Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul
Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Triple-X |
| Occupation | Detainee |
| Years active | Detained 2003–2004 |
| Known for | First openly recognized ghost detainee by U.S. officials |
Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul, referred to as Triple-X by his American captors, was the inaugural ghost detainee openly recognized by U.S. officials.
Apprehended by Kurdish forces in Iraq around mid-2003, Rashul was transferred to the CIA on suspicion of affiliation with Ansar al-Islam. Subsequently, he was moved to a CIA-operated detention facility in Afghanistan.
In October 2003, Office of Legal Counsel official Jack L. Goldsmith notified Alberto R. Gonzales that Rashul fell under the protections of the 4th Geneva Convention and was legally obligated to be repatriated to Iraq.
On June 16, 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that he had authorized Rashul’s covert detention following a request from DCI George Tenet. Due to his exclusion from official documentation, Rashul was assigned the codename "Triple-X," as his true identity remained unknown to his guards. It was reported that his seven-month clandestine imprisonment without interrogation occurred because he was effectively "lost" within the system due to this unrecorded status. His fate after 2004 has not been disclosed.
External links
- Transcript of Secretary Rumsfeld briefing on ghost detainees, June 17, 2004
- Rumsfeld Ordered Prisoner Hidden, CBS News, June 17, 2004
- Rumsfeld ordered secret detention of Iraqi suspect, The Guardian, June 18, 2004
- Iraq's invisible man: A 'ghost' inmate's strange life behind bars, U.S. News & World Report, June 28, 2004
- Army, CIA Agreed on 'Ghost' Prisoners, Washington Post, March 11, 2005