Mohammed Saghir

Mohammed Saghir (also transliterated Mohammed Sanghir) is an elderly Pakistani who was held by the U.S. military in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 143. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate he was born in 1952, in Kohistan District, Pakistan.

When The Guardian interviewed Saghir, following his release, on 22 October 2002, they estimated he was in his sixties.

Saghir was one of the first four detainees to be released from Guantanamo. He was the first Pakistani to be released from Guantanamo.

Saghir was released together with two even more elderly Afghan men, and one younger Afghan man.

Guantanamo documents

No documents about Mr. Saghir had been made public, as he was released before the Combatant Status Review Tribunals began.

On 25 April 2011, whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. Saghir's assessment was dated 27 September 2002, and was two pages long.

His assessment was signed by camp commandant Michael E. Dunlavey who recommended release or transfer to the control of another country. Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, repeated the justification for Saghir's detention -- "his knowledge of General Dostum's treatment of captured personnel transported from Kunduz to Sheberghan". Worthington called it "...a low point in the feeble reasons given for transfer to Guantánamo, as it involved US forces suggesting that they took him halfway round the world to an experimental prison outside the law simply to find out more about how their close ally had been murdering prisoners of war."

Suing the USA

Saghir initiated a lawsuit against the United States for $10.4 million for the torture and abuse he reports he endured. Saghir says that when he was released he was promised compensation.

In September 2012, Saghir reminded The Express Tribune that President Barack Obama had broken his promise to close Guantanamo. His bracelet says: US 9PK 0001 43 DP

According to Le Monde, Mohammed Saghir said he had been in Afghanistan for three months prior to the al Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001. Saghir was one of the former captives who had an article profiling him.

Saghir reports that when he was repatriated he found that his family had incurred debts of 1.2 million rupees in his absence—to search for his body, and to support themselves without his income. According to the article he asserted "No one among the prisoners knew as to who had planned the 9/11 attacks ... Person like me neither knew WTC nor Osama or Al-Qaeda,"

Saghir also described female GIs sexually harassing him.