Obaidullah (detainee)
Afghan Guantanamo detainee
Obaidullah (born 1980) is a citizen of Afghanistan who was one of the last remaining Afghan detainees held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba. He was captured as an Enemy combatant on July 20, 2002, transferred to Guantanamo on October 28, 2002, and transferred to the United Arab Emirates on August 15, 2016. Obaidullah was released and repatriated to Afghanistan on 23 December 2019.
Obaidullah's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 762. American intelligence analysts estimate that Obaidullah was born in 1980 in Khost, Afghanistan.
Capture and detention
On July 20, 2002, two dozen American Special Armed Forces soldiers, acting on an anonymous tip, raided Obaidullah's family home and took him into custody along with his cousins. At the time, Obaidullah was carrying a notebook which the U.S. alleges contained diagrams for improvised explosive devices.
In a statement made during his habeas corpus proceedings, Obaidullah stated:
The Americans came while my family and I were all sleeping in our home in the village of Milani, close to Khost City. At that time I was approximately 19 years old. On that night, I heard noises and the soldiers woke me up.
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