August 18, 2015, Guantánamo – Today, an attorney from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged a Periodic Review Board (PRB) at Guantánamo to recommend that Mohammed Kamin be cleared for release.  Mr. Kamin, who is from Afghanistan and has been held in U.S. custody for more than 11 years, is among those designated for indefinite detention at Guantánamo: men who are not cleared for release or transfer, but who will also never be charged with a crime.  The PRB is a forward-looking, administrative process to determine whether “detention is necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

“There is no reason to continue to hold Mr. Kamin at Guantánamo. He will be welcomed home, into a stable and supportive family and village life,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal.  “If the president is ever to close Guantánamo, he must end the legal limbo in which men like Mr. Kamin are trapped and, once they are cleared, must transfer cleared men without delay.  The only way to close Guantánamo is to reduce the prisoner population to zero.”

There are currently 52 cleared prisoners at Guantánamo, many of whom have been cleared for release or transfer for several years.  As it has with all of its Guantánamo clients, CCR submitted a letter to the PRB offering to provide appropriate support in order to aid Mr. Kamin in his transition home.

Mr. Kamin was charged in April 2008 with one count of material support for terrorism.  However, the convening authority withdrew the charges in 2009, and subsequent rulings in federal court have held that material support is not a charge triable by military commission.  Mr. Kamin will therefore never be charged with a crime.  Moreover, his attorneys note that President Obama has repeatedly stated that the U.S.’s direct involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan has ended, definitively terminating any purported legal authority to continue detaining Mr. Kamin.

Cleared materials related to today’s hearing can be found here.  For more information on the case, see CCR’s case page.

Mohammed Kamin is also represented by Paul Rashkind at the Florida Federal Public Defender’s Office.  Additionally, two military officers appeared at today’s hearing as Mr. Kamin’s “personal representatives,” to advocate on his behalf.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for more than 13 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. CCR is responsible for many Guantanamo cases in many venues, representing men in their habeas cases in federal court and before the military commissions and Periodic Review Boards, the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who have been released and are seeking accountability in international courts.