Opinion ID: 1364239
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Evidence Supporting Barhoumi's Detention

Text: In support of his challenge to the district court's determination that the evidence showed that he was part of an associated force, Barhoumi argues that the district court improperly relied on a guilt-by-association theory predicated on its observation that the travel pattern of Mr. Barhoumi as he describes it, is consistent with the travel pattern of Mr. Zubaydah and Mr. al Suri. Appellant's Br. 37; Hr'g Tr. at 5. Membership in an associated force, Barhoumi argues, cannot be established by evidence that the person's movements and activities were similar to the movements of individuals who are known to be affiliated with al-Qaida or Taliban forces. Reply Br. 15 (quoting Appellees' Br. 30) (internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, Barhoumi asserts, mere sympathy for or association with an enemy organization does not render an individual a member of that associated force. Appellant's Br. 36 (quoting Hamlily v. Obama, 616 F.Supp.2d 63, 75 (D.D.C.2009)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, the key inquiry is whether the individual functions and participates within or under the command structure of the organization i.e., whether he receives and executes orders or directions. Id. (quoting Hamlily, 616 F.Supp.2d at 75) (internal quotation marks omitted). According to Barhoumi, the record is devoid of any evidence that Barhoumi was a member of Zubaydah's purported `army,' much less within the command structure, or that he received or executed any orders from Zubaydah, al-Suri or any other `member' of Zubaydah's army. Id. at 37. Although this court has yet to delineate the precise contours of the part of inquirya legal issuewe need not do so here because we conclude that even under the test espoused by Barhoumi, the district court committed no error in determining that it is more likely than not that he was part of Zubaydah's militia. Cf. Awad, at 12 (noting that the AUMF contains no requirement that a detainee be part of the command structure of al-Qaida). That is because in focusing exclusively on the travel pattern evidence, Barhoumi ignores other probative evidence put forth by the government that supports the district court's finding that he was part of Zubaydah's organization. To begin with, Barhoumi was captured along with Zubaydah at the Faisalabad guesthouse, a fact he acknowledges. Barhoumi also acknowledges that he trained at the Khaldan camp, though at oral argument Barhoumi's counsel challenged the government's claim that the Khaldan camp was linked to Zubaydah. The sole support for that connection, according to counsel, is a Background Declaration prepared by a senior intelligence analyst from the Defense Intelligence Agency regarding Terrorist Training Camps. This declaration, prepared on September 19, 2008, for use in federal court litigation, provides an overview of alleged training camps in Afghanistan and states that [w]hile the Khaldan camp was not an al-Qaida facility, Abu Zubaydah had an agreement with bin Ladin to conduct reciprocal recruiting efforts whereby promising trainees at the Khaldan camp ... could join al-Qaida if desired. According to Barhoumi's counsel, this declaration suffers from the same defect as did the intelligence reports deemed unreliable in Parhat, namely that there's no information contained in that paragraph from which the court can assess the reliability of the information contained in the document. Oral Arg. Tr. at 9. We shall have more to say about Parhat shortly. For now, however, it suffices to point out that, contrary to counsel's argument, the government did put forth additional record evidence in support of its assertion regarding Zubaydah's role at the Khaldan camp. Specifically, an FBI report prepared in May 2001 describes interrogation statements made by Ahmed Ressam, a Khaldan trainee who was subsequently convicted in federal district court for his role in the Millennium plot to detonate explosives at Los Angeles International Airport on December 31, 1999. See generally United States v. Ressam, 593 F.3d 1095 (9th Cir.2010) (describing circumstances of Ressam's conviction). Ressam told his interrogators that [redacted] was the overall leader of Khalden and Deronta Camps and that there is no one to whom [redacted] must report in terms of a superior. He further described [redacted] as an associate of [Usama bin Laden] who coordinates and cooperates with [bin Laden] in the conduct of training and trainee movements between [redacted] camps and [bin Laden] camps. Consistent with this report, Ressam later testified in the federal trial of an alleged coconspirator in the Millennium bomb plot that Zubaydah is the person in charge of the Khaldan camp and who takes care of the expenses of the camps under his authority. Trial Tr. at 547, United States v. Haouari, No. 00-15 (S.D.N.Y. July 3, 2001). Thus, unlike the bare assertions at issue in Parhat, 532 F.3d at 847, the government's assertion here that Zubaydah ran the Khaldan camp is backed up by testimony from a self-professed Khaldan trainee who, in proceedings having nothing to do with Barhoumi and which predated the September 11, 2001, attacks, attested to Zubaydah's connection to Khaldan. Barhoumi's exclusive focus on the sufficiency of the travel pattern evidence also overlooks what is perhaps the most probative record evidence that he was in fact part of Zubaydah's associated force. On the last page of his diary, al-Suri lists fifteen members of Zubaydah's militia and describes each person's role in the group. The relevant portion of this passage reads as follows: Sayf Al-`Adil and Abu Muhammad Al-Masri and those with them are trying to take over this group, especially Tariq, and benefit from us and lead us to join Shaykh `Usama Bin Laden. Tariq told me that if anything happened to him, we should join Sayf Al-`Adil to be under his wing and that of Al-Qa'ida. The Group is: 1-Tariq: Abu Zubaydah Al-Filastini: The commander 2-Myself, Abu Kamil Al-Suri: Permanent    8-`Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri: Permanent    12-`Abdullah Al Muslim Hatib and `Abdullah are undergoing training at this time on electronics by `Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri and will leave us to go inside (Afghanistan) and to work with explosives and electronic[s] ... for the brothers inside. The brothers will depend on both of them in the future for operations against the Americans inside of Afghanistan, God is willing. Tariq is the name al-Suri uses to refer to Zubaydah throughout the diary, and, as noted above, the district court found that Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri refers to Barhoumi. Thus, contrary to Barhoumi's assertion that the government failed to put forth any evidence that he was a member of Zubaydah's purported `army,' Appellant's Br. 37, the al-Suri diarya veritable membership listexpressly states that Barhoumi (referred to by his alias Ubaydah al-Jaza'iri) was a Permanent member of Zubaydah's militia and that he was providing explosives training to other members intending to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Dismissing this portion of the diary as merely aspirational, Barhoumi's counsel stated, if you look at that diary entry, that was a hypothetical about what might happen in the future. It wasn't a description of a present fact. Oral Argument Tr. at 76-77. True, several portions of the excerpt reflect future intentfor example, al-Suri's statement that the two militia members trained by Barhoumi will leave us to use explosives against Americans operating in Afghanistan. The rest of the passage, however, speaks to the present. It reports that [t]he Group is made up of the identified members, including Ubaydah al-Jaza'iri, who is described as a Permanent militia member. (Emphasis added.) And it states that Hatib and `Abdullah are undergoing training at this time on electronics by `Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri. (Emphasis added.) Far from a mere prediction about what might happen in the future, Oral Arg. Tr. at 77, this portion of al-Suri's diary describes the status of Zubaydah's group as it then existed. Counsel further insisted that the al-Suri diary arguably doesn't mention our client at all, and that the Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri, referred to as a Permanent member of Zubaydah's group, is not necessarily our client. Oral Arg. Tr. at 15. Although Barhoumi never squarely presses this argument in his appellate briefs, we think the issue, critical as it is, merits our full consideration. There is no doubt that Barhoumi went by the alias Ubaydah al-Jaza'iri, which in Arabic means Ubaydah the Algerian. Barhoumi concedes as much. In his district court filings, Barhoumi, who is in fact Algerian, referred to himself as Sufyian Barhoumi, a/k/a Abu Obaida, Ubaydah al Jaza'iri, and Shaflq, Pet'r's Pub. Traverse to the Gov's Return to the Pet. for Habeas Corpus at 2, Barhoumi v. Obama, Misc. No. 05-1506 (D.D.C. Feb. 13, 2009), and Barhoumi told his interrogators that he was known as Ubaydah when staying at various guesthouses in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The only question, then, is whether the Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri referenced in al-Suri's diary refers to Barhoumi, or to some other Ubaydah al-Jaza'iri. We think record evidence amply supports the district court's conclusion that Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri and Barhoumi are one and the same person: al-Suri's diary refers to Ubaydah as returning to the Pakistan guesthouse where al-Suri and Zubaydah were staying, and, shortly thereafter, Zubaydah and Barhoumi were in fact captured together in the same Pakistan guesthouse raid; al-Suri's diary refers to Ubaydah Al-Jaza'iri as an explosives expert, and Barhoumi admitted to receiving instruction in the use and diffusion of landmines at multiple training camps; al-Suri's diary describes Ubaydah as one of the trainers at Khaldun, and Barhoumi concedes that he trained at the Khaldan camp (though not that he was a trainer there). Barhoumi's theorythat he is not the Ubaydah referred to in al-Suri's diary therefore must rest on the premise that there was a second Algerian staying with Zubaydah at the same Pakistan guesthouse who, like Barhoumi, also went by the alias Ubaydah al-Jaza`iri, was at the Khaldan camp, and trained in the use of landmines or explosives. Without hazarding a guess as to the probability of such a coincidence, we have little difficulty concluding that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Ubaydah Al-Jaza`iriBarhoumi's admitted aliasin fact refers to Barhoumi. In sum, then, record evidence shows (1) that Barhoumi trained at the Khaldan camp, which was associated with Zubaydah; (2) that he was later captured along with Zubaydah in the same Pakistan guesthouse; and (3) that he functioned as a Permanent member of Zubaydah's group who provided explosives training to other militia members for operations against the Americans inside of Afghanistan. This evidence shows more than mere sympathy toward Zubaydah's organization: al-Suri's diary singles him out as a member of that organization, actively engaged in training other members. Hamlily, 616 F.Supp.2d at 75 (quoting Gherebi v. Obama, 609 F.Supp.2d 43, 68 (D.D.C.2009)). This certainly qualifies as function[ing] and participat[ing] within or under the command structure of the organization, id., and, contrary to Barhoumi's argument, amounts to more than just guilt by association based on an attenuated correlation in his travel patterns with Zubaydah and the mysterious al-Suri, Appellant's Br 37. We therefore conclude that all of this evidence, if reliablea question we turn to in the next sectionis sufficient to sustain the district court's determination that the United States is lawfully detaining Barhoumi under the AUMF. In reaching this conclusion, we emphasize that we have not relied on [redacted]'s diary. This obviates the need to determine whether, as Barhoumi contends, that diary is unreliable by virtue of [redacted]'s alleged mental illness, or whether, as the government argues, the [redacted] al-Suri diaries serve to corroborate each other. Nor have we relied on interrogation statements made by another detainee, Benyam Muhammad, who identified Barhoumi as Ubaida and stated that Barhoumi was providing Abu Muslim and Hatif' with electronics training at the Faisalabad guesthouse, but whom Barhoumi asserts is an unreliable source because he was allegedly rendered abroad and tortured some time prior to making these statements.