U.S. Military Investigator Establishes that Obaidullah, an Afghan Still Held in Guantánamo, Is Innocent

Here at "Close Guantánamo," for the latest article in our ongoing series profiling the remaining prisoners in Guantánamo, Andy Worthington has written about the heartbreaking tale of Obaidullah, one of the 17 Afghans still held in Guantánamo, who is still held -- and was put forward for a trial by military commission under President Bush -- even though there has never been any actual evidence against him.

Obaidullah was supposedly seen driving a car at the time of an insurgent attack in Afghanistan in July 2002, but when a U.S. military investigator, working for his defense team, recently spoke to U.S. personnel involved with his case, and traveled to Afghanistan to speak to his family and others who knew him, he discovered that there was no evidence that Obaidullah had been the driver of a car that was seen at the time of the attack, and that blood stains in a car that he was presumed to have driven were the result of his wife giving birth just before his capture, which was something that no one close to Obaidullah had wanted to mention because of cultural taboos.

Other information obtained by the investigator backed up Obaidullah's claim that he had made false confessions after being abused in U.S. custody after his capture.

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