Ali al-Marri

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]

Of the tens of thousands of victims of the Bush administration’s novel approach to detention in the “war on terror” — which involved shredding the Geneva Conventions, the use of torture and indefinite detention without charge or trial, and, in some cases, extraordinary rendition —  few of the victims were American citizens, but three particular […]

What is the government doing? Last year, when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its contentious passages endorsing the mandatory military detention of terror suspects, there was uproar across the political spectrum from Americans who believed that it would be used on US citizens. In fact, it was unclear whether or not […]

Last week, in New York, a US judge, District Judge Katherine Forrest, took a stand against a contentious provision inserted into the current National Defense Authorization Act (PDF), ruling that it was unconstitutional for lawmakers to demand that, in future, those accused of involvement with terrorism — including US citizens and residents — must be […]

For nine and a half years — almost as long as the “war on terror” has been providing an excuse for paranoia about Muslims in general — the case of US citizen Jose Padilla has demonstrated, to those willing to pay attention, that something has gone horribly wrong in the United States of America. A […]

In disturbing reports from the US, it appears that Private First Class Bradley Manning, the former intelligence analyst accused of leaking the Afghan and Iraqi war logs, the US diplomatic cables and the “Collateral Murder” video, which have dominated headlines globally since WikiLeaks began making them available in April this year, is being held in […]

So it’s finally over. Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident from Qatar, who was held as an “enemy combatant” on the US mainland for five years and eight months without charge or trial, was finally sentenced in a federal court last Thursday. The prosecution was seeking a 15-year sentence, following al-Marri’s guilty plea in April, […]

Ali al-Marri, who was held as an “enemy combatant” on the US mainland for five years and eight months without charge or trial, was finally sentenced in a federal court last Thursday (as discussed in an article here), and he made the following statement in court, which I believe is worth reproducing in full: Ali […]

Two distressing pieces of news emerged last week regarding the Obama administration’s plans to close Guantánamo, and both were delivered by defense secretary Robert Gates in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Discussing what would happen to the remaining 241 prisoners, Gates announced that the question was “still open” as to what the government should […]

For five years and eight months, the Bush administration held Qatari national and legal US resident Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri without charge or trial as an “enemy combatant” in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Arrested by the FBI in December 2001, and subsequently charged with crimes including credit card fraud and identity […]