We Deem You A Material Witness So Shut Up and Sit In Your Cell!

[wkmac]

As I read about this case a certain mental image continued to come to mind.

 

[av8torntn]

I'm not familiar with this and it may be a stupid question but what does it mean to pretend to detain someone?

 

[Jones]

I'm not familiar with this and it may be a stupid question but what does it mean to pretend to detain someone?

It means pretending to detain him for one reason when in fact they are really detaining him for another reason. In this case they pretended they were detaining him because he was a material witness, but the real reason was because they didn't want him to go anywhere while they tried to build a criminal case against him.

 

[wkmac]

It means pretending to detain him for one reason when in fact they are really detaining him for another reason. In this case they pretended they were detaining him because he was a material witness, but the real reason was because they didn't want him to go anywhere while they tried to build a criminal case against him.

Good point but there's also reason to believe some are treated in such manner in order to "flip" them into being assets or informants. I use the case of Al Jazeera reporter Sami al-Hajj to consider that POV.

Pakistani authorities detained Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj on December 15, 2001 when he and a colleague attempted to leave Afghanistan as a result of the deteriorating security situation following Operation Enduring Freedom. The Pakistani police held him for a month before turning him over to U.S. forces as a suspected "enemy combatant."
He was eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he arrived on June 14, 2002. He then spent the next six years there, until he was cleared of all charges in 2008.
Al-Hajj was classified as an "enemy combatant" whose "access to senior terrorist leaders demonstrates his probable connections to the al-Qaida network and other militant jihadist organizations." He was presented as "a member of al-Qaida who is an expert in logistics with direct ties to al-Qaida leadership."
However, new evidence has come to light that now shows the U.S. government hoped to use al-Hajj as an intelligence source, perhaps even an informant, to spy on Al Jazeera's operations, or to track down Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.

The War on Al Jazeera