Omar Deghayes

Omar Amer Deghayes
Born	(1969-11-28) November 28, 1969 Tripoli, Libya
Occupation(s)	Lawyer, former detainee
Known for	Former Guantanamo Bay detainee; human rights activism

Omar Amer Deghayes (born 28 November 1969) () is a Libyan national who has held legal residency in the United Kingdom since childhood. In 2002, he was detained in Pakistan and subsequently classified as an enemy combatant by the U.S., leading to his incarceration at Guantanamo Bay detention facility until his release on 18 December 2007. Deghayes was never formally charged, and after his release, he returned to reside in the UK. His assigned Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 727. Deghayes alleges that during his detention at Guantanamo, a guard inflicted an injury resulting in permanent blindness in one eye.

Deghayes’s father, a well-known lawyer and labor union activist, was executed under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Following this, his family sought refuge in the United Kingdom, ultimately settling in Brighton. Deghayes earned a law degree from the University of Wolverhampton and pursued additional academic studies in Huddersfield.

Throughout his imprisonment, Deghayes’s family actively campaigned for his freedom, receiving backing from the Brighton Argus newspaper and local Members of Parliament. In 2006, the British High Court examined whether the government should request the U.S. to release detainees who held UK residency; although evidence of torture was identified, the court refrained from intervening in matters of international diplomacy.

In August 2007, the British government led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown officially sought Deghayes’s release. He was freed in December 2007 and repatriated to Britain. Later, he and another former detainee were detained under a Spanish arrest warrant accusing them of involvement with al-Qaeda in 2003; both were subsequently granted bail while their cases underwent further examination.

Early life and education

Omar Deghayes was born in Tripoli, Libya in 1969. His father, an attorney and notable opposition figure against Muammar Gaddafi, was executed by the Libyan authorities in 1980. The family departed Libya in two phases during 1985 and 1986; his mother received asylum status in the UK in 1987. Raised with secular values, Deghayes later pursued higher education at the University of Wolverhampton and further studies in Huddersfield, where he began to explore Islamic faith. His mother and sister obtained British citizenship, while Deghayes qualified as a lawyer. He engaged with non-governmental organizations focused on education and rural development initiatives in Afghanistan.

Marriage and family

During his time in Afghanistan, Deghayes married a local Afghan woman, and together they had a child. However, their marriage ended in divorce following his extended detention at Guantanamo Bay. After his return to the United Kingdom in December 2007, he entered into a second marriage. Deghayes is also related to three nephews who fought with Al Qaeda's al-Nusra Front amid the Syrian Civil War: Amer, Abdullah, and Jaffar. Abdullah lost his life in 2014; Amer sustained injuries in the same conflict, and Jaffar passed away six months later at the age of 17.

Disruption of war

After the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Deghayes relocated briefly to Pakistan with his wife and child. There, he was captured by bounty hunters who handed him over to American forces, resulting in his detention at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. His wife and child were subsequently released.

His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, highlighted that an erroneous identification by an unnamed informant prompted Spanish authorities to issue an arrest warrant against Deghayes; he was mistakenly connected to a video showing Arab mujahideen in Chechnya. The person actually featured was insurgent leader Abu al-Walid. Stafford Smith described this kind of misidentification as a common occurrence for Guantanamo detainees.

In 2002, Deghayes was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under suspicion of being an enemy combatant. In 2005, he alleged that guards sprayed pepper spray directly into his eyes, causing permanent blindness in his right eye. The Department of Defense (DOD) declined to address these abuse claims but asserted that detainees were encouraged to fabricate stories of mistreatment to incite outrage, characterizing Guantanamo as "a safe, humane and professional detention operation."

On 10 August 2007, his family published a report outlining alleged torture and degrading treatment he endured while in U.S. custody, which received extensive media coverage.

Deghayes reported either witnessing or personally suffering:

• A soldier shooting a detainee
• Waterboarding (simulated drowning)
• A guard throwing a Koran into a toilet
• Beatings resulting in death or lasting brain injury
• Permanent blindness caused by eye gouging
• Smearing of excrement on his face
• Sexual assault
• Electric shocks
• Exposure to freezing temperatures combined with water dousing
• Starvation lasting forty-five days
• Frequent death threats

Mistaken identification from videotape

A significant accusation against Deghayes stemmed from an anonymous tip given to Spanish officials alleging he appeared in a video featuring Chechen rebels. Spain passed this information to U.S. authorities shortly before his transfer to Guantanamo. However, a 2005 investigation by BBC Newsnight determined that Deghayes was not present in the footage. Professor Tim Valentine, an expert in facial recognition, confirmed that the face shown lacked the distinctive scars Deghayes has from a childhood injury. By August 2007, Stafford Smith disclosed that the individual was actually Abu al-Walid, a Saudi Arabian mujahideen commander operating in Chechnya who was killed by Russian forces in April 2004. Stafford Smith remarked that al-Walid’s appearance bore more resemblance to Fidel Castro than to Deghayes.

Hunger strikes

In September 2005, Deghayes participated in a large-scale hunger strike protesting the assault on detainee Hisham Sliti. His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, shared Deghayes's words of despair:

I am slowly dying in this solitary prison cell, I have no rights, no hope. So why not take my destiny into my own hands, and die for a principle?

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

The Bush administration initially claimed that Geneva Conventions protections did not apply to detainees in the war on terror. This position was challenged, and in Rasul v. Bush (2004), the US Supreme Court determined detainees were entitled to a fair process to challenge their detention. The Court required competent tribunals to assess each detainee’s status and eligibility for prisoner of war protections. Following this ruling, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) promptly created the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) as a substitute for federal habeas corpus proceedings. These tribunals evaluated whether captives were accurately designated as enemy combatants according to criteria set by the Bush administration.

Summary of Evidence memo

A Summary of Evidence memo was compiled for every CSRT. For Omar Amer Deghayes’s tribunal held on 27 September 2004, the allegations included claims that he was affiliated with al Qaida and the Taliban, had traveled to Afghanistan using a false passport, resided at a guesthouse linked to a senior al Qaeda figure, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)—classified as a terrorist entity—and appeared in an extremist Islamic training video.

Administrative Review Board hearing

Individuals labeled as "enemy combatants" were subject to yearly Administrative Review Board hearings. These panels assessed whether detainees continued to pose a threat justifying their detention by the US, or if they should be released or repatriated.

First annual Administrative Review Board

For Deghayes’s first annual Administrative Review Board on 24 May 2005, a Summary of Evidence memo was prepared.

"The following primary factors favor continued detention:"

The following primary factors favor release or transfer

Transcript

Omar Deghayes’s Presiding Officer noted that he opted not to attend his Administrative Review Board hearing.

Second annual Administrative Review Board

A Summary of Evidence memo was drafted for Omar Amer Deghayes’s second annual Administrative Review Board on 8 August 2006. This document outlined arguments both supporting and opposing his ongoing detention.

Primary factors favoring continued detention

Primary factors favoring release or transfer

Release

On 7 August 2007, the UK government formally requested the release of Omar Deghayes along with four other detainees who had been legal residents in Britain before their capture. Officials warned that negotiations might require several months. Ultimately, on 18 December 2007, Deghayes was released from Guantanamo Bay and transported back to the United Kingdom.

Spanish extradition proceedings

Omar Deghayes, alongside fellow former detainee Jamil El-Banna, was detained and interrogated by Spanish officials following an extradition warrant accusing them of involvement with al-Qaeda in Madrid. Another ex-detainee, Sameur Abdenour, was also questioned but subsequently released. On 20 December, Deghayes was granted bail with restrictions including a curfew and electronic monitoring. However, on 6 March 2008, Judge Baltasar Garzón dismissed the extradition request on humanitarian grounds after a medical evaluation revealed Deghayes suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and suicidal inclinations. The judge determined that the significant decline in their mental health during detention rendered prosecution inhumane.

Inquiry into allegations of torture

On 29 April 2009, Judge Baltasar Garzón launched an official probe to examine whether confessions obtained from Deghayes and three other former Guantanamo detainees were extracted through abusive interrogation methods. This investigation followed the Obama administration's disclosure of Department of Justice memoranda from the Bush era—commonly referred to as the Torture Memos—that sanctioned enhanced interrogation techniques now classified as torture.

Deghayes and others—Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien, and Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna—had been charged in Spain based on statements made while held in US custody. Due to their deteriorated psychological condition and allegations that their confessions were coerced via mistreatment, charges against Deghayes and al Banna were eventually dropped.

Present circumstances

On January 21, 2010, Deghayes provided an extensive interview to The Guardian, recounting his experiences related to arrest and detention.

Portrayal in other media

• Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo (2009), a documentary featuring comprehensive interviews with Omar Deghayes.

See also

• Omar Deghayes v. George W. Bush
• Initial Reaction Force
• Detainee abuse

Further reading

• An account of surviving Guantánamo – Deghayes describes torture and partial loss of vision sustained at Guantanamo.
• The "Torture Dossier" on Deghayes – Document detailing his treatment released by family.
• Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo – Documentary containing interviews with Deghayes.

External links

• "Omar Deghayes", Amnesty International
• Wikileaks detainee assessment for Omar Deghayes
• British resident blinded at Guantanamo, lawyer’s statement (.pdf)
• Sister's concerns over Guantanamo hunger strike, BBC, September 9, 2005
• Diary of British hunger striker at Guantanamo revealed, The Independent, September 11, 2005
• Life behind Guantanamo’s barbed wire, Newsday, October 3, 2005
• Campaign for Omar’s justice, The Argus, November 11, 2005
• London demonstration supporting British Guantanamo detainees, Eyetopic, January 21, 2006
• Omar Deghayes interviewed by Panorama, BBC, July 13, 2009
• Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo, documentary featuring extensive interviews with Omar Deghayes, Spectacle Productions, 2009
• Omar Deghayes: 'He arrived hooded and shackled', The Guardian, July 14, 2010
• The torture files: interrogations (LC13) The Guardian, July 14, 2010