The United States Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

 acknowledges holding four Kazakh detainees in Guantanamo.
A total of 778 detainees have been held in extrajudicial detention

Extrajudicial detention

Arbitrary or extrajudicial detention is the detention of individuals by a state, without ever laying formal charges against them.Although it has a long history of legitimate use in wartime , detention without charge, sometimes in secret, has been one of the hallmarks of totalitarian states...

 in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 since the camps opened on January 11, 2002
The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660. Only nineteen new detainees, all "high value detainees" have been transferred there since the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush

Rasul v. Bush

Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision establishing that the U.S. court system has the authority to decide whether foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay were wrongfully imprisoned...

. As of January 2008 the camp population stand at approximately 285.

Release negotiations

Kazakhstan's First Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Abuseitov confirmed, on January 16, 2003, that Kazakh security officials had interviewed two Kazakhstan citizens in Guantanamo.
He described the two detainees as "young", and stated that Kazakhstan had appealed to the USA for their release.

On November 2003 the Central Asia Caucasus Institute Analyst reported that
Kazakh Foreign Minister Qasymzhomart Toqaev
Kazakhstan had been negotiated with the USA for the release of its citizens.
The Minister stated:

Kazakh detainees in Guantanamo

isn	name	page numbers	notes
84	Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev or Elham Battayav was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 84...	CSRT allegations 4 CSRT transcript [ 47-53] ARB 1 transcript [ 116] ARB 1 decision 58-64	Allegedly kidnapped and forced to prepare food for Taliban soldiers. Repatriated on 18 December 2006.
521	Abdulrahim Kerimbakiyev	CSRT transcript [ 1-9] ARB allegations [ 43] ARB transcript [ 136-137]	Accused of being related to a terrorist suspect. Accused of living in government housing in Afghanistan. His statement to the Board is missing from his transcript. Released December 21, 2006.
526	Yakub Abahanov	CSRT allegations 48 ARB allegations 85-88 ARB decision 101-107	Captured with two friends from his home town. Allegedly served as a cook for the Taliban. Allegedly a member of a Uyghur Uyghur people The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...  mafia. Allegedly a member of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. Released.
528	Abdallah Tohtasinovich Magrupov Abdallah Tohtasinovich Magrupov -Transcript:Magrupov chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a five page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal....	CSRT transcript [ 7-11]	Captured with two friends from his home town. Allegedly stayed at various madrassas during his travels around Pakistan. Accused of being present in Afghanistan when the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan began. Released.

Ambassador Ordway's 22 May 2007 press briefing

American ambassador John M. Ordway addressed the Kazakhstani detainees in Guantanamo during a May 22, 2007 press briefing at the Kazakhstani Press Club.
Ordway confirmed that one detainee the USA considered a citizen of Kazakhstan remained in Guantanamo.
He stated that it was against US policy to compensate former detainees.
He asserted detainees were not detained any longer than necessary for US national security.

Question:

What can you tell us about the fourth Kazakhstani still detained at the Guantanamo facility. Will the United State pay compensation if it turns out he violated no laws and was detained without cause?

Ambassador Ordway:

With regard to the issue of compensation, we do not pay compensation for any of the enemy combatants who were in the Guantanamo facility. With regard to the Kazakhstani citizen who is still there, as was the case before, I can’t provide any details other than to say that we have been and will continue to be in discussion with the government of Kazakhstan about any possible release or return of their citizens. There are many of these people, the reason they are released is because we do not have any particular charges. They were enemy combatants who were found in Afghanistan in circumstances that they were fighting with or participating with forces that were fighting U.S. forces and therefore were captured as enemy combatants. There was then a process to determine whether they represented any future threat. If not, as was the case with the three who were released, they are then released. We also had a very extensive process to determine when there was no longer any reason to hold those people because they represented no further threat. That is exactly what happened with the three who were released and returned to Kazakhstan. They were no further threat.

October 2008 repatriation

On 31 October 2008 the Department of Defense announced two detainees were repatriated to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
The DoD withheld the two men's names.