Career
Rohullah worked as a driver before being seized at his farm in Jalalabad in August 2006. 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. Three of the individuals on the list were named Rohullah.
The list distinguished between them solely by a sequence number: 003417, 003830, and 003841.
When Rohullah"s writ of habeas corpus was first filed, in 2006, it stated he had been captured in his home a year earlier. 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 United States of America in a detention facility in Afghanistan who has been held able to mount a challenge to his detention through the United States court system. Rohullah, and another Afghan, Ruzatullah, had a writ of habeas corpus submitted on their behalf in November 2006.
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 United States custody to Afghan custody.
They informed the court that Ruzatullah was quietly transferred out of United States jurisdiction, without any notice, in June 2007. The arguments in the motion were:
Petitioner Rohullah Will Suffer Irreparable Harm if He is Transferred Without Notice or an Opportunity to be Heard. Petitioner Ruzatullah Faces the Threat of Irreparable Harm Based on the Potential Loss of his Habeas Claims.
Petitioner Rohoullah Faces the Substantial Threat of Torture.
Petitioner Rohullah Has a Substantial Likelihood of Success on the Merits. The Requested Relief Will Not Harm Respondents.
Public Policy Unequivocally Favors the Granting of Petitioner"s Request. Jean Lin a Justice Department attorney had characterized the motion as ab "extraordinary and drastic remedy." Lin had argued the motion would: ".. interfere directly with the executive"s conduct of war-making and foreign policy."
On October 4, 2007 United States. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in Rohullah"s favor that the Department of Defense had to give his lawyer"s thirty days advance notice of plans to transfer him from United States custody.
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.