Haji Rohullah (born c. 1967) is a citizen of Afghanistan held in the United States' Bagram Theater detention facility, in Afghanistan.[1] Rohullah worked as a driver before being seized at his farm in Jalalabad in August 2006.
A captive was held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, named Sahib Rohullah Wakil, a member of Afghanistan's legislature, who is also known as "Haji Rohullah".[2] [3] On January 16, 2010, the Department of Defense was forced to publish the names of the 645 captives held in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.[4] Three of the individuals on the list were named Rohullah. The list distinguished between them solely by a sequence number:003417,003830, and003841.
When Rohullah's writ of habeas corpus was first filed, in 2006, it stated he had been captured in his home a year earlier.[1] Eleven other men were captured at the same time, but they were all released.
Rohullah is one of the first enemy combatants held by the USA in a detention facility in Afghanistan who has been held able to mount a challenge to his detention through the US court system.[1] Rohullah, and another Afghan, Ruzatullah, had a writ of habeas corpus submitted on their behalf in November 2006.[5] [6] [7] [8] On August 10, 2007 Rohullah's lawyers submitted a motion requiring the United States Department of Defense give thirty days' advance notice if they planned to transfer him from US custody to Afghan custody. They informed the court that Ruzatullah was quietly transferred out of US jurisdiction, without any notice, in June 2007.
The arguments in the motion were:
Rohullah and Ruzatullah are represented by A. Katherine Toomey, Eric L. Lewis and Dwight P. Bostwick of Baach, Robinson & Lewis and Tina Foster of the International Justice Network.[7]
Jean Lin, a Justice Department attorney, had characterized the motion as ab "extraordinary and drastic remedy."[9] Lin had argued the motion would: "... interfere directly with the executive's conduct of war-making and foreign policy."
On October 4, 2007 U.S. district court judge Gladys Kessler ruled in Rohullah's favor that the DoD had to give his lawyer's thirty days advance notice of plans to transfer him from US custody.[9]
On December 2, 2008 Sandra Hodgkinson, who was then the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, had a letter to the editor published in American Law, responding to Daphne Eviatar's article on Bagram captivity.[10]