November 20, 2018, Guantánamo – Today, attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights urged a Periodic Review Board (PRB) to recommend that Guled Hassan Duran be cleared for release from Guantánamo. Mr. Duran has been detained in Guantánamo since 2006, and before that was held in secret CIA detention, where he was denied medical care for serious injuries in order to pressure him to cooperate. He is among 26 men detained at Guantánamo who are neither cleared for release nor facing charges by military commission.

“Mr. Duran is among a group of prisoners who are not cleared for release but whom the government has also said it will not charge. Essentially, the government claims authority to hold him for the rest of his life,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal. “He poses no threat to anyone. The PRB should clear him for transfer and put an end to 14 years of unjust legal limbo.”

Mr. Duran was captured in 2004 while traveling to Sudan for surgery after being seriously injured by gunfire in a fight with gang members trying to steal his motorcycle. He was held in secret detention by the CIA, and flown to several locations before arriving in Guantánamo almost two years later. Throughout his captivity, the CIA withheld medical attention for his gunshot wound in an effort to coerce him to cooperate, including acting as a spy.

A PRB declined to approve Mr. Duran for transfer in 2016, after a hearing that attorneys called grossly unfair. They say he was not given adequate time to prepare for the hearing and appeared before the PRB without counsel. The Center for Constitutional Rights subsequently filed a habeas petition on Mr. Duran’s behalf, arguing that his initial capture was unlawful and that any initial justification for his detention is no longer tenable more than a decade later.

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.” Because of his pending habeas litigation, on advice of counsel Mr. Duran declined to participate in today’s hearing. The limited current flight schedule into the base also made it impossible for an attorney to attend, and no video link option was made available from Washington, D.C., so the arguments were confined to paper submissions.

Guled Hassan Duran is a 43-year-old Somali citizen with a large, close-knit family. He is one of seven children, and his brother and sisters speak fondly of their childhood together and describe Mr. Duran as a family man. He is married and has four children.

For more information about Mr. Duran, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ client profile. 

For more information about CCR’s lawsuit over Mr. Duran’s continued detention, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for more than 16 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that nearly all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. Among other Guantánamo cases, the Center represents the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who have been released and are seeking justice in international courts.