Sudanese national: Adel Hassan Hamad
ISN#: 940
Family status: Married with children
Occupation: Hospital Administrator, Aid Worker and Teacher
Age: 48

"I was arrested in my house at 1:30 at night when I woke up and found myself in front of policemen from the Pakistani intelligence pointing their weapons in my face…" Adel Hamad
Sudanese national Adel Hamad was taken at gunpoint from his home in Peshawar, Pakistan on 18 July 2002. Pakistani agents, led by a US agent, took his passport away, bound his hands and took him down the stairs into a waiting car.
Adel Hamad was taken to a Pakistani prison where he was held for six and a half months in what he describes as very bad conditions. Adel Hamad says that his weight dropped from 90 to 60 kilograms during this time.
Transfer to Bagram, then Guantánamo
"In Bagram there was also great suffering for me… They took me and stripped me naked completely. They laughed a lot in my face…They left me for three days not sleeping." Adel Hamad.
During his transfer to Bagram, Adel Hamad says that he was beaten at the airport and thrown to the ground. At Bagram, dogs were set upon him whilst watching soldiers laughed. He was also stripped naked and subjected to sleep deprivation. He still suffers from pain in his feet due to the lengthy periods he was chained, both hands and feet. He was held in Bagram for approximately two months before being transferred to Guantánamo where he has now been held for nearly four years without charge or trial.
Background
"…all my interrogators they told me that I am innocent that I would be released soon they told me after a month and a month came and I wasn’t released."
Adel Hamad had been living in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, since 1999 when he was appointed as the administrative director of the Afghanistan based World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) hospital.
The US authorities claim that some of the people running WAMY, miles from where Adel Hamad worked at the hospital, may have terrorist connections. Adel Hamad says that he was just an employee of the organization and knew nothing of the alleged connections which have been used as the primary basis for his continued detention.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) ruled in Adel Hamad’s case that he was an "enemy combatant". However one panel member dissented from that opinion stating that continued detention on the basis of the allegations would be "unconscionable". He found that the six allegations against Adel Hamad were unpersuasive and urged that the tribunal recommend his release.
In March 2005, Adel Hamad wrote to the US District Court for the District of Columbia asking for help. That court assigned the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Portland, Oregon to the case. Lawyers from that office have visited Guantánamo to interview him and have also travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to speak to witnesses to confirm his story.
During the investigation, William Teesdale, an attorney with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Portland, said that he confirmed the details of Adel Hamad’s story by meeting with and taking videotaped sworn statements of nearly a dozen witnesses. These witnesses included three physicians who worked side-by-side with Adel Hamad at the hospital in Chamkani, Afghanistan. A video of their investigations can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5E3w7ME6Fs
You can also become a member of Project Hamad, an advocacy group working on Adel Hamad’s case, for justice in Guantánamo and the restoration of habeas corpus:
http://projecthamad.org
Family
"She always tries to lift my spirits up. She always tells me we’re fine…we don’t need anything…we’re doing okay. But I know that she doesn’t have anyone. She is on her own."Adel Hamad, on letters received from his wife.
Adel Hamad has received a few letters from his family who are said to be suffering financially due to his prolonged absence. One letter he received while in detention informed him that his six-month-old daughter Fida had died. He never had the chance to meet her.
Just prior to his arrest, Adel Hamad had been on holiday with his family in Sudan for one month. He returned to Pakistan alone, as the family had decided that his wife should stay in Sudan with their children for the sake of their upbringing and education. They had previously been living with him in Pakistan, but felt isolated due to their unfamiliarity with the language and local culture. Adel Hamad says that he planned to continue working in Afghanistan for one more year in order to save some money before returning home to his family.

Back