continued detention.

His case was appealed before a panel of judges, who confirmed Collyer's decision on June 10, 2010.

On September 24, 2009, Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, reported that U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer had ruled that the USA could continue to hold Sufiyan in Guantanamo. While the ruling was announced, its text remained classified.

Bravin said that Barhoumi had come close to agreeing to a plea bargain in 2009, that would have imposed a sentence of 20 years, except he wanted credit for the eight years he had already served.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, lead by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:

On May 29, 2008, Barhoumi, Jabran al-Qathani and Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi were charged before the Congressionally authorized military commissions.

On October 21, 2008, Susan J. Crawford the official in charge of the Office of Military Commissions announced charges were dropped against Barhoumi. Carol J. Williams, writing in the Los Angeles Times reports that all five men had been connected by Abu Zubaydah—one of the three captives the CIA has acknowledged was interrogated using the controversial technique known as "waterboarding".

In July 2006, after considering Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the President lacked the Constitutional Authority to order Military Commissions. The Supreme Court ruled that only the United States Congress had the authority to order Military Commissions. So the charges against all ten men were dropped.

On July 6, 2004, United States President Bush ordered that Sufyian Barhoumi be charged before a military commission. The appointing authority approved the charges against Sufyian on 4 November 2005. Barhoumi faced the charge of "Conspiracy". His five-page charge sheet listed thirteen general allegations, that were essentially identical to those of Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi. Sufyian Barhoumi, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, and two other captives, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Omar Khadr had their charges confirmed on the same day as Barhoumi. Sufyian Barhoumi, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, and Binyam Ahmed Muhammad all faced conspiracy charges. Omar Khadr faced both murder and conspiracy to murder charges.

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Sufyian Barhoumi arrived at Guantanamo on June 18, 2002, and has been held at Guantanamo for 17 years, 11 months and 5 days.

Sufyian Barhoumi is a citizen of Algeria, who is currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on July 28, 1973, in Algiers, Algeria.

Barhoumi had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf, Civil Action No. 05-cv-1506, by pro bono attorneys from Holland & Hart LLP.