Mohammed Kamin

Mohammed Kamin is an Afghan who has been detained at Guantánamo since 2004.

Kamin was detained in U.S. custody in Khowst, Afghanistan in 2003 when his son, now 13 years old, was just a small boy. He was among the last group of non-“high value” detainees transferred to Guantánamo in September 2004, several months after the Supreme Court’s decision in Rasul v. Bush extended the right to judicial review to Guantánamo detainees. It appears that a number of those late-arriving detainees were brought to Guantánamo in order to be charged and serve as success stories for the troubled military commission process. Like several of them, Kamin was eventually charged before military commission, accused of having participated in the Afghan insurgency for some five months before his capture. Those “material support” charges were eventually dropped and D.C. Circuit decisions have since determined that the offense of providing “material support” cannot be tried by military commission, meaning that Kamin cannot ever legally be charged. Moreover, the President has repeatedly stated that the U.S.’s direct involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan – the ongoing nature of which has been the justification for Kamin’s continued detention without charge – is at an end, and with it the legal basis for Kamin’s indefinite detention should expire as well.

Because of this legal limbo, Kamin was eligible for review by the Periodic Review Board (PRB), an administrative process created to review the cases of those Guantánamo detainees who are neither already cleared for release nor currently charged by military commission, in order to determine whether they too can be safely cleared for release. On October 7, 2015, Kamin was informed that he has been cleared for transfer by the PRB, which cited his "candor" about past activities, the fact that he was one of the "more compliant" detainees, the absence of any sign that he holds "extremist" or "anti-American views," and his strong "family and tribal support." Kamin is one of a handful of detainees who were formerly charged before military commission, and eventually cleared by the PRB.

Kamin was resettled on August 15, 2016 in the United Arab Emirates. He has a wife, child, and larger family living in Khowst, Afghanistan. 

Last modified 

September 8, 2016