Djamel Ameziane

Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane (born 14 February 1967) is an Algerian citizen, and former resident of Canada and France, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.

With the assistance of a legal team led by the Burlington, Vermont attorney Robert D. Rachlin, Ameziane launched a writ of habeas corpus, Civil Action No. 05-392 in 2005. Rachlin said in 2006 in relation to material released from the Administrative Review Board on Ameziane:

There's nothing here that shows that he so much as held a firearm or did anything against the United States -- he's one of those guys who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. There's nothing more here than guilt by association. On December 5, 2013, he was transferred to Algeria, despite his protestations that it was likely that he would be tortured there.

Life Ameziane was born in Algiers, Algeria in 1967. He went to school there.

In 1992, he left the country because of the Algerian Civil War and moved to Austria, where he worked as a chef until 1995. He was denied a longer work permit. He moved to Canada, entering on a false Dutch passport, where he lived in Montreal and applied for political asylum. On July 27, Michelle Shephard, writing in the Toronto Star, reported that other Canadian security officials had interviewed Ahcene Zemiri, Djamel Ameziane and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, three Guantanamo captives who had lived in Canada. His defense attorney, Robert Rachlin, said in 2006 with the release of records of the Administrative Review Board conducted at Guantanamo,

There's nothing here that shows that he so much as held a firearm or did anything against the United States -- he's one of those guys who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. There's nothing more here than guilt by association.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Bush (2006) that the CSRT and military commissions were unconstitutional, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. In addition to authorizing the military tribunals, it restricted detainees' use of the habeas corpus process in federal courts, so all pending cases, such as Ameziane's, were stayed.

Press reports The Globe and Mail suggested that Ameziane's Tunisian contact could have been Raouf Hannachi. Shephard wrote that Ameziane might benefit from the 2002 Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement:

Shephard's article also addressed the 2005 allegation by the US that Ameziane's attendance at the Al Salaam Mosque in Montreal justified his continued detention, and the 2006 allegation that attendance at the Al Umah Mosque in Montreal justified his continued detention. Wells Dixon, one of his lawyers, reported: "...guards at the base placed a water hose between his nose and mouth and ran it for several minutes." The Canadian Press quoted from a letter Ameziane wrote: I had the impression that my head was sinking in water. I still have psychological injuries, up to this day. Simply thinking of it gives me the chills.

Calls for his release On October 22, 2008, a coalition of organizations, including Montreal's Anglican Diocese, and human rights groups such as Amnesty International, issued a press release about their plans to sponsor Ameziane's request for entry to Canada as a refugee.

On February 10, 2009, CBC News confirmed that Ameziane was among the five detainees at Guantanamo to have a refugee-sponsoring group working on his behalf. The other four men were Maassoum Abdah Mouhammad, a Syrian Kurd; Hassan Anvar and two Uyghur captives from Guantanamo.

On April 17, 2009, the Anglican Journal quoted human rights workers and church officials about the delay in Ameziane's repatriation. Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees speculated in April 2009 that Ameziane's repatriation had been stalled by the new reviews of the Guantanamo captives ordered by United States President Barack Obama.

Barry Clarke, Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Montreal, which is helping to sponsor Ameziane, wrote about how he responded to Canadians critical of the Church's initiative on the detainee's behalf. According to The Jurist, the IACHR "will investigate whether the US's failure to transfer Ameziane is in compliance with international human rights law."

Repatriation

On December 5, 2013, he was transferred to Algeria, despite his protestations that it was likely that he would be tortured there.

Since his return to Algeria, Ameziane has been monitored by the International Committee of the Red Cross office in Algeria. He has to date not suffered any injustice or persecution, and is self-supporting.

On July 21, 2014, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle turned down a request from Ameziane for the USA to return the funds—the equivalent in $8,838 in US dollars—that he had when he was captured. Jason Leopold, writing about his petition, noted that it had not been known until Ameziane's petition that the seizure of assets had been US policy for all captives. Leopold quoted Gabor Rona and Eugene Fidell in arguing that the seizure of captive's financial assets was a form of looting or pillaging -- war crimes explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

Artwork While detained at Guantanamo Bay, Ameziane created a painting called Shipwrecked Boat which was one of seven works created by inmates, and it was displayed at John Jay College, New York, in the autumn of 2017.