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Freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington continues his 70-part, million-word series telling, for the first time, the stories of 776 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. Adding information released by WikiLeaks in April 2011 to the existing documentation about the prisoners, much of which was already covered in Andy’s book The Guantánamo Files and in the archive of articles on his website, the project will be completed in spring 2012.

This is Part 32 of the 70-part series. 399 stories have now been told. See the entire archive here.

In late April, I worked with WikiLeaks as a media partner for the publication of thousands of pages of classified military documents — the Detainee Assessment Briefs — relating to almost all of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. These documents drew heavily on the testimony of the prisoners themselves, and also on the testimony of their fellow inmates (either in Guantánamo, or in secret prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA), whose statements are unreliable, either because they were subjected to torture or other forms of coercion, or because they provided false statements in the hope of securing better treatment in Guantánamo.

The documents were compiled by the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo (JTF GTMO), which operates the prison, and were based on assessments and reports made by interrogators and analysts whose primary concern was to “exploit” the prisoners for their intelligence value. They also include input from the Criminal Investigative Task Force, created by the DoD in 2002 to conduct interrogations on a law enforcement basis, rather than for “actionable intelligence.”

My ongoing analysis of the documents began in May, with a five-part series, “WikiLeaks: The Unknown Prisoners of Guantánamo,” telling the stories of 84 prisoners, released between 2002 and 2004, whose stories had never been told before. This was followed by a ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004,” in which I revisited the stories of 114 other prisoners released in this period, adding information from the Detainee Assessment Briefs to what was already known about these men and boys from press reports and other sources. This was followed by another five-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released After the Tribunals, 2004 to 2005,” dealing with the period from September 2004 to the end of 2005, when 62 prisoners were released.

This, as I explained, was the period in which, after the prisoners won a spectacular victory in the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, when the Supreme Court granted them habeas corpus rights (in other words, the right to ask an impartial judge why they were being held), lawyers were allowed to meet the prisoners for the first time, and the secrecy that was required for Guantánamo to function as an interrogation center beyond the law was finally broken.

However, although the Bush administration allowed habeas petitions to proceed, Congress attempted to strip the prisoners of their habeas rights in the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, and the administration also responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling with its own inferior version of habeas, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, a sham process designed to rubber-stamp their designation as “enemy combatants” who could be held indefinitely.

With just 38 prisoners cleared for release after the CSRTs, another review process — the annual Administrative Review Boards — took over, reviewing whether prisoners still had ongoing intelligence value, and whether they still posed a threat to the US. These were essentially the decisions being taken by JTF GTMO and CITF, and they reveal how, in the “War on Terror,” prosecuting criminals (the few genuine terror suspects in Guantánamo) and holding soldiers off the battlefield until the end of hostilities had largely given way to the strange mixture of threat assessments and intelligence assessments that fill the Detainee Assessment Briefs.

With 260 prisoners profiled in the first 20 parts of this project, the next ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantanamo Prisoners Released in 2006,” covered the stories of the 111 prisoners released in 2006 (and the three who died at the prison in June 2006), almost all of whom were freed because of political maneuvering rather than anything to do with justice, as is the case with this latest ten-part series, dealing with the 124 prisoners released in 2007, including two more who died without ever having been charged or tried.

I also hope that readers will reflect on the problems of over-classification that have been thoroughly chronicled in the preceding series analyzing the Detainee Assessment Briefs. My analysis to date has established repeatedly that even patently innocent prisoners seized by mistake were regarded as a “low risk,” rather than as no risk at all, and it is important for readers to bear in mind that the entire process of detaining and processing prisoners and exploiting them for their supposed intelligence was shot through with a drive to conclude that they were all a threat, and to overlook the distressing fact that most of them were seized in a largely random manner, mostly by America’s Afghan and Pakistan allies, at a time when substantial bounty payments were widespread, and were never subjected to anything that resembled an adequate screening process.

And then, of course, as I have outlined above, and as is revealed extensively in the files, they were trapped in a prison where officials, in their ill-conceived desire for “actionable intelligence,” ended up attempting to justifying their detention either by coercing or bribing the prisoners themselves, or their fellow prisoners, to come up with allegations that could be passed off as plausible, whether or not there was any substance to them at all.

The Complete Guantánamo Files: WikiLeaks and the Prisoners Released in 2007 (Part Two of Ten)

Yahya Al Sulami (ISN 66, Saudi Arabia) Released July 2007

As I explained in Chapter 5 of The Guantánamo Files, Yahya al-Sulami (also identified as al-Silami), who was 22 years old at the time of his capture, said in Guantánamo that he had been teaching the Koran in Afghanistan. I also explained that he was one of many prisoners who came under particular suspicion because he did not have a passport at the time, as the US authorities had realized that those who attended training camps did not have passports because they were required to hand them in at guest houses before training. However, this inevitably meant that those who did not have passports for other reasons — either because they were lost, stolen or abandoned in the rush to leave a hostile environment, or because they were entrusted to others in an attempt to find a legitimate way to leave Afghanistan — were automatically regarded as liars, whether or not this was the case. As I also explained, al-Sulami said that he was given a contact in a village near Khost by a friend in Mecca, where he taught the Koran for four months, but was clearly regarded as lying when he said that he lost his passport in a river while following a group of Afghan refugees to the Pakistani border.

As I also explained at the time of his release, he was one of 30 prisoners accused of being bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, as one of a group of prisoners who became known as “the Dirty Thirty,” although the origin of the allegations was not made clear. In Guantánamo, al-Sulami denied a claim by the US authorities that all 30 were bodyguards, and “were told the best thing they could tell US forces when interrogated was they were in Afghanistan to teach the Koran,” and also refuted another allegation, which he said was made by a Yemeni prisoner whom he described as “mentally unstable and on medication” (presumably Yasim Basardah, known as the most notoriously unreliable informant in Guantánamo), in which he was “identified as the Emir of a group of 10-15 fighters guarding a river crossing leading to the Tora Bora camp.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Sulami was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated August 11, 2006, in which it was noted that he was born in February 1979, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that, after graduating from high school in 1999, he “attended the Religious Institute in Mecca,” and, after graduating from there, “decided to teach Islam to non-Arabs in accordance with various religious decrees that had been issued by religious scholars.” In “approximately August 2001,” he flew to Karachi, with the assistance of a man named Khalid al-Muslih, who, he said, he “had met while studying at the Holy Mosque in Mecca” (although an analyst described him as “possibly an al-Qaida facilitator”).

On arrival in Karachi, he said, he contacted the Dar al-Ifta (the House of Religious Affairs),” and “informed them of his plan to teach the Koran in Afghanistan.” He then “crossed into Afghanistan via the Miram Shah border crossing and proceeded to Khost,” where a man named Muhammad al-Afghani (also described by an analyst as “a possible al-Qaida facilitator”) took him to a mosque, where, he said, he stayed for four and a half months, teaching the Koran to children.

He “denie[d] receiving any type of military training” during this period, and said that, once the war in Afghanistan started, he “contacted al-Afghani and requested that he arrange for [his] return to Saudi Arabia.” Al-Afghani then “introduced [him] to two Afghan guides who led [him] and 30 other Arabs from Khost back [sic] to Pakistan.” He “stated that the group he was with traveled for six days in the mountains before they arrived in Pakistan,” and, after crossing the border near Parachinar, were seized by Pakistani border guards.

After being held in a Pakistani jail in Peshawar, he was transferred to US custody at  the Kandahar Detention Facility on December 27, 2001, and was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, allegedly for the following reasons: “To provide background information on members of the group with whom detainee was captured, To provide information on the tactics and logistics of the Al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan from 2000 until the fall of Tora Bora [and] The effect of the civil war on the Afghanistan educational infrastructure.”

However, as I explained in my article, “How to Read WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo Files” (originally published on WikiLeaks’ website when the Guantánamo files were first published, as part of my work liaising between WikiLeaks and its media partners):

[T]he “Reasons for Transfer” included in the documents, which have been repeatedly cited by media outlets as an explanation of why the prisoners were transferred to Guantánamo, are, in fact, lies that were grafted onto the prisoners’ files after their arrival at Guantánamo. This is because, contrary to the impression given in the files, no significant screening process took place before the prisoners’ transfer. As Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator who worked in Afghanistan, explained in a book that he wrote about his experiences (The Interrogators), every prisoner who ended up in US custody had to be sent to Guantánamo, even though the majority were not even seized by US forces, but were seized by their Afghan and Pakistani allies at a time when substantial bounty payments for “Al-Qaida and Taliban suspects” were widespread.

In assessing his story, the Task Force described his “claim of traveling to Afghanistan to teach the Koran” as “highly suspect,” although their rationale for doubting him was questionable. Firstly, it was noted that “[t]he only language [he] speaks is Arabic; however, he claims that without a translator, he taught to children who only spoke Pashtu.” This analysis rather shamefully ignores the fact that the Koran, regarded as the literal word of God, is taught and learned in Arabic regardless of whether those learning it are actually Arabic speakers.

Another reason for disputing al-Sulami’s story was that one of the men seized with him apparently “stated that a prison warden instructed the members of [his] group, when they were captured, to claim they were in Afghanistan to teach the Koran,” although this, to be honest, was the kind of reasoning used in the 17th century witch hunts, and it made it impossible for a genuine teacher of the Koran to establish that he was not a liar.

Most alarmingly, however, the main allegations against al-Sulami came, as I suspected, from Yasim Basardah, the most notoriously unreliable witness in Guantánamo — and also from another unreliable witness, a well-known victim of torture. Basardah “reported numerous times that detainee was the commander of approximately 15 fighters responsible for guarding a river crossing leading to a Tora Bora camp,” although no one else said he was, and he “also stated that detainee had become one of [Osama bin Laden]‘s bodyguards while [he] was at Tora Bora.”

This was a typical allegation, as the group of men of which al-Sulami was a part were described as the “Dirty Thirty,” and were all regarded initially as bin Laden bodyguards, although, on close inspection, these claims all seem to have been made either by Basardah or by other prisoners who were tortured, and whose statements are therefore unreliable. Alarmingly, in al-Sulami’s case, an analyst noted that Basardah had “stated that detainee was a bodyguard on only one occasion,” and added, crucially, “In every interview where [Basardah] was questioned on detainee, [he] has changed his story. Detainee’s identity as a bodyguard has not been substantiated through other known sources.”

Basardah also “speculated that detainee probably received special mission training,” and “stated that there was a special group at Al-Farouq that trained and then disappeared,” with “[a]dditional special training for the group” being “conducted at the Kandahar Airport.” He also “stated that detainee once possessed a computer disc showing this training,” and that he “knows important people in Yemen and Afghanistan,” but as the analyst’s comments reveal (above and beyond what is known of Basardah’s general unreliability), all of the above is worthless because he couldn’t even maintain a coherent story when it came to conjuring up information about al-Sulami.

The torture victim who also apparently identified al-Sulami was Abdu Ali al-Haji Sharqawi (ISN 1457, still held, and also identified as Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj), who was tortured in Jordan and in CIA facilities in Afghanistan. His worthless claim was that he “believed detainee went to Afghanistan after 11 September 2001″ (he didn’t), and he also said that he “believed detainee was part of Hamzah al-Qaiti’s  group in Kabul,” because he “saw him at al-Qaiti’s guesthouse.” Al-Sulami said that he hadn’t been in Kabul, but, instead of believing him, the authorities persuaded an Egyptian, Fadel Roda al-Waleeli (ISN 663, released in July 2003, and also identified as Reda Fadel El-Weleli), “met detainee once in Bagram,” prompting an analyst to claim, “This corroborates [Sharqawi]‘s placement of detainee in the Kabul area, which is located near Bagram.”

In conclusion, the Task Force claimed that al-Sulami “continue[d] to hide his true activities while in Afghanistan, such as in which cities and guesthouses he stayed,” adding, “Further exploitation is necessary to assess [his] true threat and intelligence potential.” As the Task Force explained, “Due to the lack of available information about detainee,” JTF-GTMO determined that he was “at least medium intelligence value,” and that he posed “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] been non-compliant and sometimes hostile to the guard force and staff.”

As a result, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of Guantánamo at the time, updating a recommendation for his continued detention at Guantánamo (dated September 19, 2005), repeated that recommendation, although it was also noted, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Sulami] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO).” This was particularly significant because, in a key passage in his file, it was stated, “After the 2002 Saudi delegation visit, [he] was identified by the Saudi Mabahith as one of the seventy-seven Saudi nationals of low intelligence and law enforcement value to the US Government, but whom the Saudi Government would attempt to prosecute if transferred to their custody from JTF-GTMO.” Even so, it took another 11 months for an agreement to be reached that led to his repatriation, when he was put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Abd Al Razaq Al Sharikh (ISN 67, Saudi Arabia) Released September 2007

As I explained in Chapter 5 of The Guantánamo Files, Abd al-Razaq al-Sharikh (also identified as Abdulrazzaq al-Sharikh, and Abd al-Razaq al-Sharekh), who was only 16 years old when he arrived in Afghanistan in late 2000, was the younger brother of another juvenile prisoner, Abdulhadi al-Sharikh (ISN 231, released in September 2007), who was only 17 at the time of his capture. In Guantánamo, al-Sharikh said that he wanted to fight in Chechnya, where another brother had been killed, but explained that, although he wanted to “go over there so I can die and meet up with him,” a friend advised him that he “wouldn’t last one day” in Chechnya, and suggested that he went to Afghanistan instead.

Al-Sharikh also admitted training at Al-Farouq (the main training camp for Arabs, associated with Osama bin Laden in the years before 9/11), and serving on the Taliban front lines with Pakistani members of the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, but insisted that he never fired a weapon at anyone, and that there was little activity until after 9/11, when the Northern Alliance attacked them so hard that they retreated. In his tribunal, he was not questioned about whether he was at Tora Bora, which was taken to be a significant sign of militancy, and said that, instead, he went to Khost via Kandahar, and then crossed into Pakistan, where he was arrested with two Pakistani guides.

As I also explained, in my articles, “The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo,” and “WikiLeaks and the 22 Children of Guantánamo,” despite being a juvenile at the time of his capture, al-Sharikh was not treated differently from the adult population at Guantánamo, according to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which stipulates that juvenile prisoners — those under 18 at the time their alleged crime takes place — “require special protection,” and obliges its signatories to promote “the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict.”

At the time of his release, I told more of his story, explaining how he said that, in Saudi Arabia, “The Muslim scientists, or clergymen, were telling me to fight in Afghanistan. They convinced me to fight there, and told me how to get there, so I went.” Turning to the circumstances of his capture, he denied an allegation that he was “captured by Pakistan police while traveling with a group of Arabs and Afghanis, some of whom were security guards for Osama bin Laden,” saying, “This is not true. When I went to Pakistan, I only had two people with me. When I was turned over, they captured the Arab and Pakistani people. When they sent me to prison, I was taken along with the other group.” He added that he had traveled with two Pakistani guides, and that, after surrendering, he was met by a representative of the Saudi government, who knew of him because “I am from a very well known family.” Despite assurances from the representative that he would help him return to Saudi Arabia, however, he was then handed over to US forces.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Sharikh was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated August 6, 2007, in which he was identified as Abd al-Razzaq al-Sharikh, and it was noted that he was born in January 1984, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he “completed one year of high school and then sold honey outside various mosques near his parents’ home” in Riyadh, but, in early 2000 (when he was mistakenly identified as being 18 years old, even though he was only 16), his brother, identified as Abd Abdallah Ibrahim Latif al-Sharakh (aka Abbad), “was killed while participating in jihad in Chechnya.” It was noted that he “looked up to Abbad and when he heard that Abbad was killed, he became zealous to join the jihad and martyr himself.”

Al-Sharikh stated that he “was not recruited by any organization and did not become a member of Al-Qaida,” and, instead, “decided to travel to Afghanistan (AF) on his own initiative and at the suggestion of his brother’s friends,” who “approached [him] at his brother’s funeral and encouraged him to travel to Afghanistan because the living conditions and training opportunities were better there than in Chechnya.” His brother’s friends arranged for him to travel with another individual (perhaps because of his age), and in early December 2000, the two flew to Karachi, and then on, via the Taliban’s office in Quetta, to Kandahar, and a compound near Kandahar airport, where al-Sharikh spent a week before training at Al-Farouq.

He said that he spent a few months training, and then traveled to “a location a short distance behind the front line at Bagram,” where he “rotated between the front and secondary battle lines for approximately eight or nine months until the Bagram line fell to the Northern Alliance and the order came to retreat.” He and four other individuals then “started back to Kandahar, but because of Coalition bombing, they diverted to Khost,” where he stayed “for approximately ten days before he heard that all Arabs needed to make their way to Pakistan.” He then set off for Pakistan on foot with two Afghans, presumably as guides, and said that, after eight days, he “joined a group of 20 to 30 other Arabs who hiked to Pakistan through the Tora Bora Mountains.”

It was also noted that, on December 15, 2001, the day after this group arrived in Parachinar, they were seized by the Pakistani authorities. The Task Force claimed that he was apprehended “with a group of 31 other Arabs, which consisted mostly of [Osama bin Laden] bodyguards, but this was not necessarily a reliable assessment, as will be noted below. The group was then transferred to a prison in Peshawar, where al-Sharikh was held until he was transferred to Kandahar on December 26, 2001. He was sent to Guantánamo on January 17, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information about the following: Terrorist recruitment of Muslim foreign nationals attending the Hajj in Saudi Arabia.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force was dubious about his claim that he was not a member of Al-Qaida, claiming that, as well as traveling to Afghanistan and taking part in training and combat, as he acknowledged, he had also been “selected by senior Al-Qaida leaders” for a terrorist attack on the Prince Sultan Air base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia, and had “also acknowledged having been present at Tora Bora during meetings of senior Al-Qaida commanders during the battle.”

It was also noted that he had “reported about his brother,” and had “provided much of what [was] known about [his] timeline,” but “continue[d] to omit specific details regarding [his brother]‘s activities and his associates at Tora Bora.” Moreover, the Task Force claimed that he had “not acknowledged being a UBL [Osama bin Laden] bodyguard or a member of UBL’s security detail,” and noted that he had “provided very little information of value about UBL, Sayf al-Adl, or other senior Al-Qaida figures to whom he had access, and it is not clear whether he has no valuable information about them or if he is deliberately withholding important information.”

In seeking to justify its claims, the Task Force drew on some distinctly dubious witnesses. One was Abu Zubaydah (ISN 10016, still held), the supposed “high-value detainee” for whom the US torture program was specifically developed, who said that he recalled al-Sharikh and his brother paying for specialized training, and another was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (ISN 212, but never held at Guantánamo), a particularly important “high-value detainee,” who was the emir of the Khaldan training camp until it was closed by the Taliban in 2000, after he refused to allow it to be taken over by Osama bin Laden. Al-Libi’s torture in Egypt in 2002 led to a false confession that Al-Qaida operatives had been meeting with Saddam Hussein to discuss obtaining chemical and biological weapons, which was then used to justify the invasion of Iraq, even though al-Libi retracted it. Sent back to Libya after several years in secret CIA prisons, al-Libi died in Gaddafi’s Abu Salim prison in May 2009, reportedly by committing suicide, although observers believed that he had been killed.

Despite his conflict with bin Laden, al-Libi was described as “a trusted Al-Qaida senior trainer and commander,” and it was claimed that, “while providing explosives training at Al-Farouq in April 2001, he was directed by senior Al-Qaida operative Abu Hafs al-Masri to provide specialized training to two Saudi nationals named Akrima and Hammam” — identified as the aliases of al-Sharikh and his brother — and that he “provided the training at a special site for three days,” after which they were “to conduct attacks against a US military base in Saudi Arabia.”

Another dubious witness, and well known as an unreliable witness in Guantánamo, was Abd al-Hakim Bukhari (ISN 493, released in September 2007), who, ludicrously, was described as an “[a]ssessed Al-Qaida operative,” even though he had been imprisoned and tortured by Al-Qaida as an alleged spy. Bukhari apparently identified al-Sharikh and his brother “as having connections to terrorist cells in the US and the United Kingdom.”

Another even more unreliable witness was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), a Yemeni known as the most prolific and unreliable witness in Guantánamo, who claimed that al-Sharikh was “a jihadist from Saudi Arabia who belonged to the Mehjin Center (camp of fighters) in Tora Bora,” and “further stated” that Yahya al-Salmi (ISN 66, also identified as al-Sulami, see above) “became the leader of the Mehjin Center after Mehjin died, and that [al-Sharikh] was [his] deputy. He also claimed that al-Sharikh, along with al-Sulami, “commanded approximately 15 fighters responsible for guarding a river crossing leading to a Tora Bora camp.”

The claim that al-Sharikh “stated he witnessed a meeting held in Tora Bora,” which included various Al-Qaida leaders, prompted an analyst to note that it was “unlikely [he] would be allowed to witness a high-level meeting if he did not hold a position of authority or trust among the senior Al-Qaida commanders at Tora Bora.”

Some of the allegations above may well have been true, but it was disturbing how many were produced by notoriously unreliable witnesses, and how few came from al-Sharikh himself. Nevertheless, it was clear that there were reasons to regard him as suspicious, because, as the Task Force also noted, “Prior to the visit of a Saudi government delegation to JTF-GTMO in 2002, the Saudi government provided information about 37 detainees whom they designated as high priority. Detainee was number one on that list.”

In conclusion, he was assessed as being “of high intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed to be a low threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been mostly compliant and rarely hostile to the guard force and staff,” and, as a result, Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, updating a recommendation for his continued detention at Guantánamo (dated August 3, 2006), repeated that recommendation, and it is unclear why he was released the next month.

After his release, and after he had been put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program, the Pentagon claimed that al-Sharikh became involved in providing support to terrorists. In May 2009, the Pentagon produced a fact sheet, “Former Guantánamo Detainee Terrorism Trends” (PDF), in which it was claimed that he had been “arrested in September 2008 for supporting terrorism,” although this was not listed as “confirmed” but only as “suspected.” No further information has been provided to justify this claim, and it may be that he was included because, in February 2009, one of his brothers, Abdulmohsin al-Sharikh, was listed as one of Saudi Arabia’s 85 most wanted terror suspects.

Khalid Al Bawardi (ISN 68, Saudi Arabia) Released November 2007

As I explained in Chapter 5 of The Guantánamo Files, Khalid al-Bawardi, who was 24 years old at the time of his capture, told his tribunal at Guantánamo the most complete tale of being a missionary, which he related with a superior moral tone that was both pompous and convincing. He explained that he took a vacation from his job with the Chamber of Commerce, and went to Pakistan to find people who were receptive to the idea of dawa, which he described as correcting the mistakes of Muslims who have “strayed from the path of righteousness.”

He then gave his tribunal a lecture on Jamaat al-Tablighi, the vast missionary organization, saying that, although he met Tablighi representatives in Pakistan, “They have certain procedures that they are tied down by and the procedures they follow are wrong in our religion. Their work is good and it’s correct but they make some mistakes,” adding, “You are not able to understand this or get a whole clear picture because you don’t have a complete picture of Jamaat-al-Tablighi. Besides that, you have to know Islam to know what is right and what is wrong.”

Having decided to work on his own, he said he traveled around Pakistani villages with a guide, correcting people’s mistakes (particularly to do with raised graves and good luck charms), and then went to Kabul, where the people were more in need of his help. When the war started, he was advised to leave the country, and, after explaining that he suspected that his landlord stole his bag, which contained his passport, he described a difficult journey to the border, in which a man who gave him a lift in a car “forcefully told me to get out” in the desert, and a young Afghan who took him into his house also asked him to leave “I told him I wanted this and that and he said he was poor and that he couldn’t help me,” he said. After finding a guide, he was arrested crossing the border.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Bawardi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated October 6, 2006, in which it was noted that he was born in November 1972, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that, after quitting school, he “became a telephone operator and receptionist in the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce,” and then, after about a year, “quit work and sold vegetables for a few months.” On an unknown date, he traveled to Dubai, “to conduct missionary work and teach the Koran,” and at some point “read an old fatwa” issued by a sheikh, which “directed all pious men to travel abroad and perform missionary work in underdeveloped Islamic countries,” which he took to mean places such as Afghanistan or Pakistan. Pointing out that “there was no mention of jihad in the fatwa,” he said he chose to travel to Pakistan, and flew to Karachi in approximately May 2001.

On arrival, he said that he met an Afghan named Muhammad, who offered to be his guide. He said he “spent approximately one month in the Karachi area teaching the Koran in small unnamed villages,” while Muhammad translated for him. In approximately June or July 2001, Muhammad told him “they could do great work in Afghanistan and suggested they go there,” and he and Muhammad then traveled to Kabul, where he “facilitated discussion groups on Islam for four months,” but, in October 2001, “after the air war started,” he “decided go back to Saudi Arabia and left Kabul without Muhammad.”

Essentially telling the same story he later told his tribunal at Guantánamo, he said that, after “seeking out someone to help him leave Afghanistan, [he] returned to his apartment in Kabul to find all of his possessions, including his passport, stolen in his absence.” He then set off for Pakistan “by car, but his Afghani driver left him somewhere on the road between Kabul and the Pakistan border in fear of being seen with an Arab.” He then “walked for some time before reaching a small village where he stayed for three or four weeks.” Sometime in November 2001, with an Afghan guide, he “left on foot for the border,” but, on the way, “ran into and joined a larger group of 10 to 23 male refugees heading toward Pakistan.” He said that he traveled with this group for about a week until they were seized by Pakistani border officials, and added that he “was held for a few days in a Pakistani jail and questioned by Saudi officials,” and then, on December 27, 2001, was transferred to US custody.

He was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, and the Task Force provided the following explanation, which, unusually, added analysis from Guantánamo to the spurious information compiled in Afghanistan: “Detainee’s transfer was likely due to the perceived association between him and the 30 UBL [Osama bin Laden] bodyguards, Al-Qaida members, and Taliban fighters with whom he was arrested. However, initial reports suggested he was able to provide information on the following: Effect of the civil war on religion and ethnicity as they affect regional security issues.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that he was “utilizing a cover story passed to him while in a Pakistani prison,” noting that a fellow prisoner had “stated that a prison warden instructed members of [his] captured group to claim they were in Afghanistan to teach the Koran,” and adding that it was assessed that he “continue[d] to hide his true activities.” To reach these conclusions, however, the Task Force relied on a number of dubious witnesses.

One was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), well known as the most prolific and unreliable witness in Guantánamo, who “stated detainee trained at Al-Qaida’s Al-Farouq Camp for three weeks, two months before the US bombing campaign started in October 2001,” and “also identified detainee as fighting in the Quodous area” (noted by an analyst as “a likely reference to the center in Tora Bora commanded by Al-Qaida member Abdul Qadoos”) “and as being in charge of determining where to dig caves and bunkers.”

Another unreliable witness was Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held, and also identified as Maad al-Qahtani), who said he “met detainee in Tora Bora.” An analyst described al-Qahtani as “a confirmed Al-Qaida operative with direct ties to senior Al-Qaida leadership, including UBL [Osama bin Laden] and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad,” but he is more generally known as the most notorious victim of torture in Guantánamo.

It was also claimed that variations on his name had been found on various documents seized in raids on houses connected with Al-Qaida, and this led to a far-fetched claim that he “may have been an Al-Qaida facilitator,” because a “variation of [his] alias, Abu Khalid al-Tamimi, [was] the same as that used by a facilitator of a 1998 suicide plot against a US tanker ship in the Straits of Gibraltar.”

In conclusion, he was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” He was also “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been semi-compliant but mostly hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a previous recommendation for his continued detention at Guantánamo (dated October 15, 2005), repeated that recommendation, although, crucially, he added, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Bawardi] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO),” although it took another 13 months for that agreement to be reached, and for him to be repatriated, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

In an interview in January 2010, al-Bawardi spoke to the Daily Telegraph, and claimed that he had, in fact, traveled to Afghanistan for jihad. As the article noted, “Bored, depressed and stuck in a dead-end job, Khaled al-Bawardi spent just a few hours watching jihadi videos to convince himself that he wanted to fight for militant Islam. It took another six years in Guantánamo Bay, plus a year in religious rehab in Saudi Arabia, to realize there might be better career options.”

Al-Bawardi said, “When I was young, I thought these people were angels and we had to follow them. Now, though, I can see between right and wrong.” The article also stated, “Quietly-spoken, and dressed in a traditional Arab robe and keffiya, Mr. Bawardi is an alumnus of the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care outside Riyadh, where for the last two years, batches of former Guantánamo inmates have undergone religious ‘deprogramming’ in exchange for their liberty.” The article also noted differing points of view about the program, stating that, “although there is widespread agreement that the battleground lies as much in the mind as in the streets, mountains or deserts, debate remains as to whether Saudi-style rehab programmes are the right answer. Critics contend that the Prince Mohammed project’s softly-softly approach is simply a way for Saudi’s rulers to sweep dissent under the carpet, and that it is far too easy for inmates to simply pretend they have reformed. Its backers, though, say there is little alternative — punishment, after all, is a limited sanction against a movement that thrives on martyrdom.” In contrast, “Saudi officials maintain that only a tiny minority of the programme’s 120 former Guantanamo inmates are known to have reoffended — while the rest are, they claim, helping to combat the spread of Al-Qaida’s ideology. Defeating that, they point out, is the only sure route to vanquishing Al-Qaida permanently.”

Sadeq Mohammed Said Ismail (ISN 69, Yemen) Released June 2007

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (9) – Seized in Pakistan (Part One)” and in an article at the time of his release, I explained how, according to his account at Guantánamo, Ismail (also identified as Sadeq Mohammed Said), who was born in 1982, and was therefore 19 years old at the time of his capture, was accused of traveling to Afghanistan in May 2001 and serving as a courier for the Taliban. Although he had been injured in an aerial bombing attack near Khost, and was captured after crossing the border into Pakistan, the US authorities managed to claim, based on an unsubstantiated allegation, presumably from another prisoner, that he was captured in Tora Bora, during the showdown in November and December 2001 between Al-Qaida and Taliban forces, and the US military and their Afghan proxies, when Osama bin Laden and the senior leadership of Al-Qaida slipped away across the unguarded border to Pakistan.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Ismail was a brief “Administrative Review Board Input,” dated November 12, 2004, in which Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended to his military review board that he be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention (TRCD).”

Little information was provided in this document, although it was noted that, according to the Task Force’s assessment, he “traveled to Afghanistan for the purpose of receiving military training; however, he claims to have received no training.” The allegation that he was a courier was also mentioned, as it was claimed that, “While in Afghanistan, [he] participated in escort or courier operations between Kandahar and Kabul for the Taliban for several months until the US bombing campaign began in the area.”

The Tora Bora allegation was not mentioned, but it was noted that the Task Force assessed him “as being very deceptive, as he ha[d] not been forthcoming during debriefings,” was “very uncooperative,” and gave “conflicting information.”

It was also noted that, in his “Most Recent JTF GTMO Assessment, signed on 6 September 2003,” which also recommended his transfer to the control of another country for continued detention, he was assessed as being of low intelligence value and a medium threat. Despite the recommendation for his transfer, however, he was not released for another two years and seven months, and three years and nine months after he was first recommended for transfer.

After his return from Guantánamo, in an interview with Gulf News following his release from four months in Yemeni detention on October 12, 2007, he told reporter Nasser Arrabyee that “he did not know why he was arrested in the first place, and why he was released.” Identified as Sadeq Mohammad Saeed, he told a different story abut his capture, claiming that he “was arrested along with his compatriots in Afghanistan from a hospital where he was undergoing treatment for injuries he suffered in a battle more than six years ago.”

Arrabyee explained that, just hours after arriving at his home in Ibb city, “he was receiving visitors who came for a welcome ceremony,” and was dressed “in smart traditional Yemeni clothes and sporting a long beard.” His brothers “were introducing him to those who came to the house, many of whom were strangers.” Some were relatives of other Guantánamo prisoners. She noted that, although he “was initially reluctant to speak to the journalists,” he “gave in after some persuasion by his brothers and spoke to Gulf News,” focusing on what he called a “letter to the Americans and the world,” in which, with some defiance, he “said he and his companions were engaged in ‘jihad’ since they left [their] homes and families and would continue doing so as long as they live.” That may have been bravado, to be honest, although it may also have got him labeled as a suspected recidivist by the US authorities.

Explaining more, he said, “I traveled to Pakistan and from there to Afghanistan and then I joined one of the Taliban battlelines.” As Arrabyee described it, he “refused to delve into the bodily abuses he suffered while in Guantánamo, but spoke about abuses against religion inflicted on all detainees,” and said, “The abuses targeted religion, reviling God, and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and his companions and the believers. Some brothers were subjected to psychological and physical torture because they were Muslims. There were a lot of abuses, and it is enough to say they were directed at Allah, his prophet and the believers.”

He added that “he was not sure of his future plans,” and explained, “I cannot say anything right now. I’m still a stranger on this land, I’m a new-born, I cannot say I can do this and that.” Arrabyee noted that he “traveled to Afghanistan before completing his secondary school.”

In a final rhetorical flourish that can only have alarmed the US authorities, fearful of retribution and unable to understand the desire of some Muslims to fight in other Muslim countries, one of his brothers, Rashad Mohammad Saeed, who had traveled to Afghanistan for jihad, said, “Let the Americans know that jihadists are respected in their nations and they are not killers or criminals.” As Gulf News put it, “he exhorted Muslims to rise in revolt against the Bush administration which spends billions of dollars to destroy Taliban and Al-Qaida,” saying, “These attempts are only making the Taliban and Al-Qaida stronger and stronger.”

Mishal Saad Al Rashid (ISN 74, Saudi Arabia) Released December 2007

As I explained in Chapter 2 of The Guantánamo Files, and in an article at the time of his release, Mishal Saad al-Rashid (misidentified by his captors as Mesh Arsad al-Rashid), who was 21 years old at the time of his capture, was typical of numerous men captured and sent to Guantánamo, in his insistence that he went to Afghanistan, over a year “before any problem happened in America,” to help the Taliban fight General Dostum and Ahmed Shah Massoud of the Northern Alliance.

He was confused that the Northern Alliance had formed a coalition with the United States, as the only coalition that he knew of was between the Northern Alliance and Russia. Although this misconception, repeated by several other prisoners, was partly due to the propaganda issued by pro-Taliban sheikhs in Saudi Arabia, it also had some basis in fact, at least in the case of Dostum, who had fought with the Russians during the Soviet invasion, before switching sides in the early 1990s.

In his tribunal at Guantánamo, al-Rashid accepted an allegation that he was a member of the Taliban (but not Al-Qaida), and also acknowledged that he had received military training in Afghanistan. He was one of several hundred Taliban fighters who surrendered after the fall of Kunduz, believing that they would be freed after handing over their weapons, but who discovered, instead, that they were to be imprisoned in Qala-i-Janghi, a fortress run by General Dostum. After the prisoners were tied up and taken for questioning, some of them, fearing that they were about to be killed, staged an uprising, which was put down by the Northern Alliance, backed up by US and British Special Forces, and supported by American bombing raids, in which the majority of the prisoners were killed. In the end, a week after the uprising began, 86 survivors emerged from the basement, who had survived being bombed and flooded.

At Guantánamo, when asked about the “uprising,” al-Rashid, who was injured in his thigh and shoulder, said, “What uprising? We didn’t do any uprising. We had given up our weapons, so how could we be part of an uprising? They [Dostum's troops] were the ones that had the weapons. We tried to defend ourselves but we couldn’t, because they had all the weapons.” He added that accusing men who were tied up of using weapons was a sure sign of the “betrayal” that had taken place in the fort.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Rashid was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated April 28, 2007, in which it was noted that he was born in 1980, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he attended elementary school but “acquired no further formal education,” and, from 1995 to 2000, worked as a guard at a palace. Around March 2000, he responded to a fatwa “telling Muslims to support the Taliban in Afghanistan against the NA [Northern Alliance],” and also “heard about religious persecution of Muslims in Afghanistan,” and, as a result, he quit his job and traveled to Qatar, intending to take a flight to Pakistan. For reasons that were not explained, he and a new friend he met en route were unable to fly to Pakistan, and so they returned to Saudi Arabia, where they succeeded in taking a flight to Islamabad instead. They then made their way to Peshawar, where “they spoke with a Pakistani about their desire to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban,” and he “helped them cross the border into Afghanistan and escorted them to a Taliban house in Kandahar.”

He attended training at Al-Farouq (the main training camp for Arabs, associated with Osama bin Laden in the years before 9/11), and was then “assigned to the reserve lines (secondary line) for several months.” He then traveled to the front lines in the Khawaja Ghar region, where, with other Arabs, he fought alongside the Taliban. After the Taliban withdrew (as the Northern Alliance advanced), he and others retreated to a Taliban house in Kunduz, where his commander, Mullah Thaker, told the them to surrender and said that “they would be allowed to return to their country.” It is not known whether Thaker knew this to be untrue, but after surrendering, they were taken to Qala-i-Janghi, where he “was shot in the left leg and under his right arm.”

After he and the other survivors were moved to General Dostum’s prison at Sheberghan, he was transferred to the US prison at Kandahar airport on December 29, 2001, and was sent to Guantánamo on February 13, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: The uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif [and] Taliban membership.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he had “denied having knowledge of any of the detainees that ha[d] identified him,” had “failed to provide any detailed information concerning his activities and associates while in Afghanistan,” and had “provided inconsistent information about his personal history.” Nevertheless, there was nothing about his story to demonstrate that he was anything more than a simple foot soldier, but the Task Force managed to come up with an alternative account from Ali al-Tayeea (ISN 111, released in January 2009), a talkative Iraqi known as one of the most unreliable witnesses in Guantánamo.

Al-Tayeea claimed that al-Rashid “worked with wireless communication systems,” and “reported that detainee was responsible for transporting trainees between Kabul and Al-Farouq, and served as Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi’s liaison when he came to the camp (al-Iraqi, ISN 10026, who was moved to Guantánamo in 2007, and is still held, was described as “one of [Osama bin Laden]‘s closest commanders and the person in charge of non-Afghan Taliban troops and Al-Qaida fighters that made up the 55th Arab Brigade on the Afghanistan northern front”). Al-Tayeea also stated that al-Rashid “reportedly collected intelligence on trainees and soldiers for al-Iraqi and that the two men had frequent contact.”

To be fair, although an analyst noted that “[t]his reporting indicate[d] detainee had direct access to al-Iraqi and served in a significant role in UBL’s 55th Arab Brigade, possibly as a counterintelligence officer,” the analyst also noted that al-Rashid’s “close association to al-Iraqi” was “uncorroborated by other sources and require[d] further exploitation,” although anyone reading just the start of the 10-page file would not have known this, as, in an “executive summary,” it was stated simply that he “may have served as a counterintelligence or intelligence officer,” and “may have served as a liaison for senior Al-Qaida leader Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi at the Al-Farouq Training Camp.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of high intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” although one reason for regarding him as a risk was because he had cursed an interrogator during a session in 2003. While this was not actually indicative of anything but frustration, an analyst claimed that, “While this can be construed as only rhetoric, it also denotes the detainee’s inclination to continue to wage or support jihad in the future.” Al-Rashid was also “assessed to be a medium threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] been semi-compliant and rarely hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a previous recommendation for his continued detention at Guantánamo (dated April 14, 2006), repeated that recommendation, although he was released just eight months later, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Rukniddin Sharopov (ISN 76, Tajikistan) Released February 2007

As I explained in an article after his release, Rukniddin Sharopov, who was born in 1981 (although the US authorities initially stated that he was born in 1973), claimed in Guantánamo that, because he wanted to earn some money, he agreed to “serve for the army of Tajikistan’s government.” He said that he believed that he would be serving in Lajerg in Tajikistan, but was “tricked” into fighting with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a close ally of the Taliban in the fight against the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan, and serving in Afghanistan instead. He explained that, in Lajerg, he found himself in a camp run by the IMU, where his passport was taken away from him, and one of the organization’s leaders, a man called Rostum, “told him it was better if he went into the military.” As a result, he said, he was sent to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against General Dostum’s Uzbek faction of the Northern Alliance.

He then explained that he was a passenger on a truck containing Uzbek soldiers — not Taliban, as alleged by the US authorities — who surrendered to Dostum’s forces in a compound in Khawaja Ghar, near the border with Tajikistan, and added that, although he had no criminal record in Tajikistan, he believed that this might cause a problem for him in his home country. “This is one thing the interrogators told me,” he said. “The interrogator told me it would be a problem for me if I went back to Tajikistan because I was with the Uzbek community.” He denied receiving training at Lajerg, as, he said, he had received some mandatory training in Tajikistan, and he added that he didn’t like to shoot guns and that at the camp he collected wood for the fire. “I never fought before and I am not going to fight after this. I have never fought in my life,” he stated.

After his capture, he was taken to Qala-i-Janghi, a fort in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, and was one of only 86 men — out of a total of around 450 foreign fighters — who survived a notorious massacre in the fort. This followed an uprising by a number of the prisoners, who feared that they were about to be shot. He said that he did not take part in the uprising, but was in the basement when it was flooded by the Northern Alliance and the US Special Forces, and that some soldiers untied his hands and “put something around my injury.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Sharopov was an “Update Recommendation to Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated August 3, 2005, in which he was identified as Rukniddin Sharipov, and was noted that he was born in September 1981, and was “in good health,” although it was also noted that he “complained of chest pain a few times,” although there had “not been findings on chest X-rays,” and that he “was on a hunger strike in Oct 02.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account and mostly corresponding with what he told his tribunal at Guantánamo, the Joint Task Force noted that he was sent to school in Pakistan “when he was five and remained there until age 15,” and then “attended Government Degree College, where he studied Civics, Pashtu, and History.” He apparently “stated he returned to Isfara when he and a friend, Tsabit Vakhidov” (ISN 90, see below, also identified as Muqit Vohidov and Wahldof Abdul Mokit) and another friend, identified only as Farad, “were recruited for service with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),” described by the US authorities as “a Tier 1 counterterrorism target, defined as terrorist groups, especially those with state support, that have demonstrated the intention and the capability to attack US persons or interests.”

He apparently said that the three of them “left Isfara by train destined for Russia to find work,” but “[w]hile they were at the train station in Dushanbe,” they “met a man by the name of Rostam who recruited them to join what they believed to be the Tajikistan military,” and “told them that they would be paid USD $300 a month in wages if they joined.” After they agreed, they went to Tavildara, also in Tajikistan, where they “arrived at an Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) training camp.”

There, he said, there were about 200 soldiers, and, after he received a few days’ military training, “he stood guard at the main gate of the camp.” He and the others were then flown to Kunduz “in helicopters provided by the Tajikistan government,” although he “did not know where he was flying,” and was only told that “he was going to a warmer place.” He added that he believed he arrived in Afghanistan sometime after Ramadan in 2000.

When it came to the circumstances of his capture, it was stated that he traveled with other IMU fighters from Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif,” but were told to surrender to Dostum’s forces just before arriving. The Task Force noted that he “was present at the Mazar-e-Sharif prison uprising,” and also noted that he stated that he “had his hands tied behind his back and was on his knees when fighting started in the prison.” He added that he “began to run and was wounded,” and “received three shrapnel wounds on his right foot.” It was also noted, “During the fighting, he went back to the house and went into the basement where there were many other Pakistani and Arabic-speaking prisoners. Only one of the prisoners in the basement had a Kalashnikov. [He] heard that Dostum’s forces threw a grenade into the house, [which] killed some of the prisoners in the basement and injured others. [He] spent about 5-6 days in the basement.”

He was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Detainee may be able to provide general to specific information on the training and relocation of Tajik youth into Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban [and] Detainee may be able to provide general to specific information on the unit that formed the Uzbek movement in Mazar-e-Sharif.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he had “admitted being an IMU member,” and assessed that he and Vakhidov “were both recruited to join the IMU prior to leaving their homes,” because, although both men “stated that they were headed for ‘Russia’ to seek jobs,” neither “had a specific destination in Russia.” It was also claimed that Sharopov “did not explain where they got finances to take the train,” and It was “much more likely that someone in their village recruited them and that ‘Rostam’ was scheduled to meet with them on the train and escort them to the Tajikistan training camp.”

This may have been so, but it still didn’t demonstrate that Sharopov was anything more than a simple foot soldier. The Task Force concluded that he was only “of low intelligence value,” and only posed “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” although officials also claimed that he had been “indoctrinated into the Islamic extremist ideology and knowingly joined the IMU for jihadist purposes,” which I do not believe had been established. It was also noted that his “overall behavior pattern ha[d] been compliant with spikes in aggression, with the most reports coming from harassment of the guard force.” As a result, Brig. Gen. Hood recommended his transfer to continued detention in Tajkistan, even though it was also noted that he was “a fugitive from Tajikistan and [was] wanted for violating Tajikistan’s laws and international orders,” which indicated that he would be treated very poorly if repatriated.

Sure enough, after his release, Sharopov and Muqit Vohidov (aka Tsabit Vakhidov) were tried and sentenced to 17 years in “high-security penal colonies” (aka labor camps) for “serving as mercenaries in Afghanistan” and aiding the Taliban by fighting for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and for taking part in “illegal border crossing.” After passing sentence, the Supreme Court judge, Musammir Uroqov, said that both men had maintained their innocence, and added, “In their last words, they said they didn’t expect such consequences for acts they committed.” However, according to RFE/RL, the judge was satisfied that “investigations carried out in Vohidov and Sharopov’s native Isfara region proved that both men [had] been involved with the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.”

In June 2010, as I explained here, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting revisited the story, explaining how the men’s families had been campaigning for a review of the verdict, and how prosecutors were possibly prepared to review the case. Although arguments were made that the sentence was justified because the men “committed acts that violate national law,” it was also noted that the time they served in Guantánamo was not taken into account during the sentencing.

Moreover, as I explained, other observers remained deeply critical, and their insights reflected badly not only on the Tajik authorities but also on the US government. As the IWPR article explained, Payam Foroughi, until recently a human rights officer with the OSCE in Tajikistan, “believes due process was not followed,” pointing out that the men “had not enough, or any, time to sufficiently and seriously discuss and properly prepare their case with a lawyer — and one of their choice — prior to their court hearing.” He also believed that the court “should have probed further into the allegation that Vohidov and Sharopov willingly became members of the IMU,” adding, “If anything, the evidence points to them having been victims of human trafficking.”

Criticism of the US came, inadvertently, from the judge in the men’s trial in 2007, who told IWPR, “We could not determine, even from the defendants, on what legal basis they were detained at and released from Guantánamo. We could not get hold of any documents. So we reached a verdict based on the documents that we had.” Highlighting this problem more explicitly, a local lawyer told IWPR that “the lack of documentation from Guantánamo was a recurring problem in countries to which detainees are repatriated.” He might have added that in most countries the authorities’ response was to let the men go.

In August 2011, RFE/RL reported that, for the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence, on September 9, 2011, human rights activists and lawyers were calling on the Tajik president to consider releasing the two former Guantánamo prisoners as part of an amnesty, noting, “Some 8,000 prisoners are expected to be set free to mark the occasion. Unofficial estimates suggest there are currently 13,000 people imprisoned in Tajikistan. There have been 11 amnesties in Tajikistan over the past 20 years. In the most recent, in November 2009, some 10,000 prisoners were released.”

The article stated, “Human Rights Watch, two prominent American lawyers, and a legal expert from Columbia University in New York have sent letters to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon making the case for Rukniddin Sharopov’s and Abdumuqit Vohidov’s release.” Chicago-based attorney Matthew J. O’Hara wrote, “It is my expert opinion that a great injustice has been done on the two.” He explained that it was probable that the two men “did not traverse the international border by will,” and, as RFE/RL added, “Sharopov and Vohidov maintain that they have never killed anyone, or been involved in terrorist activities or acts of violence.”

In their letter, Human Rights Watch stated, “Neither US, nor Tajik authorities provided any sound evidences of Sharopov’s and Vokhidov’s belonging to terrorist activity and crimes. We hope that the forthcoming amnesty law will also cover ex-prisoners of the Guantanamo Bay, who were accused of murder, and hope that Vokhidov’s and Sharopov’s appeals for amnesty will be carefully examined.” However, there has been no further news since August 2011.

Mehrabanb Fazrollah (ISN 77, Tajikistan) Released February 2007

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (1) – The Qala-i-Janghi Massacre,” I explained how Mehrabanb Fazrollah, who was 39 years old at the time of his capture, was subjected to a particularly thin set of allegations in Guantánamo: that he traveled to Afghanistan in April 2001, that he “admitted to fighting with the Taliban,” and that he was captured with a Kalashnikov and ammunition.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Fazrollah  was an “Update Recommendation for Transfer to the Control of Another Country with Conditions (TWC), Subject to the Conclusion of an Acceptable Transfer Agreement,” dated August 28, 2005, in which he was also identified as Mehrabon Faizulloh Odinaev, and it was noted that he was born in October 1962, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, it was noted that he served in the Russian Army from 1981 to 1983 (but did not serve in Afghanistan), and then “received training as a bus driver and an auto mechanic,” but “also worked at an oil refinery, on a collective farm producing cotton, and in a fruit delivery business.” From 1992 to 1994, during the Tajik civil war, he lived in Afghanistan for three months, and then “became a refugee and moved to a refugee camp near the Kunduz airport.” After the civil war he returned to Dushanbe, and, in 2000, “sent his ten-year old son with a group of Tajik youths” to study at a madrassa in Karachi.

In March or April 2001, he said, he decided to visit his son. Traveling to Pakistan via Afghanistan, he spent a week with old friends, and “continued his travels with stops in Kunduz and Kabul.” After locating his son in May, he spent a month with him and then set off back for Tajikistan. However, he said that he was unable to find anyone to help him cross the river to get back to Tajikistan (which was a dangerous and illegal crossing), so he remained in an Afghan village until early November 2001, when he “decided to depart for Kunduz because the Northern Alliance arrived and were arresting people who did not have identification.” There, he said, he stayed in a refugee camp for ten days, but was then picked up by Northern Alliance troops.

They told him that “they would bring him and several others to a safe place,” but, instead, took them to Qala-i-Janghi, an ancient fort in the possession of the warlord General Rashid Dostum, where he survived the massacre that resulted after some of the hundreds of prisoners started an uprising, fearing that they were about to be shot. He was one of 86 survivors, who hid in a basement where they were bombed and flooded, but no mention was made of it in his file. He was then moved to Dostum’s prison at Sherberghan, before being transferred to US custody at the Kandahar detention facility. He was sent to Guantánamo on May 10, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: The prison uprising at Mazar-e-Sharif, Tajiki refugees residing in Afghanistan [and] A madrassa in Karachi, PK.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force provided a conflicting account to his own, noting that he was “assessed as a low-level member of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan (IMT), which is allied with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),” and also noting that he “admitted he fought alongside the Taliban against Northern Alliance forces and fled after the collapse of the Taliban.” The IMU was described by the US authorities as “a Tier 1 counterterrorism target, defined as terrorist groups, especially those with state support, that have demonstrated the intention and the capability to attack US persons or interests,” but even so, he was regarded as not being of major significance.

The Task Force also claimed that he had “not been forthright during debriefings,” and regarded his story of visiting his son as “a cover story,” but in conclusion he was only assessed as being “of low intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed as a low threat from a detention perspective,” because his ”overall behavior ha[d] been non-hostile and compliant,” and, as a result, Maj. Gen. Hood, updating a recommendation for his “Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention” (dated May 5, 2004), recommended him for transfer with conditions, although he was not released for another year and a half.

Fahed Al Harazi (ISN 79, Saudi Arabia) Released September 2007

In Chapter 2 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Fahed al-Harazi, who was 23 years old at the time of his capture, was accused of travelling to Afghanistan in March 2001 and — with remarkable speed — becoming a trainer at Al-Farouq, the main training camp for Arabs, associated with Osama bin Laden in the years before 9/11.

in an article at the time of his release, I expanded on his story, noting that, although he had secured legal representation by the time he was released, he had refused to meet his lawyers, and had also refused to take part in either his tribunal or his review boards, so that the allegations against him went unanswered. While the first set of allegations — that he traveled to Afghanistan in March 2001 “to fight the jihad,” attended “an Al-Qaida affiliated camp,” fought on the front lines against the Northern Alliance, and was wounded in Qala-i-Janghi — seem plausible, the additional claims — that he was actually a trainer at Al-Farouq, and that his name was found on a document at the “Military Committee al-Mujahideen Affairs Office,” which contained “nominees for the Al-Qaida Trainers Preparation Center” — appeared more dubious.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Harazi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated June 19, 2007, in which he was also identified as Fahd al-Harazi, and it was noted that he was born in November 1978, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he “completed at least 15 years of school,” although he “held no job after graduation, but spent his time with ‘non-religious’ friends.” However, he regularly “attended a masque next door to his residence in Mecca,” and there “met a Pakistani named Abdul Jalil who told [him] he needed to go and fight in jihad.” Another individual, named Majid, then “told [him] that they both could go to Afghanistan and then return to Saudi Arabia after only a short time,” and he “managed their travel, obtained Pakistani visas, and paid for all travel expenses.” In March 2001, they flew to Karachi, and then on to Quetta, Kandahar and Kabul.

In Kabul, he said, he and Majid “attended two weeks of military training, which consisted of instruction on small arms and grenades,” and were then sent to Kunduz. They “arrived at a Taliban guesthouse in Kunduz the first week in May 2001,” and al-Harazi said that “[b]etween five and 20 Taliban soldiers were resting at this guesthouse at various times.” After a week, he “and his two associates traveled to the second line, about three miles to the rear of the Taliban front lines.” He ”claimed he went to the front lines on five or six occasions with his AK-47 but never fired his weapon nor did he see any fighting,” and remained on the lines until he was instructed to retreat to Kunduz (he said this was late August 2001, but it was almost certainly November).

Two weeks later, the Taliban surrendered to the Northern Alliance, and he “was told they could surrender and were guaranteed safe travel through Mazar-e-Sharif, AF, to Herat, AF,” but Northern Alliance forces under the warlord General Rashid Dostum apparently captured him and others on November 24, 2001, and took them to Qala-i-Janghi, where a massacre of prisoners took place, after some of them staged an uprising, fearing that they were about to be shot.

As the Task Force described it in al-Harazi’s file, “After one night in captivity, the prisoners revolted leading to the deaths of members of the Northern Alliance forces and CIA officer Johnny ‘Mike’ Spann.” Al-Harazi “was shot in the arm during the uprising,” and he and 86 others that “survived the assaults hid in the basement until they were re-captured about a week later,” after the basement had been bombed and flooded. He was taken to General Dostum’s prison at Sheberghan, and was turned over to US control on approximately December 28, 2001. He was sent to Guantánamo on February 7, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Taliban training capabilities, Training Course for Trainers at Al-Farouq Training Camp [and] Routes of ingress and egress from Afghanistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force decided that he was lying, although their reasons for doing so were questionable. One unreliable witness, Abdu Ali al-Haji Sharqawi (ISN 1457, still held, and also identified as Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj), is a victim of torture in Jordan and in secret CIA custody in Afghanistan, and there might therefore be doubts abut the truth of his statement that, after being shown a photo of al-Harazi, he “identified [him] as Hassan al-Makki, who attended the class at Al-Farouq Training Camp to become an instructor.” To back this up, it was noted that the same name, Hassan al-Makki, “was found on a list of participants for a course entitled “Training Course for Trainers,” held at Al-Farouq from September to December 2000,” in which it was stated that al-Makki “traveled to Afghanistan in 1999, attended the trainer’s course, and worked as a trainer at Al-Farouq.” It was also “indicated” that al-Makki “was residing in the airport complex for the duration of training,” which an analyst took to mean “the Al-Qaida guesthouse located at Kandahar airport.”

The problem with these claims, of course, is that it is by no means clear that the man from Mecca who adopted the alias Hassan was actually al-Harazi, even if that was an alias he used, as others from Mecca might also have chosen that name, and it is no more reassuring that David Hicks (ISN 2, released May 2007), “stated detainee went by the name Khalid and was a trainer of the basic training course at Al-Farouq,” because it is well-known that Hicks lied under pressure, and, in any case, although he allegedly identified al-Harazi as a trainer at Al-Farouq, presumably under prompting, he gave him the wrong name.

Also of significance is al-Harazi’s claim that he did not attend Al-Farouq and, instead, attended a camp outside Kabul, which he described as “not a typical training camp where many people attended, but rather a small residence utilizing very old, primitive weapons.” In an attempt to tie him to a loftier role than being a mere foot soldier, it was then stated that he was perhaps the Hassan identified by Ibrahim Bin Shakaran (ISN 587, a Moroccan released in July 2004 and also identified as Brahim Benchekroun), who “stated that an individual named Hassan was in charge of physical training at a privately-owned Libyan paramilitary camp located in Kabul.”

Obviously under pressure, another prisoner, Fahd al-Sharif (ISN 215, released in November 2007), described al-Harazi as his cousin, “as they are both named al- Sharif and both come from Mecca.” This was ridiculous, as al-Harazi was not called al-Sharif, but there was more. He also “reported that other JTF-GTMO detainees refer[red] to detainee as Abu Barak,” and “separately mentioned the name Abu Barak as a trainer in the poisons training course that [he] attended.” According to Fahd al-Sharif, “Abu Barak taught at the Derunta Camp, Khaldan Camp, and Abu Musab al-Suri’s Camp.” An analyst noted that Fahd al-Sharif was “the only source who ha[d] associated the names al-Sharif and Abu Barak to [sic] detainee,” and also noted that he “identified Abu Barak as an Egyptian, not a Saudi,” but went on to claim that, since al-Sharif “identified detainee and a poisons trainer with the same alias from approximately the same time period (1999 – 2000), it is possible detainee is the poisons trainer. However, no other information is available to corroborate this assessment.”

If this was not enough shallow innuendo, it was also noted that Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), a Yemeni well known as the most prolific and unreliable witness at Guantánamo, “stated detainee was a member of an Arab group fighting the Northern Alliance in Taloqan,” which no one else claimed, and John Walker Lindh (ISN 1, but never held at Guantánamo, because he is an American citizen) apparently “photo-identified detainee as Hassan,” under unknown circumstances, although, as the “American Taliban,” he was subjected to torture by his own countrymen before his trial in 2002, which makes his testimony worthless. Lindh apparently said he “first saw him during the retreat from the front lines,” and ”believed [he] was an administrator because he carried a walkie-talkie during the retreat and was responsible for keeping people in the rear motivated.” Despite there being no reason for believing this statement, an analyst noted that “possession of a walkie-talkie and role as a motivator indicate a leadership position among the fighters.”

In other dubious statements, Said al-Zahrani (ISN 204, released in July 2007) “stated detainee was known as Abu Hassan,” and said he “saw [him] at the front lines and in the ‘big kitchen,’ which another detainee described as a large dining area.” Al-Zahrani also apparently “indicated that detainee spent 10 days in a large house in Kunduz with 90 others during the retreat.” In another account, Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held), the most notorious torture victim at Guantánamo, “detainee [was] a mujahid from Jeddah” (he was actually from Mecca, as has been made clear) “who was involved with an unspecified Kandahar mujahideen group.”

In other dubious statements, Humud al-Jadani (ISN 230, released in July 2007), who is emerging in these files as another unreliable witness, “reported detainee was present at the Al-Farouq Training Camp, the frontlines, a Kandahar guesthouse, and the Hamza al-Ghamdi Guesthouse in Kabul in 2000.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force also noted that, “Prior to a 2002 visit to JTF-GTMO, Mabahith [the Saudi intelligence service] designated detainee as a high priority detainee,” stating that he “left Saudi Arabia on 29 October 1999, with Turkey listed as his final destination.” Mabahith also “indicated they had information indicating detainee received training at Al-Farouq,” and noted that he “was on the Saudi government’s “watch and arrest list” for his trip to Afghanistan.” An analyst also noted that Mabahith had “no record of detainee returning after his 1999 travel to Turkey.”

This may indicate that some of the information gathered by the US authorities was true, although much of it was emblematic of the desperation, which runs through the files, and which fuels attempts to prove, time and again, and often in conditions of abuse or torture, that prisoners were more significant than they appeared to be. In conclusion, the Task Force assessed al-Harazi as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” He was also “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been semi-compliant and sometimes hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, the commander of Guantánamo, updating a recommendation for his “Continued Detention with Transfer Language” (dated May 26, 2006), recommended him for continued detention without any discussion of transfer. Nevertheless, he was released just three months later, to be to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Muqit Vohidov (ISN 90, Tajikistan) Released February 2007

As I explained in an article after his release, Muqit Vohidov (also identified as Wahldof Abdul Mokit), who was born in 1981 (although the US authorities initially stated that he was born in 1969), said in Guantánamo that he had been tricked into joining the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a close ally of the Taliban in the fight against the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan. In his tribunal, he explained that he was unaware that he was being recruited to join the IMU, and thought that he was going to be joining the Tajik army instead. He added that the man who lied to him about it –- and to three others in his group –- was a man called Rostum, presumably the same man identified by his friend Rukniddin Sharopov (ISN 76, see above) as a regional leader of the IMU. He also said that he was not previously aware that there were any Uzbeks in Tajikistan, and added that his passport was taken away by a man called Zakir, who was surrounded by armed men who made it clear that they would shoot him if he asked too many questions, and was then flown by helicopter to Afghanistan in January 2001.

He said that he then spent time at three IMU offices in Afghanistan — including offices in Kunduz and Kabul — and wanted to escape but couldn’t, and added that he eventually found a teacher at a madrassa who told him that he would be able to escape from Mazar-e-Sharif, so he went there, spent three months trying to escape, and was then captured by General Dostum’s forces in November 2001. He admitted carrying a Kalashnikov when he was a guard at the madrassa, but denied an allegation that he fought against US forces. When asked how he was arrested, he said that he was in a room with three other people — two he did not know and one doctor — when “Somebody knocked on the door, I opened it and this person came and said, ‘Who are you?’ I told him I was a Tajik, and then he arrested me.”

He also called Sharopov as a witness, who confirmed his story about their recruitment, but was unable to verify what had happened to him after he had left the IMU. Sharopov added that he and Vohidov had survived the Qala-i-Janghi massacre, where hundreds of prisoners, held in a Northern Alliance fort run by General Rashid Dostum after surrendering, were killed after some of them staged an uprising, fearing that they were about to be shot. Sharopov also explained that both he and Vohidov were then held in a prison in Sheberghan that was also run by General Dostum, until they were transferred to US custody.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Sharopov was an “Update Recommendation to Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated August 3, 2005, in which he was identified as Sobit Abdumukit Vitalikonovich Vakidov, Sabit Farad Tsabit Vokidov and Abdul Mochid Sobid Wahedof, and it was noted that he was born in September 1981, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account and mostly corresponding with what he told his tribunal at Guantánamo, the Joint Task Force noted that, “Prior to his recruitment into theIMU, [he] ran a distribution business.” Describing the events that led to his capture, it was noted that he and Rukniddin Sharopov (identified as Sharipov), described as “one of his best friends,” left Tajikistan and “were on a train to Russia to find better jobs when they met a man named Rustam, who offered them a military job in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.” He said that they “both accepted this offer,” although he added that he “believe[d] Rustam ‘tricked’ [them] because they thought they would be working with the government of Tajikistan’s Army and not the IMU.” An analyst described Rustam as “probably an IMU recruiter,” and it was noted that the IMU was described by the US authorities as “a Tier 1 counterterrorism target, defined as terrorist groups, especially those with state support, that have demonstrated the intention and the capability to attack US persons or interests.”

Vohidov proceeded to explain that, in January 2001, he attended an IMU camp located in Tavildara, although he claimed he “did not receive any training at this facility,” and said that after ten days “helicopters ferried approximately two hundred IMU fighters to Afghanistan,” including he and Sharopov “who flew on separate helicopters.” They were taken to Kunduz, but Vohidov said he then “attended a Madrassa in Kabul for approximately five to six months,” where he met a man named Sharifullah “who offered to get [him] back to Tajikistan if [he] accompanied him to the IMU office at Mazar-e-Sharif,” where he “worked as a supply clerk in the office and was responsible for the food.” He was seized in Mazar-e-Sharif in November 2001 and taken to Qala-i-Janghi, described as the “site of the uprising in which CIA Agent Michael Spahn [sic] was killed,” even though he claimed he “was not at the prison during the uprising.” He was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Practice of bringing youths into Afghanistan from Tajikistan, Madrassa detainee attended [and] Non-governmental organization (NGO) DOSF.”

In assessing his story, the Task Fprce identified the “madraassa” that Vohidov said he attended in Kabul as being an IMU facility, and also claimed that in Mazar-e-Sharif he worked at the “intelligence office for Sharafuddin Sharafat, former Taliban Intelligence chief at Mazar-e-Sharif and the current ACM [anti-coalition militia] leader.” It was also claimed that Vohidov “met Sharafat during his five to six-month stay in Kabul.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of low intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that his behavior was “assessed as somewhat compliant.” As a result, Brig. Gen. Hood recommended his transfer to continued detention in Tajkistan, even though it was also noted that he was “a fugitive from Tajikistan and [was] wanted for violating Tajikistan’s laws and international orders,” which indicated that he would be treated very poorly if repatriated.

After his release, Vohidov — and Rukniddin Sharopov — were sentenced to 17 years in “high-security penal colonies” (aka labor camps) for “serving as mercenaries in Afghanistan” — where they were accused of aiding the Taliban by fighting for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) — and for taking part in “illegal border crossing.” After passing sentence, the Supreme Court judge, Musammir Uroqov, said that both men had maintained their innocence, and added, “In their last words, they said they didn’t expect such consequences for acts they committed.” However, according to RFE/RL, the judge was satisfied that “investigations carried out in Vohidov and Sharopov’s native Isfara region proved that both men [had] been involved with the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.”

In June 2010, as I explained here, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting revisited the story, explaining how the men’s families had been campaigning for a review of the verdict, and how prosecutors were possibly prepared to review the case. Although arguments were made that the sentence was justified because the men “committed acts that violate national law,” it was also noted that the time they served in Guantánamo was not taken into account during the sentencing.

Moreover, as I explained, other observers remained deeply critical, and their insights reflected badly not only on the Tajik authorities but also on the US government. As the IWPR article explained, Payam Foroughi, until recently a human rights officer with the OSCE in Tajikistan, “believes due process was not followed,” pointing out that the men “had not enough, or any, time to sufficiently and seriously discuss and properly prepare their case with a lawyer — and one of their choice — prior to their court hearing.” He also believed that the court “should have probed further into the allegation that Vohidov and Sharopov willingly became members of the IMU,” adding, “If anything, the evidence points to them having been victims of human trafficking.”

Criticism of the US came, inadvertently, from the judge in the men’s trial in 2007, who told IWPR, “We could not determine, even from the defendants, on what legal basis they were detained at and released from Guantánamo. We could not get hold of any documents. So we reached a verdict based on the documents that we had.” Highlighting this problem more explicitly, a local lawyer told IWPR that “the lack of documentation from Guantánamo was a recurring problem in countries to which detainees are repatriated.” He might have added that in most countries the authorities’ response was to let the men go.

In August 2011, RFE/RL reported that, for the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence, on September 9, 2011, human rights activists and lawyers were calling on the Tajik president to consider releasing the two former Guantánamo prisoners as part of an amnesty, noting, “Some 8,000 prisoners are expected to be set free to mark the occasion. Unofficial estimates suggest there are currently 13,000 people imprisoned in Tajikistan. There have been 11 amnesties in Tajikistan over the past 20 years. In the most recent, in November 2009, some 10,000 prisoners were released.”

The article stated, “Human Rights Watch, two prominent American lawyers, and a legal expert from Columbia University in New York have sent letters to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon making the case for Rukniddin Sharopov’s and Abdumuqit Vohidov’s release.” Chicago-based attorney Matthew J. O’Hara wrote, “It is my expert opinion that a great injustice has been done on the two.” He explained that it was probable that the two men “did not traverse the international border by will,” and, as RFE/RL added, “Sharopov and Vohidov maintain that they have never killed anyone, or been involved in terrorist activities or acts of violence.”

In their letter, Human Rights Watch stated, “Neither US, nor Tajik authorities provided any sound evidences of Sharopov’s and Vokhidov’s belonging to terrorist activity and crimes. We hope that the forthcoming amnesty law will also cover ex-prisoners of the Guantanamo Bay, who were accused of murder, and hope that Vokhidov’s and Sharopov’s appeals for amnesty will be carefully examined.” However, there has been no further news since August 2011.

Abdul Rauf Aliza (ISN 108, Afghanistan) Released December 2007

In Chapter 9 of The Guantánamo Files, and in an article at the time of his release, I explained how Abdul Rauf Aliza was seized in November 2001 during the fall of Kunduz, the last Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, and was held, with thousands of other men, in a filthy, overcrowded prison in Sheberghan run by General Rashid Dostum, one of the leaders of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. He was then transferred to the US prison at Kandahar airbase with nine other Afghan prisoners.

One of the nine, Jan Mohammed (ISN 17), a baker from Helmand province who had been forcibly conscripted by the Taliban, was one of the first prisoners to be released from Guantánamo in October 2002. After his release, he explained that the decision to transfer him to Kandahar came about because some of Dostum’s men “told US soldiers that he and nine others were senior Taliban officials.” “They came and took ten strong-looking people,” he told the journalist David Rohde. “Only one of those ten was a Talib.”

It’s probable that the solitary Taliban member transferred to Kandahar with Jan Mohammed was Abdul Rauf Aliza, who was, at some point, more accurately identified by the US authorities as Mullah Abdul Rauf, a Taliban troop commander. Although Aliza claimed that he was conscripted by the Taliban, who said they would take his land if he refused, and insisted that he only worked for them as a cook, several released Afghans explained to the journalist Ashwin Raman that Mullah Abdul Rauf was one of three Taliban commanders in northern Afghanistan held in Guantánamo. They told Raman that he had not been so cautious with his identity while detained in Camp X-Ray, when he “repeatedly pleaded with the Americans to let many of the detainees free,” saying, “These are no Talibs, I am the real Talib.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Abdul Rauf Aliza was an “Administrative Review Board Input,” dated October 26, 2004, in which Brig. Gen. Hood recommended to his military review board that he be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention (TRCD).”

In this document, it was noted that, according to the Task Force’s assessment, he was “associated with several Taliban commanders and leaders in Afghanistan (AF) including Mullah Agha Jon Akhund, Mullah Ubaidullah Akhund, and Muhammed A. Fazl” (ISN 7, also identified as Mullah Fazil, and described by an analyst as “the Chief of Staff for the Taliban, as well as military commander for 2500 to 3000 Taliban soldiers”). It was also noted that he “accurately identified Mullah Ubaidullah Akhund as the Taliban Defense Minister and logistics supervisor,” that he ”personally knew and accurately identified Taliban Commander Mullah Agha Jon Akhund,” and that, “[d]espite his claims of being a low-level Taliban foot soldier and food supplier, [he] managed to become closely associated with several senior level Taliban commanders and leaders.”

It was also noted that Shardar Khan (ISN 914, released in October 2006) “identified detainee” and former Taliban governor Khairullah Khairkhwa (ISN 579, still held) as “two cell block leaders attempting to instigate and influence the rest of the cell blocks to disregard orders, make noise, refuse food, and commit suicide,” to which an analyst again raised doubts, noting, “For a simple Taliban foot soldier and bread deliverer, detainee manage[d] to exhibit leadership qualities by conducting speeches and instilling fear into those who cooperate with JTF GTMO personnel.” The analyst also noted that Khairkhwa “identified the detainee as a possible military leader, military commander, or possibly even as a mayor of Khost.”

In other passages, it was stated that he had “admitted involvement in the production and sales of opium, as well as association with criminal elements within the Taliban and the Northern Alliance,” and it was noted that, although he had been “cooperative with his debriefers,” his accounts “remain[ed] vague and inconsistent when questioned on high-level Taliban leadership or topics of a sensitive nature,” to which an analyst added that, although he was “substantially exploited,” there were “several intelligence gaps that remain[ed] in his story, such as his involvement and knowledge concerning Taliban communications operations, associations with other JTF GTMO detainees, and his opium business.” It was also noted, “After serving three tours with Taliban, it does not seem plausible that the detainee was not promoted and given a more important duty than a mere bread deliverer.”

The last of these many major hints that Abdul Rauf Aliza was more than he appeared to be was a note that “[t]he name Mullah Abdul Rauf, detainee’s reference name, was located on a list of factions and leaders within the Taliban as a corps commander in Herat,” to which an analyst noted, “Several high level Taliban JTF GTMO detainees also identified detainee as a Taliban troop commander,” but added, “However, detainee does have similar physical characteristics to [Mullah Fazil], which may cause his misidentification.”

In conclusion, despite all the doubts highlighted above, it was also noted that, in his “Most Recent JTF GTMO Assessment, signed on 29 March 2004,” which also recommended his transfer to the control of another country for continued detention, he was assessed as being of low intelligence value and a medium threat,” even though it was also noted that, although he “ha[d] been generally cooperative, he ha[d] evaded answering questions regarding his role and leadership within the Taliban,” and even though, “due to recent findings that [he] may have had a more important role within the Taliban than previously thought, [his] intelligence value ha[d] been updated from low to medium.” Despite the recommendation for his transfer, however, he was not released for another three years and two months, and three years and nine months after he was first recommended for transfer.

In August 2010, Newsweek reported that Abdul Rauf Aliza had escaped from prison on his return, had rejoined the Taliban, and was threatening collaborators with the US and the Afghan authorities in Kabul. As the article described it, “One short handwritten note, shown to Newsweek, said: ‘We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don’t, you don’t have the right to complain.’ The screed, written on the letterhead of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s defunct Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, bore the signature of Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban official and former inmate at the American lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who had been released into — and subsequently escaped from — Kabul’s custody last year.”

In April 2011, Newsweek reported that Khadim (described as Maulvi Abdul Rauf Khadim) “commanded Mullah Omar’s elite mobile reserve force,” until his initial capture, “fighting regime opponents all over Afghanistan.” After he “convinced his jailers that he wanted only to go home and tend his farm,” and was repatriated, he {e]scap[ed] from house arrest in Kabul, [and] fled to Pakistan.” The article continued, “Today he’s the shadow governor of southern Uruzgan province and a potential rival to [Abdul Qayyum] Zakir ([ISN 8] who was freed from Gitmo at the same time) for the insurgency’s top slot, with a loyal following of fighters at the heart of the US military surge in neighboring Kandahar and Helmand provinces.”

Abdul Aziz Al Oshan (ISN 112, Saudi Arabia) Released September 2007

In Chapter 2 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Abdul Aziz al-Oshan (also identified as Abdul Aziz al-Khaldi), who was 22 years old at the time of his capture, said in Guantánamo that he was a student who went to Afghanistan to rescue his brother, but was seized by the Northern Alliance, and was one of hundreds of prisoners sent to Qala-i-Janghi, a fort near Mazar-e-Sharif, where he survived a massacre that took place after some of the prisoners staged an uprising, fearing that they were about to be shot. When asked in his tribunal about the “uprising,” he said, “You are talking about the uprising. They called it an uprising and it’s not; it’s some kind of massacre. I was even wounded while I was there.”

in an article at the time of his release, I explained how he had recently come to prominence when a poem he had written was included in Poems From Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak, an anthology of Guantánamo prisoners’ poetry compiled by law professor Marc Falkoff, who was the attorney for a number of Yemeni prisoners, and he had also written a perceptive and critical analysis of the library facilities at Guantánamo, which revealed how he was gentle, softly-spoken, literate and with a wry sense of humor that five and a half years in Guantánamo could not extinguish. I also told more of his story, based on his account — which began with an explanation of how, after taking his final exam at university, he went to Afghanistan to find his brother Saleh (who was also captured, but released in July 2005), in order to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia.

Caught up, in late November 2001, in the fall of Kunduz, the last Taliban bastion in the north of Afghanistan, he was “tied down and taken with other detainees” to Qala-i-Janghi. In Guantánamo, he explained to his tribunal that, although he had not been involved in any kind of military training and had not raised arms against either the Northern Alliance or the US-led coalition, he was afraid of being tortured, because he had previously been tortured in Afghanistan.

“When I was first captured,” he said, “it was the Afghani police there. They were threatening me and torturing me. If I didn’t say that I was from Al-Qaida or Taliban I was tortured. I went to Kandahar and I was tortured there. The guy was speaking English saying ‘Al-Qaida? Taliban? Al-Qaida? Taliban?’ Evidence of the torture is that they broke my tooth which was fixed here.” He added, “Once I arrived here, things were a little better. There was no torture or things like that but, because of what happened in the past I was dwelling on the fact that, are these people treating me good and they are going to come back and torture me again?”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Oshan was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated June 19, 2007, in which he was identified as Abd al-Aziz Sad Muhammad Awshan al-Khalidi, Abdul Aziz Bin Saad, and Abdul A. Mohammed, and it was noted that he was born in September 1979, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he was “one exam away from finishing his four-year college degree” in Islamic studies at the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in his hometown of Riyadh, when he decided to travel to Afghanistan. The Task Force also noted that he “was not married and lived with his parents through college,” and that he “received a stipend of 800 Saudi riyals (SAR) per month from the Saudi government for attending the university,” and also that, because he “was the only student with a car, he charged people money to take them places,” and “also received money from his parents.”

The Task Force further explained that he “was still in Saudi Arabia when the 11 September 2001 attacks occurred,” and that he “believed the attacks violated Islamic ethics because the Koran states it is wrong to kill innocent people.” This seemed to be particularly important, as did a statement that he “was not personally recruited, but heard from friends about fatwa (religious decrees) urging young men to fight abroad,” and also “overheard other Saudis talking about the conflicts in Chechnya and Afghanistan, and read newspaper articles detailing the suffering of Muslims in those countries.” It was also noted that he read a well-known fatwa “calling on people to ‘defend the Muslims and Islamic nations’ against the Northern Alliance (NA) troops of Massoud and Dostum.”

In spite of noting that he “was not personally recruited,” the Task Force claimed that, in November 2001, he “decided to travel to Afghanistan,” not only “to find his brother,” but also “to fight the jihad.” Al-Oshan apparently “financed his own trip,” which was unusual, as most jihadists traveled with the assistance of facilitators, who made their arrangements for them, and traveled via Syria and Iran (rather than flying to Karachi and then traveling via Quetta, as was typical for jihadi recruits).

When they reached the border, the border guards “instructed a taxi driver to take them to a guesthouse in Herat,” and gave them contact details. After one night in Herat, they apparently traveled to Kabul, where, it was claimed, they “stayed at an unidentified guesthouse for about a week because ‘the front lines were full,’” even though it was not even remotely likely that new arrivals would have been allowed to travel immediately to the front lines on arrival.

He then reportedly traveled to Kunduz with two other men, staying at an unidentified guesthouse, where, it was claimed, he was shown how to use an AK-47, and then traveled to the front line, where he stayed for six days “without seeing any combat action since the mountains acted as a buffer between them and the NA [Northern Alliance].” He and the others then retreated, and walked back to the guest-house in Kunduz. He then apparently “left during the night with a group of others going to Mazar-e-Sharif,” presumably to surrender, but “Dostum’s troops apprehended them and took them to the Qala-i-Janghi Prison.”

Based on his account, the Task Force described the uprising as follows: “On 25 November 2001, shooting erupted within the walls of the prison, and detainee was shot in his thigh and back. Other prisoners dragged him into the basement of the prison. Dostum’s forces pumped gasoline into the basement and ignited it; they later flooded the basement with water. After about one week, the Red Cross arrived and transported all the surviving prisoners to Sheberghan Prison.”

From Sheberghan, US forces took him to their prison at Kandahar, and he was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Training and tactics of front line Taliban fighters.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force focused primarily on his family ties, rather than on any information corroborating the claims that he had been on the front lines in Afghanistan, which, as I noted above, drew only on his own statements, possibly extracted under duress. One of his brothers, Isa (aka Eissa al-Aushan), was described as “the deceased leader of a Riyadh Al-Qaida cell responsible for the.kidnapping and murder of a US contractor, Paul Johnson, Jr.,” and “was killed in a July 2004 gunfight with Saudi security forces.”

It was also noted that he was “assessed to have an uncle named Saud Muhammad Abd al-Aziz al-Awshan,” described as “a Saudi-based terrorist financier associated with the Philippines-base Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” although whether either of these connections actually impacted on him was not provable, and was certainly not sufficient to justify an analyst’s claim that, because “Al-Qaida recruitments often occur within family groups,” his “close relationships with several Al-Qaida members likely exposed him to Al-Qaida propaganda, and possibly to direct recruitment.” The analyst also claimed that “[t]hese relationships likely also indicate a high level of loyalty toward Al-Qaida.”

When it came to the most relevant relationship, with Salman Mohammed (ISN 121, released in December 2006, and also identified as Sulaiman al-Oshan), who was the brother he traveled to rescue, the Task Force described Mohammed as “a mujahid with the 55th Arab Brigade,” and noted that he “was on a list of thirty-seven detainees whom the Saudi Ministry of Interior General Directorate of Investigations (Mabahith) designated as high priority before a Saudi delegation visit to JTF-GTMO in 2002.”

This, again, was nothing more than guilt by association, and despite their best efforts, interrogators could also not get Mohammed to incriminate his brother. What was reported instead was that, although Mohammed “corroborated detainee’s approximate date of arrival at the front lines,” he “provided conflicting accounts as to why detainee traveled to Afghanistan, first claiming that he did not know, and later stating that detainee came to retrieve [him].”

The most relevant passage in the file did not involve how his brothers were perceived by the Saudi authorities, but how he was regarded, and it was noted, “In July 2002, a delegation from Saudi Arabia visited JTF-GTMO and interviewed detainee. Detainee was identified as of low intelligence and law enforcement value to the US, and unlikely to pose a terrorist threat to the US or its interests. Furthermore,the Saudi delegation indicated that the Government of Saudi Arabia would be willing to take custody of detainee for possible prosecution as soon as the US determined it no longer wanted to hold him.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” which seemed like an exaggerated assessment, especially as he was also “assessed as a low threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been compliant and non-hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harry H. Harris Jr., the commander of Guantánamo at the time, updating a recommendation for continued detention with transfer language (dated March 31, 2006), recommended him for continued detention without transfer language, although no reason was given. Even so, he was released three months later, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Yousef Al Shehri (ISN 114, Saudi Arabia) Released November 2007

In a footnote to Chapter 9 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Yousef al-Shehri, who was just 16 years old at the time of his capture, was seized between Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz with 120 other suspected fighters. I also explained how his cousin, Abdul Salam al-Shehri (ISN 132, released in June 2006), who was just 17 years old at the time of his capture, and who had hidden in the basement during the Qala-i-Janghi massacre, thought he was dead. He was then transported to a prison in Sheberghan run by the Northern Alliance commander General Rashid Dostum, where he spent six weeks in horribly overcrowded conditions, surrounded by the dead and dying, before being transferred to US custody.

Although al-Shehri — like the other juveniles at Guantánamo (at least 22 in total) — should have been rehabilitated rather than punished, according to America’s obligations under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which the US ratified on December 23, 2002, only three juveniles were ever treated differently from the adult prisoners (as described in “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004 (Part Ten of Ten)”).

As I explained in an article at the time of his release, al-Shehri’s suffering at Guantánamo became particularly pronounced when he took part in a prison-wide hunger strike, involving as many as 200 prisoners, in the summer of 2005. In July 2005, and again in January 2006, his weight, which had been 141 pounds when he arrived at Guantánamo in February 2002, dropped to just 97 pounds, and his lawyers, who visited him in October 2005, said that he was “emaciated and had lost a disturbing amount of weight,” adding that he was “visibly weak and frail” and “had difficulty speaking because of lesions in his throat that were a result of the involuntary force-feeding” to which he had been subjected.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Shehri was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated July 21, 2006, in which he was identified as Yusif Muhammad Mubarak al-Shihri, and it was noted that he was born in September 1985 (and was therefore just 16 at the time of his capture), and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he left school sometime in 2000, and then “sold fruit, vegetables and honey from a cart on the side of the road for approximately two months in Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca” until a man named Muhammad al-Qosi convinced him to go to Pakistan. There he met another Saudi, Abdul Aziz, and reportedly spent two and a half months in Karachi with him, at a mosque, until Abdul Aziz told him that “it was their duty to participate in jihad with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

In April 2001, they “traveled to Kabul, where they spoke with the Taliban and stated they wanted to fight,” and “were given directions to a Taliban guesthouse,” where they were separated. Al-Shehri then traveled with three Arabs and approximately 30 Afghans to a compound in Kunduz, commanded by Mullah Thacker, and then, with seven Afghans, he was sent to an Arab unit on the front lines at Khawaja Ghar, where he “spent approximately four or five months at a support center close to the front.” Although his commander, Abu Muath, gave him “one day of training on grenades and the Kalashnikov,” he reportedly “transported food and bullets to the front line and helped bury the dead.”

After the US-led invasion, when “the fighting on the front lines became intense” (in November 2001), al-Shehri and his group were instructed to withdraw from the front lines to Kunduz. After two weeks, his commander informed him that “Mullah Thaker had ordered a withdrawal to Kandahar,” and he and others “traveled in cars and trucks to Mazar-e-Sharif, AF, where Northern Alliance commander Dostum’s men stopped the trucks and ordered the fighters to surrender their weapons.” They were then taken to Qala-i-Janghi, where he survived the massacre, and he was then taken to Dostum’s prison at Sheberghan, where he was held for a month and a half. He was then taken to Kandahar by US forces, and was sent to Guantánamo on January 16, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Personalities and replacement operations of the Arab element that supported the Northern Taliban forces (assessed to be referring to UBL’s [Osama bin Laden's] 55th Arab Brigade).”

In assessing his story, the Task Force stated that he was “historically uncooperative during debriefings, and his truthfulness [was] often in doubt.” It was also claimed that there were unexplained holes in his timeline, which “afforded him the opportunity to attend training at Al-Farouq [the main training camp for Arabs], which he probably completed prior to supporting the Taliban and al-Qaida on the front lines.”

Whether or not he was anything more than a basic foot soldier was actually open to question, as the Task Force was preoccupied by his “familial ties to a significant Al-Qaida member”; namely, “his older brother Saad Muhammad Mubarak al-Shihri aka Abdul Rahman al-Najdi aka Abu Uthman al-Shahri” who was apparently “an official spokesman for Al-Qaida and on Saudi Arabia’s most wanted list in November 2005.”

The Task Force also noted that he had “shown his willingness to martyr himself while at JTF-GTMO,” adding, “Should he be released, he would probably seek the opportunity to do so,” and explaining that he had “sent a letter to his family telling them of his wish to be a martyr.” It was also noted that, on May 18, 2006, he had tried to commit suicide — or, as the Task Force put it, had “committed self-harm by attempting to overdose on prescribed medication.” The fact that suicide was not even remotely regarded as a form of martyrdom by jihadists appeared to have eluded the Task Force.

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US. its interests and allies.” He was also “assessed as a moderate threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been non-compliant and sometimes hostile with the guard force and staff.” Providing specific details, the Task Force noted that, on December 10, 2004, “he became violent during an interview session,” when he “threw books at his interviewer, flipped a table, and attempted to head butt a guard,” and that, on August 18, 2005, “while assigned to the detainee hospital, [he] was denied a request to be unrestrained during prayer call,” and “[h]e and the other detainees became upset and began pulling out their IV’s and brandishing them as weapons, throwing thermometers, and grabbing med packs containing syringes and anything else that could be used as a weapon.”

As a result of the above, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation that he retained in DoD control (dated June 10, 2005), recommended him for continued detention, although, crucially, it was also noted, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Shehri] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO).” It took another 16 months for that agreement to be reached, when he was released.

After his release, al-Shehri was processed through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program, but in February 2009 he was included as one of eleven former Guantánamo prisoners in a list of the Saudi government’s 85 most wanted militants, all of whom had allegedly left Saudi Arabia and in October 2009 it was reported that he and another man, Raed al-Harbi, had been killed in a shootout with Saudi authorities after they entered the country from Yemen, disguised as women, and “planning to carry out attacks.”

Bijad Al Atabi (ISN 122, Saudi Arabia) Released July 2007

In Chapter 2 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Bijad al-Atabi (also identified as al-Otaibi), who was 30 years old at the time of his capture, was accused of being an assistant commander in Al-Qaida’s Arab Brigade, and I added more information in an article at the time of his release, in which I explained that, in Guantánamo, he was accused of stating that he traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban, that he was trained at a camp near Kabul, and that he fought on the front lines until ordered to surrender to Northern Alliance commander General Dostum at Mazar-e-Sharif.

He was then imprisoned in Qala-i-Janghi, a fort where hundreds of men were killed in a massacre, after some of them started an uprising against their captors, fearing that they were about to be killed. He was one of 86 men who survived in the basement of the fort for a week, despite being bombed and flooded.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Atabi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated January 22, 2007, in which he was identified as Bijad D. al-Atavi and Bajad Dhayfallah Hawaymal al-Ruqi al-Utaybi, and it was noted that he was born in August 1971, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based largely on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that at the age of eight, his father died and he began working on the family farm while also attending school. From 1988 to 1997, he “worked as a guard with the Saudi National Security Force, where [his] duties included guarding movement sponsored television, telecommunication, electric, and food processing facilities.” He said that he “did not receive and firearms training, but was armed with a Belgian rifle.” From 1997 to 1999, he “returned home to work on the family farm.”

He was, he said, “inspired to fight jihad” after listening to a fatwa issued by a well-known sheikh, but spoke to another sheikh who told him that Osama bin Laden “was not a good Muslim and to avoid Al-Qaida.” Nevertheless, he then spoke to an Afghan who gave him information about how to get to Afghanistan and where to stay,” and, on May 25, 2000, “traveled alone to Jalalabad,” via Dubai and Peshawar. There, he said, he was taken to the university, where he stayed with the brother of an individual he had met while traveling from Peshawar to Jalalabad. After a few days, he went to Kabul, where he “stayed in the Wazir Akbar Khan area at a Taliban guesthouse” for a week, and was then taken to the front lines outside Kabul, where he “received training on the AK-47 rifle and hand grenades for approximately two to three weeks at a small unknown Taliban training camp.” He said that he “never fought during his time on the frontlines,” and also said that “Al-Qaida attempted to recruit [him], but [he] refused.”

Al-Atabi further stated that he was on the frontlines until late July or early August 2000, but added that, during one of his regular trips from the frontlines to the Taliban guesthouse (“for rest”), he “was injured in an automobile accident and taken to a hospital in Kabul,” where he remained for up to six weeks. In October 2000, approximately, he was transferred to a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, where he “received additional surgery and physical therapy on his hand.” He also explained that the Taliban “paid for some of [his] medical bills, and [he] paid the balance.” He then “remained in Lahore at a Taliban guesthouse until approximately  February 2001, when he returned to Kabul and stayed in a guesthouse for about a month, and then traveled to Qarabagh, where he stayed at another guesthouse until approximately mid-April 2001.

He then “traveled to and fought in the Khawaja Ghar region of Afghanistan” until he “was told the Taliban reached an agreement with General Dostum” of the Northern Alliance. This was described as being “approximately mid-October 2001,” although it was actually in November. He then “traveled to Mazar-e-Sharif in a convoy where he was detained on approximately 23 November 2001 by Northern Alliance (NA) forces and taken to the Qala-i-Janghi prison.” Al-Atabi’s comments about the massacre were not noted, but an analyst stated, “Over 70 JTF-GTMO detainees surrendered to General Dostum’s troops in late November 2001. Dostum’s forces took the prisoners to the Qala-i-Janghi prison located outside Mazar-e-Sharif, on 24 November 2001. After one night in captivity, the prisoners revolted leading to the deaths of NA forces and CIA operative Johnny ‘Mike’ Spann. Detainee and other JTF-GTMO detainees, who survived the revolt, withdrew to a basement in the compound until they were recaptured , approximately one week later.”

On December 29, 2001, after being held in Sheberghan prison, also run by Dostum, for four weeks, al-Atabi was transferred to the US prison at Kandahar airport. He was sent to Guantánamo on January 20, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Taliban organization, leadership, equipment and procedures [and] Taliban training camp in the vicinity of Taloqan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force described him as “a member of Al-Qaida and a sub-commander in [Osama bin Laden]‘s 55th Arab Brigade,” and while the former was the normal exaggerated description of any Arab fighting the Northern Alliance, the latter claim came only from one witness, Ali al-Tayeea (ISN 111, released in January 2009), who was well-known within Guantánamo circles as an unreliable witness. Al-Tayeea apparently identified al-Atabi as Abjad Dhaif Allah (aka Abu Umar), and also “photo-identified [him] as Abu Omar al-Nejdi, but stated [his] real name [was] Bujaad Daif Allah,” which an analyst regarded as “a variant of [his] name.” He claimed that al-Atabi “was an al-Qaida explosives and weapons expert who received extensive training,” and “was a mid-level commander, well known to Al-Qaida fighters,” who “fought on the Kabul and Khawaja Ghar fronts,” and also claimed he “was on the North Line for a long time and was Abu Tarub’s sub-commander in the Bilal Group of the Arab Brigade.”

Furthermore, with reference to Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, (described as having “primary operational command of the former 55th Arab Brigade, [and] serving as [Osama bin Laden]‘s military commander in the field”), al-Tayeea claimed that al-Atabi “knew Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi very well because [he] always went to al-Iraqi’s office.” He added that he “saw [al-Atabi] twice with al-Iraqi and also saw [him] with information needed on the North Line,” and “believe[d] detainee was a very important person.”

Even if al-Tayeea was correct to identify al-Atabi as a sub-commander, it did not follow that he was “a very important person,” but what made al-Tayeea’s statement dubious was not only his track record, but also the fact that there was no other reliable verification for his story. Muhammad al-Adahi (ISN 33, still held), apparently “also photo-identified detainee as Abu Omar al-Najdi, a sub-commander to Abu Turab,” but this smacks of a coerced statement, or one produced simply to make life easier, as al-Adahi, a Yemeni who accompanied his sister to Afghanistan for her marriage, never went anywhere near the front lines where al-Atabi was reportedly a sub-commander.

Others recognized al-Atabi, but none of them claimed that he had a command position. Abd al-Rahman al-Umari (ISN 199, a Saudi who died in Guantánamo in May 2007, and was also identified as Abdul Rahman al-Amri) “identified detainee as Abu Omar who was at the Rabei position in Kabul,” Said al-Zahrani (ISN 204, released in July 2007) “identified detainee as Abu Omar who fought on the frontlines”) and correctly “believed [he] was wounded in a castle near Mazar-e-Sharif”), and John Walker Lindh (ISN 1, although he was never held at Guantánamo, because he was a US citizen), “thought the detainee depicted in a photograph shown to him was Abu Umar, a Saudi from Najd, SA.” Lindh apparently also “said Abu Umar had been in Afghanistan for a long time, ‘maybe even in the 80s, fighting against the USSR,’” and “recalled seeing detainee on the backlines near Takhar, AF, and Kunduz, AF, after the retreat.” He added that he “thought detainee had been killed.” An analyst noted, “If detainee is the individual identified by Lindh, [he] has withheld details of his background story,” but it seems more likely that it was Lindh, presumably under duress, who was making things up.

The Task Force also noted that “[v]ariations of detainee’s name and aliases ha[d] been recovered in Al-Qaida associated documents,” recovered during house raids, but this kind of claim is particularly dubious. More significant was a note stating that, “Prior to the Saudi delegation visit in 2002, the Saudi Ministry of Interior General Directorate of Investigations (Mabahith) provided information on 37 detainees whom they designated as being high priority. Detainee was eighteenth on the list.”

Mabahith also “noted detainee was on the Saudi movement’s ‘watch and arrest’ list due to information they received reporting detainee’s death in Mazar-e- Sharif and the possibility of someone else using detainee’s passport,” which, of course, was nothing to do with him, but what was most significant was that, “After the Saudi delegation visit, detainee was assessed by Mabahith” not as being “high priority,” but “as one of the 77 Saudi nationals of low intelligence or law enforcement value to the US Government, but of whom [sic] the Saudi Government would attempt to prosecute if transferred to their custody from JTF-GTMO.”

In conclusion, he was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed to be a medium threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] been non-compliant and hostile toward the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation for his continued detention (dated October 24, 2005), repeated that recommendation, without any acknowledgement of the Saudis’ description of al-Atabi as being “of low intelligence or law enforcement value to the US Government.” However, six months later, he was released, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Also see Part One of this series.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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Freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington continues his 70-part, million-word series telling, for the first time, the stories of 776 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. Adding information released by WikiLeaks in April 2011 to the existing documentation about the prisoners, much of which was already covered in Andy’s book The Guantánamo Files and in the archive of articles on his website, the project will be completed in spring 2012.

This is Part 31 of the 70-part series. 386 stories have now been told. See the entire archive here.

In late April, I worked with WikiLeaks as a media partner for the publication of thousands of pages of classified military documents — the Detainee Assessment Briefs — relating to almost all of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. These documents drew heavily on the testimony of the prisoners themselves, and also on the testimony of their fellow inmates (either in Guantánamo, or in secret prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA), whose statements are unreliable, either because they were subjected to torture or other forms of coercion, or because they provided false statements in the hope of securing better treatment in Guantánamo.

The documents were compiled by the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo (JTF GTMO), which operates the prison, and were based on assessments and reports made by interrogators and analysts whose primary concern was to “exploit” the prisoners for their intelligence value. They also include input from the Criminal Investigative Task Force, created by the DoD in 2002 to conduct interrogations on a law enforcement basis, rather than for “actionable intelligence.”

My ongoing analysis of the documents began in May, with a five-part series, “WikiLeaks: The Unknown Prisoners of Guantánamo,” telling the stories of 84 prisoners, released between 2002 and 2004, whose stories had never been told before. This was followed by a ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004,” in which I revisited the stories of 114 other prisoners released in this period, adding information from the Detainee Assessment Briefs to what was already known about these men and boys from press reports and other sources. This was followed by another five-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released After the Tribunals, 2004 to 2005,” dealing with the period from September 2004 to the end of 2005, when 62 prisoners were released.

This, as I explained, was the period in which, after the prisoners won a spectacular victory in the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, when the Supreme Court granted them habeas corpus rights (in other words, the right to ask an impartial judge why they were being held), lawyers were allowed to meet the prisoners for the first time, and the secrecy that was required for Guantánamo to function as an interrogation center beyond the law was finally broken.

However, although the Bush administration allowed habeas petitions to proceed, Congress attempted to strip the prisoners of their habeas rights in the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, and the administration also responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling with its own inferior version of habeas, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, a sham process designed to rubber-stamp their designation as “enemy combatants” who could be held indefinitely.

With just 38 prisoners cleared for release after the CSRTs, another review process — the annual Administrative Review Boards — took over, reviewing whether prisoners still had ongoing intelligence value, and whether they still posed a threat to the US. These were essentially the decisions being taken by JTF GTMO and CITF, and they reveal how, in the “War on Terror,” prosecuting criminals (the few genuine terror suspects in Guantánamo) and holding soldiers off the battlefield until the end of hostilities had largely given way to the strange mixture of threat assessments and intelligence assessments that fill the Detainee Assessment Briefs.

With 260 prisoners profiled in the first 20 parts of this project, the next ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantanamo Prisoners Released in 2006,” covered the stories of the 111 prisoners released in 2006 (and the three who died at the prison in June 2006), almost all of whom were freed because of political maneuvering rather than anything to do with justice, as is the case with this latest ten-part series, dealing with the 124 prisoners released in 2007, including two more who died without ever having been charged or tried.

I also hope that readers will reflect on the problems of over-classification that have been thoroughly chronicled in the preceding series analyzing the Detainee Assessment Briefs. My analysis to date has established repeatedly that even patently innocent prisoners seized by mistake were regarded as a “low risk,” rather than as no risk at all, and it is important for readers to bear in mind that the entire process of detaining and processing prisoners and exploiting them for their supposed intelligence was shot through with a drive to conclude that they were all a threat, and to overlook the distressing fact that most of them were seized in a largely random manner, mostly by America’s Afghan and Pakistan allies, at a time when substantial bounty payments were widespread, and were never subjected to anything that resembled an adequate screening process.

And then, of course, as I have outlined above, and as is revealed extensively in the files, they were trapped in a prison where officials, in their ill-conceived desire for “actionable intelligence,” ended up attempting to justifying their detention either by coercing or bribing the prisoners themselves or coercing or bribing their fellow prisoners, while showing them the photo albums of prisoners known as the “family albums,” to come up with allegations that could be passed off as plausible, whether or not there was any substance to them at all.

The Complete Guantánamo Files: WikiLeaks and the Prisoners Released in 2007 (Part One of Ten)

David Hicks (ISN 2, Australia) Released May 2007

As I explained in Chapter 9 of my book The Guantánamo Files, David Hicks, one of the most well-known prisoners at Guantánamo, who was 26 years old at the time of his capture in Afghanistan in November 2001, was a former horse trainer from Adelaide, who converted to Islam after traveling to Europe and training with the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999, and then traveled to Pakistan to study in a madrassa, subsequently crossing into Afghanistan to continue his studies — at what he described as a “center for Islamic revolution” — and to fight with the Taliban, as was reported in an article in the Australian in December 2006.

On November 10, 2001, he rang his father on a satellite phone from a ditch outside Kandahar, telling him he was going to help the Taliban defend Kabul from the Northern Alliance. He then made his way to Kunduz, and on November 24, as the last bastion of Taliban power in northern Afghanistan fell to the Northern Alliance, he decided to make his escape. Climbing on board a taxi-van with dozens of Afghans, he tried to hide his blond hair and blue eyes, but was unsuccessful. As the van made its way through the streets of Pul-i-Khumri, south of Kunduz, the driver noticed his pale skin and called the local Northern Alliance commanders. Heavily armed soldiers stopped the van at a checkpoint, seized Hicks and took him to a cell in the local garrison, where, he said, he was sold for $15,000 to the Americans, who took him to the Northern Alliance prison at Sheberghan, under the control of the warlord General Rashid Dostum.

Because of his color and his nationality, Hicks, like John Walker Lindh, was singled out for particular attention by the US military. According to Shah Mohammed (ISN 19, released in May 2003), who was held with him in Guantánamo, he was treated differently from the majority of the prisoners from the moment he arrived in Sheberghan. “He was asked a lot of questions [by the Americans], more than us,” he said. Hicks himself said, in court documents discussed in the New York Times, that US soldiers “tied his hands and feet and beat him with bare fists during two-hour sessions,” and forced him to sit on a window ledge, while six soldiers pointed their weapons at him. He also explained that one interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage,” adding, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with US interrogators, I might be shot.”

His treatment at Sheberghan was, however, just the start of his misery. While the majority of those around him were transferred to Kandahar or released through deals made by General Dostum, Hicks was one of a handful of prisoners (including Lindh) who were flown to the USS Peleliu for interrogation, where his American interrogators were joined by unsympathetic representatives of his home country, and where he heard other prisoners “screaming in pain” while being interrogated. He was then moved to the USS Bataan, where conditions became “drastically” worse, and it was while he was on this second ship that he and other prisoners were taken by helicopter to some vast, barn-like buildings in an undisclosed location, where they were forced to kneel for ten hours, and where, Hicks said, “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on.” It was only after these avenues of abuse had been exhausted that he was finally transferred to the US prison at Kandahar airport.

There, he said, he and other prisoners “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs,” and he “was stripped, his body hair shaved,” and, he said, a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” about which soldiers “made crude comments.”

In Guantánamo, Hicks said, he was repeatedly beaten, once for eight hours, and frequently while he was restrained and blindfolded. “I have been beaten before, after and during investigations,” he said, adding that he had also been “menaced and threatened, directly and indirectly, with firearms and other weapons before and during investigations.” He also said that he was subjected to sleep deprivation “as a matter of policy,” and according to Ruhal Ahmed, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal (the “Tipton Three”), he was one of numerous prisoners refused medical treatment — in his case, treatment for a hernia at a time when they recalled that he had “gone downhill” and appeared willing to make any number of false confessions to alleviate his plight. Revealing he extent to which very little information regarding the prisoners’ ill-treatment is available in their publicly available files, the Pentagon’s own brief allegations against Hicks contain no reference whatsoever to any of the above.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Hicks was a “Recommendation to Retain under DoD Control,” dated September 17, 2004, in which it was noted that he was born in August 1975, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, after being introduced to Islam by members of Jamaat al-Tablighi (the worldwide missionary organization that was nevertheless regarded by US authorities as “a Tier 2 NGO target”; in other words, an organization that had “demonstrated the intent and willingness to support terrorist organizations willing to attack US persons or interests”), he ”became aware of the situation and struggles occurring in Kosovo, as well as the role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), while working as a horse trainer in Japan in 1998 and 1999.

He “claimed it was the plight of the people in Kosovo that urged him to seek the KLA,” and then traveled to Kosovo, where he trained for three months, but never saw combat, as the conflict ended. After a thwarted attempt to fight in East Timor, he flew to Pakistan in the fall of 1999, where, in December 1999, “while performing missionary work for the JT [he] met with representatives of the Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT),” described as “a Tier 1 target”; in other words, one of a number of terrorist groups, “especially those with state support, that have demonstrated the intention and the capability to attack US persons or interests,” even though LeT’s main preoccupation was the India-Pakistan conflict regarding Kashmir, and even though Hicks’ sole preoccupation was with Kashmir, and did not involve US interests at all.

After traveling to Lahore and Quetta for discussions, and to join LeT, Hicks traveled to Muzzafarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, for training, although again he never saw combat, as Pakistan’s largest and most influential intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, was “controlling the number of troops in Kashmir,” and did not let hi in, even though he apparently “stated he would have waited several months or longer for an attempted insertion into Kashmir.” Thwarted again, he managed to enter Afghanistan instead, and traveled to Kandahar “in search of military training, based on information from a contact with the Taliban in Pakistan.’ He then returned to Pakistan, and studied the Koran at a madrassa in Karachi for four months.

In December 2000, he returned to Kandahar, and, on this occasion, was apparently “introduced to the Al-Qaida organisation,” and reportedly undertook military training at the Al-Farouq training camp, described as “Al-Qaida’s Al-Farouq terrorist camp,” even though its main purpose was basic military training. It was stated that he “trained with Al-Qaida at multiple locations in Afghanistan, including the Abu Obeida terrorist camp for urban warfare training,” and met with Mohammed Atef and Abu Hafs, two senior figures in Al-Qaida. He also visited the front lines, but again missed out on combat.

In describing his capture, it was noted that, “[a]s the Taliban lines fell, and just prior to the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif by the Northern Alliance, [he] fled the area to Kunduz, AF, by riding in a truck,” and “then traveled to Bagram, AF, where Northern Alliance national soldiers arrested him,” and “was turned over to US Forces and incarcerated on the USS Pettiloo (actually, as noted above, the USS Peleliu). He was sent to Guantánamo on the day the prison opened, January 11, 2002, allegedly because it was assessed that he “may provide knowledge of Al-Qaida Training Camps in Afghanistan.”

However, as I explained in my article, “How to Read WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo Files” (originally published on WikiLeaks’ website when the Guantánamo files were first published, as part of my work liaising between WikiLeaks and its media partners):

[T]he “Reasons for Transfer” included in the documents, which have been repeatedly cited by media outlets as an explanation of why the prisoners were transferred to Guantánamo, are, in fact, lies that were grafted onto the prisoners’ files after their arrival at Guantánamo. This is because, contrary to the impression given in the files, no significant screening process took place before the prisoners’ transfer. As Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator who worked in Afghanistan, explained in a book that he wrote about his experiences (The Interrogators), every prisoner who ended up in US custody had to be sent to Guantánamo, even though the majority were not even seized by US forces, but were seized by their Afghan and Pakistani allies at a time when substantial bounty payments for “Al-Qaida and Taliban suspects” were widespread.

In assessing Hicks’ story, the Task Force described him as having had “direct involvement with senior Al-Qaida leadership, including Osama Bin Laden,” even though there was no indication that he had met bin Laden. It was also claimed that he “actively sought out extremist organisations throughout the world in order to train, operate, and fight with them” (even though he always missed out on combat), and that his “involvement and extensive training with the KLA, LeT, Al-Qaida, Taliban, and Jamaat al-Tablighi [made] him a highly skilled and advanced combatant, as well as a valuable asset and possible leader for extremist organisations” (which, again, was a huge exaggeration considering that Hicks had never fought anyone).

It was also claimed that he was “an admitted/sworn fighter for Al-Qaida and [had] written a statement affirming such,” even though this statement obviously contained what the US authorities wanted to hear, and not what actually happened. It was also stated that he had been assessed as being “of high intelligence value,” and that he still possesse[d] intelligence value,” although “due to his current trial by Military Commission,” for which he had been “formally charged with conspiracy, attempted murder by an unpriviledged [sic] belligerent, and aiding the enemy,” JTF GTMO stated that it would “not continue exploitation efforts.”

The Task Force also noted that Hicks’ “overall behavior” in Guantánamo had been  “compliant,” although he was assessed as being “deceptive.” It was also assessed that he posed “a high risk, and pose[d] a significant threat to the US, its interests and allies,” and, as a result, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended that he be “retained under DoD control.”

As the Task Force noted, however, its appraisal was not especially relevant, because, in July 2003, Hicks was one of the first six prisoners to be put forward for a trial by Military Commission, along with Salim Hamdan, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, Ibrahim al-Qosi, and, initially, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi (although they were subsequently released). The Commissions were declared illegal by the Supreme Court in June 2006, but were then revived by Congress, and the first trial of the revived system was Hicks’, in March 2007.

As I explained in Chapter 20 of The Guantánamo Files, on March 26, 2007, a weary David Hicks accepted a plea bargain and declared that he was guilty of the only charge that was eventually raised against him: providing “material support for terrorism.” For his cooperation, he was sentenced on March 30 to nine months’ imprisonment, rather than the seven years that the prosecution had been seeking, and was told that he would be returning home in May 2007 to serve his sentence in Australia.

This was some comfort for Hicks, but observers noted that the process was still fundamentally flawed. Australian lawyer Lex Lasry told the Sydney Morning Herald that the court looked “pretty dysfunctional.” He was not impressed when the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, eliminated two of Hicks’ three lawyers, excluding one, Joshua Dratel, after he refused to agree in advance to court procedures that had not been drawn up, and he complained that when Hicks’ remaining lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, objected that Kohlmann was not sufficiently impartial, he “sat in judgment of himself” and “solemnly found that there were no grounds to find he was not impartial.”

For further information about how Hicks’ release came about as part of a deal arranged between Vice President Dick Cheney and Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard, see “The politics of David Hicks’ release from Guantánamo confirmed: plea bargain arranged between Cheney and Howard,” and for further information about the corrupt political maneuvering in the Military Commissions, see, ““The Dark Heart of the Guantánamo Trials.”

After his release, Hicks told his story in depth in his book, Guantánamo: My Journey, published in October 2010. For an excerpt, see “Former Guantánamo Prisoner David Hicks Describes His First Two Weeks at Camp X-Ray,: and also see “Empathy and Self-Reflection: An Extraordinary Article by Jason Leopold About His Friendship with Former Guantánamo Prisoner David Hicks,” and “Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner David Hicks Gives His First Interview — To Jason Leopold of Truthout.”

Gholam Ruhani (ISN 3, Afghanistan) Released December 2007

Gholam Ruhani, who was 26 years old at the time of his capture, was seized in December 2001 with Abdul-Haq Wasiq (ISN 4, still held), the Taliban’s deputy minister of intelligence, and one of the few senior Taliban figures captured by the Americans, in a potentially perilous Special Forces operation in Ghazni, south of Kabul, as I explained at the time of his release, also drawing on an account I gave in Chapter 10 of The Guantánamo Files. At the time, Ghazni was a Taliban stronghold, but when the Special Forces received a tip-off that a local warlord had arranged a meeting with Qari Amadullah, the Taliban’s minister of intelligence, in which, it was suggested, Amadullah might provide information that would lead to the capture of Osama bin Laden, their commander, Gary Berntsen approved the mission.

In the end, Amadullah did not turn up, and clearly had no intention of doing so. Safely ensconced in Pakistan, after escaping from Afghanistan, he spoke to a journalist in late December, interrupting the interview to take a phone call, and then declaring, “I am personally requested by Mullah Omar and Sheikh Osama to go to Uruzgan and take the command of new guerrilla war preparations, which will start as soon as possible, and you will hear the news in papers and on BBC.”

Unsurprisingly, having effectively given US forces his itinerary as a result of this loose talk, he was killed in a US air strike a few days later. In the same interview, however, he also spoke about Abdul-Haq Wasiq. He said that Mullah Omar, who, he claimed, was living in a safe place in the mountains north of Kandahar, had asked him to visit, but he had been unable to do so, “because a lot of people know me, and I am frightened they will capture me somewhere on the road. So I sent my assistant Mullah Abdul-Haq Wasiq to Kandahar. Unfortunately he was captured by American agents in Ghazni.”

This suggests that Wasiq either made his own negotiations with the Americans in Ghazni, or was invited and then betrayed by the local warlord, because after the meeting he was duly arrested, along with Gholam Ruhani, by the Special Forces operatives, who duly declared that they were “the number two and three in Taliban intel.”

In Guantánamo, Wasiq has been coy about his role, claiming that he was forced to join the Taliban, and that he sometimes acted as the deputy minister of intelligence, but only to combat “thieves and bribes.” This did not convince his tribunal, who greeted him with the words, “Good afternoon, Mr. Minister. Seldom before have we had someone of such prestige and responsibility.” Ruhani, however, was adamant that he was not the “number three in Taliban intel.” He said that he was a Taliban conscript, who fulfilled his duties in a clerical capacity to avoid being sent to the front lines, and explained that he was asked to attend the meeting between the Taliban and the Americans because he had learned a little English while studying electronics manuals in a store run by his elderly father. “I turned over my pistol and ammunition to the American, as an act of faith, because it was a friendly meeting,” he said. “I expected to leave the meeting and return to my life, my shop and my family. Instead, I was arrested.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Ruhani was a “Recommendation for Transfer Out of DoD Control (TRO),” dated January 14, 2007, in which it was noted that he was born in 1975 and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Task Force noted that, according to his own account, his family owned an electrical store in Ghazni, where he attended school until, fearing that he would be drafted by the Communist government, his parents sent him, via a family friend, to Iran, where he worked in a textile factory for two and a half years, and only returned to Afghanistan “sometime after 1992, while President Burhanuddin Rabbani was in office.” He then “worked in his father’s store stocking shelves and cleaning” until 1996, when the Taliban “gained control of Kabul” and “began conscripting people.”

He then “took a job with the Ministry of Intelligence because he did not want to go to war,” and “spent approximately two years working with a thirteen or fourteen-man security detail in Kabul,” and also “served as a driver for the group leader, Muhammad Nabi Majrooh,” described as “the Director of the Operations Department who helped [him] get the job.” Majrooh later sacked him (for unspecified reasons), and was then dismissed himself, “because the Taliban suspected he was collaborating.with the Northern Alliance,” but Ruhani “maintained employment at the security office,” when a man named Asim took over. Throughout this period, he added, “he did not receive any formal weapons training, but did carry a pistol for work.”

In describing the circumstances of his capture, it was noted that, the day before the Northern Alliance captured Kabul in November 2001, he “left Kabul for Ghazni, where he continued working at his father’s store.” It was then, he said, that an acquaintance named Nanwai “contacted [him] stating he needed an English translator for a meeting.” Ruhani “agreed to accompany Nanwai to the meeting, which occurred at Haji Ghulan Muhammad Hotak’s house in Ghazni.” In a footnote, the Task Force explained that Hotak was “assessed to be a high-level Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) commander in the Wardak province, and a major narcotics trafficker and weapons facilitator,” who was seized and held in Bagram, where he was designated ISN 1674, and was released on October 14, 2006.

At the meeting, Hotak made a phone call and told Ruhani to ask the unidentified person who answered when he was coming to Ghazni. He was told that it would be in two or three days, and so, three days later, on December 10, 2001, “Nanwai and Hotak requested [Ruhani] attend another meeting at a school,” at which Abdul-Haq Wasiq was present, and Hotak “requested [Ruhani] to act as an interpreter between [Wasiq], Hotak, and the ‘Americans.’” They then drove from the school “to where the ‘Americans’ were waiting,” but Ruhani “claimed he could not understand them because they spoke ‘British English,’” and another translator took over. “The purpose of this meeting,” Ruhani stated, “was to identify the location of Mullah Muhammad Omar,” the leader of the Taliban.

Despite this, at some point during the meeting, “one of the ‘Americans’ exited the house, reentered with American soldiers,and arrested all of the Afghans,” who were then taken to the US prison at Bagram airbase. Ruhani was on the first flight into Guantánamo on January 11, 2002 (the day the prison opened), on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Four members of a thirteen or fourteen-man Taliban unit who were his superiors in Kabul [and] Weapons security and duties of the Taliban team in Kabul.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that he “downplay[ed] his position and authority in the Taliban Intelligence organisation,” alleging that Qari Ahmadullah, the Taliban Chief of Intelligence, was his brother-in-law, and that Muhammad Nabi Majrooh was Qari Ahmadullah’s brother.” Even if true, this would not preclude the possibility that he played only a minor role in the Taliban’s intelligence operations in Kabul, and although an unidentified “sensitive contact” identified him “as Majrooh’s deputy in 2001,” there is no way of knowing if there was any truth to this allegation.

Primarily, the Task Force seemed to regard him with some wariness because of his alleged family associations, claiming that Qari Ahmadullah did not die in December 2001, and, on June 7, 2003, “led a group of 36 extremists in a fatal bomb attack against a bus carrying German Intemational Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Kabul,” and that, in September 2006, Muhammad Nabi Majrooh, “along with two Taliban military commanders, planned to conduct suicide attacks throughout Afghanistan.” Again, although there were footnotes referring to specific reports that dealt with these claims, they have not been independently verified, and, in any case, they serve only to suggest that Ruhani was suspicious because his sister married Qari Ahmadullah.

In assessing him, the Task Force concluded that he was “of medium intelligence value,” and posed “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” because he “ha[d] familial ties to active Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) entities, and would probably join ACM groups dedicated to attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan if released.” He was also “assessed as a medium threat from a detention perspective,” whose “overall behaviour ha[d] been compliant and non-hostile toward the guard force and staff,” although, on September 1, 2005, he “damaged government property by stuffing pieces of his flip flops into his sink.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of Guantánamo, updating a previous recommendation for his continued detention (dated January 21, 2006), recommended him for transfer to ongoing custody in Afghanistan, in a wing of the main prison in Kabul, Pol-i-Charki, that was refurbished by the Americans, and was used to hold prisoners returned from Guantánamo from April 2007 onwards.

Abdallah Al Matrafi (ISN 5, Saudi Arabia) Released December 2007

A father of three, Abdallah al-Matrafi (also identified as Abdul Aziz al-Matrafi), who was 38 years old at the time of his capture, had directed a fund-raising committee in Bosnia, and had worked as an imam in Mecca before establishing the charity Al-Wafa, as I explained at the time of his release, also drawing on an account in Chapter 16 of The Guantánamo Files. At the time of his release, he was presumably aware that most of the dozens of other prisoners who had worked for Al-Wafa had been freed, as their claims that they were involved in genuine humanitarian aid work were accepted one by one. He, however, was regarded as a more significant prisoner, against whom was stacked an array of allegations of his involvement with both the Taliban and Al-Qaida.

After the invasion of Afghanistan began, al-Matrafi sent his family to safety in Pakistan, but stayed on in Kabul, even though the organization’s stores were the targets of bombing raids, in which seven aid workers were killed. He finally left the capital when he was seriously injured in a bombing raid, and his family last heard from him on December 10, 2001, as he was about to board an Emirates flight from Lahore to Dubai. He never made it onto the plane. Abducted at the airport by US agents, he was transferred back to Afghanistan and put on the first flight to Guantánamo.

Little was heard about him in Guantánamo, although it was clear that the authorities regarded him as a major supporter of terrorism, alleging in his tribunal that he knew Osama bin Laden, that his plan to provide funds to bin Laden for training caused disagreement within Al-Wafa, that he admitted that Al-Wafa purchased weapons and vehicles for the Taliban, and that he “negotiated a deal that allowed the Taliban to direct Al-Wafa’s activities.”

In his review boards, further allegations were added, including claims that he “admitted he took orders from Osama bin Laden,” that he “provided financial support to Al-Qaida after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, and that he purchased medical laboratory equipment for a microbiologist who was “developing anthrax for Al-Qaida.”

Set against these allegations, however, were a number of counter-claims, which, typically, were ignored when the authorities declared him an “enemy combatant.” On several occasions, al-Matrafi stated that there was no relationship between Al-Wafa and Al-Qaida, “explaining that Al-Qaida disliked Al-Wafa, and both organizations were in disagreement.” It was also noted in the Summary of Evidence for his second review board that, two months before 9/11, he met with bin Laden at his house in Kandahar, and stated that the purpose of the meeting was “to discuss unresolved issues” from a previous meeting, “concerning disagreements between Al-Wafa and Al-Qaida.”

A brief survey of al-Matrafi’s statements before his capture is sufficient to explain his refusal to accept that he was affiliated with terrorists. In October 2001, after Al-Wafa was blacklisted, he appeared on the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera, protesting his innocence and offering to open up the organization’s accounts to public scrutiny.

In addition, two prisoners in Guantánamo who had worked for Al-Wafa backed up his statements. Ayman Batarfi (ISN 627, released December 2009), a Yemeni doctor who tended wounded soldiers during the battle of Tora Bora, pointed out that, although Al-Wafa had a good working relationship with the Taliban, this was required to pursue its humanitarian work, and both Batarfi and another man, Mustafa Hamlili, an Algerian-born Pakistani resident (ISN 705, released in July 2008), reinforced al-Matrafi’s claim that the organization was regarded with suspicion by Al-Qaida because of its Saudi links.

Batarfi may, in fact, be the alleged “Al-Qaida facilitator” mentioned in the Summary of Evidence from al-Matrafi’s first review board, who identified him as “having problems with Osama bin Laden because [he] had come to do charity work in Afghanistan and was funded by the Saudi royal family, who Osama bin Laden rejected and denounced.” This source added, moreover, that al-Matrafi “would take Saudis from Al-Farouq [the main training camp for Arabs in Afghanistan] and try to send them back to Saudi Arabia.”

None of this helped him, however, and what probably counted against him more than anything else was the apparent discovery, in August 2002, of a store of chemicals in offices used by Al-Wafa in Kabul, which included “36 types of chemical, explosives, fuses and terrorist guide books.” Whether this had anything to do with him is unknown. His brother, Mohammed, reiterated that the organization had no links to Al-Qaida. “My brother and I have repeatedly said we have no terrorist links, and that any organization, official or non-governmental, is free to come and investigate our headquarters,” he told the press, adding, “We are only helping the Muslim people of Afghanistan.”

Nothing more has been heard of al-Matrafi since his release, but as I explained when he was repatriated, “Time alone will tell what the Saudi government makes of [Abdul Aziz] al-Matrafi on his return, but, like the allegations against his workers that disappeared under scrutiny like a malevolent mirage, it may well be that those who vouched for him were correct in their appraisal that he was the head of a charity that was required to work with the Taliban, but that was otherwise committed to bringing humanitarian aid to some of the most deprived people on earth.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Matrafi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated October 25, 2007, in which it was noted that he was born in July 1964, and was “in overall good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, between 1982 and 1984, “he served as a tank mechanic in the Saudi Arabian Army, achieving the rank of sergeant,” and then traveled to Afghanistan to participate in the resistance to the Soviet occupation, described as “the Soviet Jihad.” He was apparently there for 18 months,  and met Osama bin Laden and other mujahideen who were later involved in Al-Qaida.

From 1993 until 1997, he served as “the local director in Mecca for the High Commission for Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” identified as “probably” referring to the Saudi High Commission for Relief, and further identified as “an NIPF Priority 2B TSE,” defined as “having available resources and being in a position to provide financial support to terrorist organizations willing to attack US persons or interests, or provide witting operational support to Priority 2B terrorist groups.”

It was also noted that he “returned to Afghanistan sometime between April 2000 and March 2001,” after meeting with “the founder of Al-Wafa, Shaykh Abdallah al-Rayis,” who asked him to “set up offices and religious institutes in Afghanistan.” Al-Matrafi subsequently “met with the Afghan Minister of Education, Emir Khan Motaqi, who advised [him] on appropriate locations for the religious institutes,” and “then returned to Saudi Arabia to discuss his findings with Shaykh al-Rayis.” On returning to Afghanistan, he established Al-Wafa offices in Kandahar, Kabul, Herat, and Karachi.

So far, there were no claims that Al-Wafa had any connection with Al-Qaida, although the Task Force also alleged that, during Ramadan in 2000, he met with Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, a religious scholar (who, later, was ferociously opposed to the 9/11 attacks), who apparently took him to meet Osama bin Laden “to discuss the Al-Wafa offices in Afghanistan, and the differences between the ideologies of Al-Qaida and Al-Wafa.” According to the Task Force, at the end of the meeting, bin Laden gave him a letter authorizing Abu Hafs to assist him in establishing additional al-Wafa offices in Afghanistan. As a result, it was claimed, he “submitted the appropriate papers through the office of the Taliban Supreme Commander, Mullah Omar,” and, “[i]n the spring of 2001, an Al-Wafa office opened in Kabul,” although, in the account above, it seemed that al-Matrafi managed to open offices without any assistance whatsoever from bin Laden.

A this point, the allegations take a darker turn. After claiming that, in “late spring of 2001,” al-Matrafi was approached “regarding providing funding for Taliban Ministry of Communication and Electricity projects in Afghanistan” by the Pakistani nuclear scientist and Islamic scholar Dr. Bashir Ud-Din Mahmud (aka Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood), a co-founder of the Pakistani charity Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (“Reconstruction for the Islamic Community”), and Shaykh al-Farouq (aka Suheil al-Farouq), the head of the UTN office in Kabul, it was claimed that, in approximately July 2001, he “again met with UBL to discuss Al-Qaida and Al-Wafa issues, and, just before September 11, 2001, “met with Al-Qaida biological and chemical expert Yazid Sufaat and directed him to the Al-Wafa office in Pakistan.”

These are severe allegations, but it has never been established that there was actually any truth to them, given the doubts expressed in the accounts related before the WikiLeaks files were released, and nor has it been established that there is any truth to an additional claim that, after 9/11, he “facilitated the movement of Al-Qaida operatives into Afghanistan.” What is clear is that, in early December 2001, he “crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan with the help of his translator Muhammad Ajmal,” who “convinced Pakistani customs officials that [he] was ill and needed immediate medical attention,” and who then took him to a Lashkar-e-Tayyiba office in Lahore. There, he “provided [him] with an escort in order to obtain a visa and the necessary exit paperwork before taking [him] to the airport.”

However, Pakistani police arrested al-Matrafi at Lahore airport on December 11, 2001, and he was transferred to US custody on December 29, 2001. He apparently reported that, when he was seized, he had various items in his possession, including $1,000, although the Task Force noted that none of the items were held by JTF-GTMO. He was sent to Guantánamo on February 13, 2002 to “provide information on the following: The financing of Al-Qaida operations in Bosnia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan using Al-Wafa as a front operation [and] Key Al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he had been “truthful about many of his activities as a director of Al-Wafa,” but claimed that “he omit[ted] other details and attempt[ed] to downplay his associations with and support to Al-Qaida by stating that all of his support went to the Taliban or for the betterment of the Afghan people.” It was also noted, as he said repeatedly and was noted elsewhere, that he “claimed that he did not agree with [Osama bin Laden] and Al-Qaida’s goals and that Al-Qaida did not trust Al-Wafa.”

In a detailed analysis, it was claimed, with reference to the chemical weapons claims mentioned above, that “he attempted to procure chemical warfare weapons for use against US and Coalition forces and was involved in Al-Qaida’s attempts to develop or procure Weapons of Mass Destruction,” and that he “authorized Al-Wafa to spend $5000 US to assist Al-Qaida anthrax researcher, Yazid Sufaat, purchase laboratory equipment.” It is not certain where these claims came from, but it is alarming to realize that one source, mentioned here, may have been Jamal Mar’i (ISN 577, released December 2009), a Yemeni who worked for Al-Wafa in Karachi, who was kidnapped from his home on September 23, 2001 and rendered to a secret prison in Jordan before ending up in Guantánamo, or, even more worryingly, Jamil Qasim, who was never even sent to Guantánamo.

Ayman Batarfi (ISN 627, also released in December 2009) was a Yemeni doctor,  identified by Mar’i as “Sufaat’s associate,” although that may not have been a reliable claim, given the circumstances of Mari’s detention. Mar’i also said that Batarfi “gave Sufaat the telephone number for Jamil Qasim who Sufaat was to contact for funding assistance,” and who “was a micro-biology student and served as a junior medical advisor for Al-Wafa in the Karachi office along with [Mar'i] and Abu Ahmad (aka Imran Uways).” Qasim, also identified as Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, was reportedly flown to Amman, to the same secret prison that Jamal Mar’i was sent to, but he never resurfaced. In 2007, Amnesty International told the Washington Post it had “asked the Jordanian government for information on his whereabouts but ha[d] not received an answer.”

Other unsubstantiated claims about al-Matrafi were that he “attempted to purchase a computerized laser-guided missile system costing $500,000 US,” in which the missiles “would contain a chemical substance, have a range of 1,500 kilometers, and have a destruction radius of 1,500 square meters” (which sounds like a paranoid fantasy, rather than anything real), and there were also suspicions that, because he “admitted he met with Dr. Bashir Ud-Din Mahmud,” it was possible he “was involved in attempting to procure a nuclear weapon for Al-Qaida.”

This was in spite of the fact that, although he was “assessed to be a supporter” of the Al-Qaida network, he was “not assessed to be a member of Al-Qaida,” and, more importantly, it contradicted a statement by the “high-value detainee” Walid bin Attash (ISN 10014, still held), who “commented that the Al-Wafa NGO disagreed with Al-Qaida’s opposition to the Saudi government and actively attempted to undermine Al-Qaida’s recruiting and training programs in Afghanistan prior to 11 September 2001,” and another statement by Humud al-Jadani (ISN 230, released July 2007), who “reported that [al-Matrafi] disagreed with the message [Osama bin Laden] was preaching to the mujahideen concerning martyrdom.” Al-Jadani said that al-Matrafi “felt that martyrdom was attained by fighting to the last breath, whereas [bin Laden] was preaching suicide missions.” He added that bin Laden “became upset and threatened [al-Matrafi]’s life, ordering [him] never to go near any of the Al-Qaida guesthouses again and never talk again to the mujahideen about martyrdom.”

Whle the US allegations against al-Matrafi were, then, largely full of holes, it was of interest that the Mabahith (the Saudi intelligence service) “provided information on 37 detainees, in order of precedence, whom they designated as being of high priority interest,” and that al-Matrafi “was the 13th name on that list,” because the Mabahith had previously had him “under surveillance for recruiting activities.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of high intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies,” and it was also claimed that he was “a high threat from a detention perspective,” even though his “overall behavior ha[d] been mostly compliant and rarely hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended his continued detention, updating a similar recommendation on September 9, 2006. Nevertheless, he was released just two months after this updated recommendation, for reasons that have never been explained, and, on his return, was presumably put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul (ISN 8, Afghanistan) Released December 2007

As I explained in a footnote to Chapter 10 of The Guantánamo Files, Rasoul, who was 28 years old at the time of his capture, was seized in a car with two Taliban commanders, Mullah Norullah Noori (ISN 6, still held) and Mullah Mohammed Fazil (ISN 7, still held) after the fall of the city of Kunduz, the last Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, in November 2001. In Guantánamo, he claimed that he was a Taliban recruit, who was seriously wounded in 1997, and added that he rejoined the Taliban in 1999 “to gain better medical attention,” and went to Kunduz to fight the Northern Alliance in September 2001.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Rasoul was a “Recommendation for Transfer Out of DoD Control (TRO),” dated December 25, 2006, in which he was identified as Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, and it was noted that he was born in 1973, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, based on his own account, the Joint Task Force noted that he was from a village in Helmand province, that he claimed “he only attended two years of school during his adolescence,” and that he also claimed “he never received any formal military training.” He also claimed, as he later did in his tribunal at Guantánamo, that he “answered the call to jihad twice, once in 1997 and the second time in 1999.”

He further explained that, on the first occasion, he “decided to travel to Kabul, AF, to join the Taliban,” when he “was issued an AK-47 while staying at a compound that housed 15 to 20 people,” but, after just a month, “was seriously wounded after a bombing raid by Massoud” (Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated two days before the 9/11 attacks), and was then held in hospital “for approximately seven or eight months.”

In 1999, when he rejoined the Taliban in Kandahar, he claimed “he reacquired an AK-47 for his personal use,” and said he stayed in a compound known as Kuli Urdo, which “housed military personnel and several tanks,” although he added that he “would spend a few days at the compound and a few days at home.” He also said that, while there, he “recalled seeing” Mullah Norullah Noori (identified as Sham Ul-Haq Noorullah), and another unidentified man named Allah Uddin.

After traveling to Kunduz in September 2001 “to join Taliban soldiers in the fight against the NA” (although he claimed “he never saw combat”), he said he “recalled seeing his friends from Kuli Urdo, Mullah Mohammed Fazil (identified as Mohammed Fazl), and two other men, Dadi Allah, and Mullah Beradar.” He also pointed out that, of the 5,000 Taliban in Kunduz, all “were under the command of [Fazil], Allah, and Beradar.”

Describing the circumstances of his capture, the Task Force claimed that, on November 28, 2001, he and Noori and Fazil (both described as “Taliban leaders”) and two other unidentified men “turned themselves over to General Dostum,” although it seems more likely that, as he explained on other occasions, they were all seized while traveling together in a car. Dostum then “moved the group to Mazar-e-Sharif,” and, in early December 2001, took Rasoul, Noori and Fazil to his prison at Sheberghan. After being transferred to US custody, they were held on two US ships — the USS Peleliu and the USS Bataan — and were then taken to Bagram. Rasoul was on the first flight into Guantánamo, when the prison opened on January 11, 2002, and the spurious reason given for his transfer was to “provide information on the following: Extensive information on Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Fazl.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that his “true position and standing within the Taliban ranks ha[d] not been clearly determined,” because he “continue[d] to identify himself as being a mere foot soldier,” even though he “identified [Fazil, Noori], Mullah Beradar, Mullah Dadullah-Lang, and Mullah Quyem (NFI) as friends and associates.” Providing a variation on his capture story, the Task Force noted that it was “highly doubtful that the detainee, who was allegedly standing with other Taliban soldiers along a roadside, would be singularly selected by General Dostum’s soldiers to join [Noori] and [Fazil] in the vehicle they were secured in, unless [he] was as significant as his fellow captives.”

The Task Force also picked up on the fact that Fazil was the “Taliban Army Chief of Staff,” and that Noori was the “Governor of Balkh Province,” and noted that Rasoul “was placed in a house with the high-ranking government officials, while the other two foot soldiers were sent to Qala-i-Janghi prison,” where hundreds of Taliban soldiers were sent after surrendering, and where a notorious massacre took place. An analyst noted that, although Rasoul claimed it was “normal that low ranking people ride in cars with high-ranking commanders,” he “stayed with the high-ranking officials at a separate facility” while “about 500 of [Fazil's] troops went to the Qala-i-Janghi prison.”

There were other, idiotic claims — that Rasoul “carried three Casio watches on his person at the time of capture,” and that two were the model F-91W, which was “a type of watch used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs)” — but when it came to understanding Rasoul’s significance, the fact that he “admitted being a bodyguard to [Fazil],” and that Fazil said that he “performed duties as a bodyguard, driver, and administrative assistant” (even though he also described his duties as being “more like a foot soldier”) ought to have made it clear that he was of some significance, although instead the decision was made to release him.

The Task Force concluded that he was “of medium intelligence value,” and that he posed “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” He was also “assessed to be a low threat from a detention perspective,” whose “overall behaviour ha[d] been compliant and rarely hostile to the guard force and staff,” and, as a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation for “Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD) with Transfer Language” (dated December 24, 2005), recommended him for transfer out of DoD control, although he was not released for another year.

After his release, as I explained in an article for the Guardian, “Who are ‘the worst of the worst’?,” he apparently resurfaced as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a Taliban leader responsible for roadside bomb attacks against British forces, and, by March 2010, had apparently risen through the ranks to become Mullah Omar’s top deputy, after the capture of Mullah Berader (aka Barader). Also known as Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a detailed profile of him was published in the Christian Science Monitor in April 2010. He was also profiled in Newsweek in May 2011.

Fahed Mohamed Al Qahtani (ISN 13, Saudi Arabia) Released July 2007

Fahed al-Qahtani, who was just 19 at the time of his capture, had been recruited for jihad in his home country, as I explained in an article at the time of his release, drawing on an account in a footnote to Chapter 2 of The Guantánamo Files. In Guantánamo, he explained that he had also been aided in his travel by a facilitator, but also said, “I went for jihad to Afghanistan, but when I got there I changed my mind. I saw some things there that were against my religion … Things like worshipping a cemetery where people have died. That has nothing to do with our religion, worshipping graves.” Refuting allegations that he attended Al-Farouq, the main camp for Arab recruits, and that Osama bin Laden visited while he was there, he insisted that he spent most of his time in a house in Kabul that was “a cooking facility for the [Taliban] front line,” and then fled with others to Kunduz, the last Taliban bastion in the north, “until we were surrounded and there was an agreement to have all the Arabs delivered to Mazar-e-Sharif.”

Delivered, with several hundred others, to Qala-i-Janghi, a nearby fort, he survived a US-led massacre, which took place after some of the prisoners started an uprising, by somehow escaping from the fort without being killed. “I was present but did not participate in the fighting,” he explained. “I escaped during the fighting and turned myself in one day after. I went to the market to turn myself in. I met people in the market who were in the army of [General] Dostum [one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance]. That is where I was when I was recaptured … Dostum sold me to the Americans … They put me in jail and I was tortured by Afghans and made to say things. I was moved to Kandahar. When I got to Cuba I told the interrogators the real story.” Despite apparently telling the truth, the most extraordinary piece of “evidence” against al-Qahtani emerged in Guantánamo, when it was shamelessly alleged that he “admitted under duress that he was an Al-Qaida [sic] and had met Osama bin Laden.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Qahtani was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated May 26, 2006, in which he was identified as Fahd Nasir Muhammad al-Oahtani, and it was noted that he was born in January 1982, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that he dropped out of high school, and, on a trip to Mecca, “met a Yemeni named Abu al-Maali (variant: Ma’ali) who discussed with him the uprising in Palestine,” and told him “he should travel to Afghanistan (AF) for training and then return to Saudi Arabia for subsequent missions in Palestine.” Al-Maali told al-Qahtani “he would arrange for passports, visas and travel arrangements,” and promised he would meet him in Afghanistan “at a later date.” Al-Qahtani then asked three friends to accompany him, and, although they were reportedly unwilling, al-Maali persuaded them as well.

Traveling to Kandahar via Karachi and Quetta, al-Qahtani and his friends “were taken to the Arab guesthouse near the Hajji Habash Mosque.” He said he “spent approximately one week in the guesthouse and was told to hand over his documents for safekeeping while he was training,” although he “fell ill just prior to departing for the Al-Farouq training camp,” and “spent three months in a clinic recovering from malaria.”

When he recovered, he was sent to Al-Farouq, and “after he completed basic training, he returned to the guesthouse in Kandahar and was told he could return to Saudi Arabia or stay at the house.” He “opted to stay at the house, wait for Abu [al-]Maali to arrive, and obtain money for his return trip,” but al-Maali obviously didn’t arrive, because, in approximately April 2001, al-Qahtani left the Kandahar guesthouse and traveled to Kabul, and then Kunduz, staying in Taliban guesthouses, and in Kunduz, where the house was a staging area for Taliban fighters traveling to the front lines and for weaponry,” he apparently “made several trips to Takhar province,” and “continued to travel between the two locations until approximately mid-November 2001, when fighters on the front lines, led by [a man named] Gharib, retreated to the Kunduz guesthouse.”

When General Dostum’s Northern Alliance forces surrounded Kunduz, a deal was arranged whereby fighters were told that, if they surrendered, they would be transported to Kandahar. Al-Qahtani and others and were loaded onto trucks, but, instead of being disarmed, taken to Kandahar and freed, as they expected, they were taken to Mazar-e-Sharif, and imprisoned in the Qala-i-Janghi fort. There, his  group “was put in the fortress basement,” and the next day he “was taken out, beaten, and robbed.” Then, when he “was being moved to the courtyard, he heard an explosion and fighting broke out.” This, as noted above, was an uprising by some of the prisoners, who feared they were about to be shot, but it was savagely put down in what has become known as the Qala-i-Janghi massacre.

Al-Qahtani, however, was fortunate not be killed, as he later explained in his tribunal at Guantánamo. As he said, he “took cover behind some trees and remained there until nightfall when he escaped the fortress with fifteen other fighters.” They then split up and he traveled with two of the men to a market near Mazar-e-Sharif, where he “was shot and captured by Northern Alliance forces,” and claimed “to have been taken to a house and tortured for two days before being taken to another house where he was tortured into admitting he was Al-Qaida,” and then “taken to a third house for one day” until he was “transferred to a hospital where he was briefly treated.”

After being treated, he “was taken to a fourth house where he was detained with the others he had escaped Qala-i-Janghi with and held until the end of Ramadan,” and was then turned over to US forces. He recalled “being one of the first to arrive at the Kandahar Detention Facility,” which opened on December 28, 2001, and he was also on the first flight into Guantánamo on January 11 2002, when the spurious reason given for his transfer was to “provide information on the following: Al-Farouq training camp.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that, although he “initially admitted attending Al-Farouq,” he had “since retracted this claim stating he received training while in a guesthouse on the front lines.” Nevertheless, the Task Force insisted on assessing him as “a probable member of Al-Qaida who traveled to Afghanistan to receive basic, and possibly advanced, militant training,” who “resided in numerous Al-Qaida and Taliban guesthouses and attended at least one Al-Qaida training camp.”

This was a reference to Al-Farouq, but it was noticeable that, beyond his own single confession, later retracted, the only witness who placed him at Al-Farouq was Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held), the most notorious torture victim at Guantánamo, whose testimony is therefore extremely unreliable. Al-Qahtani, identified as “Al-Qaida member Maad al-Qahtani,” apparently “stated that he attended basic training at Al-Farouq with detainee and graduated in mid-February 2001,” and added that “[t]hey also attended advanced training together at Tarnak Farms, from March to mid-April 2001.”

It was also noted that Mohammed al-Qahtani “later stated he had not attended advanced training with detainee and only went to basic training with [him],” but although an analyst noted that, “[s]tarting in winter 2002/2003, [he] began retracting statements,” it was also noted that, “based on corroborating information it is believed that [his] initial admissions were the truth,” and that, as a result, it was “assessed that his identification of detainee as an advanced training classmate is factual, not the mistake [he] would like us to believe.”

Another unreliable claim made by Mohammed al-Qahtani, mentioned in Fahed al-Qahtani’s file, was that, “when questioned whether any of his training camp classmates volunteered for or were asked about their willingness to participate in martyrdom missions,” he stated,”they all were; otherwise they would not have traveled to Afghanistan for jihad,” even though there is no indication that there is any truth to this claim, as many of those who traveled for jihad — the majority, I believe — traveled to take part in the military conflict with the Northern Alliance, and not to take part in martyrdom missions.

In conclusion, the Task Force concluded that he was “of medium intelligence value,” and that he posed “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been non-compliant and hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation that he be retained in DoD control (dated June 11, 2004), recommended him for continued detention, but added, crucially, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Qahtani] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO),” although it took another 14 months for that agreement to be negotiated, and he was then put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Majid Al Joudi (ISN 25, Saudi Arabia) Released February 2007

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (8) – Captured in Afghanistan,” in which I drew partly on a brief account in Chapter 19 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Majid al-Joudi, who was 34 years old at the time of his capture, was a long-term hunger striker. In my book, I explained that the lawyer Julia Tarver Mason, who represented ten Saudi prisoners, visited Guantánamo in October 2005 and noted that three of her clients — Majid al-Joudi, as well as Abdul Rahman Shalabi and Yousef al-Shehri — reported to her the brutal manner in which they were being force-fed, because they were taking part in the prison-wide hunger strike that began that summer.

They said that the feeding tubes, which were “the thickness of a finger,” were regarded as objects of torture. She reported that they were forcibly shoved up the prisoners’ noses without anaesthetic or sedatives being provided, and that this resulted in prisoners “vomiting up substantial amounts of blood,” but added that when they did so, “the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like ‘look what your religion has brought you.’” She also noted the prisoners’ claims that they “were verbally abused and insulted and were restrained from head to toe” while the feeding took place, with “shackles or other restraints on their arms, legs, waist, chest, knees, and head,” that attempts to give them intravenous medication were “often quite painful … as inexperienced medical professionals seemed incapable of locating appropriate veins,” and, most shockingly, that, while doctors, including the head of the hospital, were watching, “the guards took tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes.”

However, at the time I wrote The Guantánamo Files, I knew nothing else about al-Joudi’s story, as the documents relating to his case were not released by the Pentagon until September 2007. In his one and only appearance at any of the hearings, in November 2006, al-Joudi said that, in October 2001, he was invited to join the humanitarian aid effort in Afghanistan that followed the US-led invasion of October 2001, and that he subsequently took a break from his work — in two family-run fabric stores — and traveled to Afghanistan in mid-November to work for a month for the charity Al-Wafa. He added that, over a two-week period, he distributed food and clothing to villages near Kandahar until he was wounded in the leg. According to the allegation in his last Unclassified Summary of Evidence, he “stated he was hit by a car and taken to a hospital that was taken over by Al-Qaida,” and that he told the men, who “initially thought he was mujahideen and was in Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban,” that “he was volunteering with Al-Wafa.”

As I explained in relation to Abdul Aziz al-Matrafi (ISN 5, above), working for Al-Wafa was enough to be regarded as a terrorist in Guantánamo, where its legitimate humanitarian aid work was ignored. In al-Joudi’s case, the US authorities insisted, despite his protests to the contrary, that documents in his possession when he was captured suggested “he was closely involved with Al-Qaida and that he was either a trainer or a trainee on an anti-surveillance course” — even though this was highly improbable, if not impossible, if he had arrived in Afghanistan just a month before he was seized.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Joudi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated September 28, 2006, in which he was identified as Majid Abdallah al-Judi and Majeed Abdallah, and it was noted that he was born in 1967, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, according to his own account (largely mirroring what I wrote in my online chapter), he was “a distant cousin of King Abdullah Hussein, the current ruler of Jordan,” although in Mecca, where his family lived, he began working in the family’s clothing store, run by his brother, after leaving school, until, one day in approximately October 2001, “the director of the Al-Wafa branch office in Mecca, Muhammad Abdallah Hasan, visited [his] store on several occasions to discuss volunteering in Afghanistan.”

On November 2, 2001, al-Joudi said, he “went to the Al-Wafa office in Mecca and entered into an agreement to volunteer to work for Al-Wafa in Afghanistan (AF) only during Ramadan 2001.” He was provided with “an airline ticket and $2,000 USD,” and left Saudi Arabia soon afterwards, traveling to Kandahar, where the local office manager met him, and he was provided with a room in a house. Two days after his arrival, he said, he and two other Saudi nationals “started delivering food to surrounding villages,” but, around December 1, 2001, when he was returning to the office, after calling his family from a phone booth, “a car struck him as he was crossing a street,” and he “was rendered unconscious and taken to a nearby hospital,” the Mirwais Hospital (aka the Chinese Hospital), where he was taken in “with a broken leg and facial injuries.”

He stated that, “when he awoke, he learned that the hospital had been taken over by members of Al-Qaida,” and that there were “eight armed individuals, using the hospital as a safe haven and barricading themselves on the second floor.” He added that some of them “strapped explosives to their bodies, threatening to blow themselves up if attacked,” although they were killed after a siege, and it was noted that al-Joudi’s file listed his date of capture as December 15, 2001, “when coalition forces removed [him] from the hospital.” He was sent to Guantánamo on January 21, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: The Al-Wafa office in Kandahar.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force stated bluntly that his account was “assessed to be false,” because he had “provided fictitious names for Al-Wafa employees, and detained Al-Wafa employees [did] not recognize [him],” and also because his “claimed arrival date at the Kandahar Al- Wafa office [was] at least a month later than the period Al-Wafa reportedly closed the office.” It was therefore claimed that his “associations with Al-Wafa [were] assessed to be a cover story to mask his true activities and associations including his membership in Al-Qaida.”

It was claimed that, due to his “evasiveness, non-cooperation, false cover story … pocket litter, and circumstances of capture,” he was “assessed to be a member of Al-Qaida defending Kandahar who was injured during coalition attacks and hospitalized where he was subsequently captured.” His pocket litter, which he denied belonged to him, apparently included “a handwritten page on which he vowed to remain a jihadist as long as he was alive,” and “two after-action reports detailing the results of surveillance exercises,” which were assessed as having been conducted at the Kandahar Airport Training Camp, and there were also claims that his name was found on incriminating documents recovered from computers seized in house raids involving Al-Qaida members, although there was no direct testimony from any other prisoner to incriminate him.

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed to be a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] been non-compliant and often hostile to the guard force and staff,” although there was no mention whatsoever of him being a long-term hunger striker. As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a previous recommendation for his continued detention (dated November 1, 2005), repeated that recommendation, but added, crucially, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Joudi] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO).”

After his release, and after he had been put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program, the Pentagon claimed that al-Joudi became involved in unspecified terrorist activities. In May 2009, the Pentagon produced a fact sheet, “Former Guantánamo Detainee Terrorism Trends” (PDF), in which it was claimed that he had been involved in “Terrorist facilitation,” and, moreover, that his involvement was “confirmed” rather than “suspected.” However, no further information has been provided to justify this claim.

Zayd Al Husayn Al Ghamdi (ISN 50, Saudi Arabia) Released November 2007

Zayd al-Husayn al-Ghamdi, as I explained at the time of his release (and also in “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (9) – Seized in Pakistan (Part One)“), who was 27 years old at the time of his capture, was seized in Afghanistan in December 2001, although his family did not even know he was in Guantánamo until 2006, because the US authorities had described him as a Jordanian. In Guantánamo, it was noted that he traveled to Afghanistan in July 2001, and he was declared an “enemy combatant” after his tribunal in October 2004 on the basis of three particularly thin allegations: that he was a member of the Saudi charity Al-Wafa, that he “carried a weapon in Afghanistan,” and that he was “present and wounded during military operations at Khost” in December 2001.

These allegations were augmented in the years that followed, but nothing about these additional claims suggests that they were reliable. The authorities alleged that he “was identified” as the “occasional leader” of a group of fighters in the northern city of Taloqan, but ignored another narrative that could be pieced together from other statements: that al-Ghamdi reported that he left home “to provide help for the refugees in Afghanistan,” that he worked for Al-Wafa as a laborer in Kabul, and that he traveled to Taloqan because, after approaching Taliban representatives in Kabul to find out “places needing assistance with orphans,” he had been told that Taloqan was a suitable area.

The additional information compiled by the authorities also provided an explanation of the circumstances of his capture, which contradicted the claim that he was “wounded during military operations.” After fleeing to Khost, al-Ghamdi said that he “stopped in the first Taliban center he came to,” which was subsequently bombed. Injured and “rendered unconscious,” he awoke in a hospital in Miram Shah, in Pakistan, where he was arrested and transferred to US custody.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Ghamdi was a “Recommendation for Transfer Out of DoD Control (TRO),” dated December 5, 2005, in which he was also identified as Zayed M. al-Hussain, Zaid Muhammad Sa’ad al-Husayn, Zayed Mohammed Saad al-Hussain, and Zayid al-Ghamzi, and it was noted that he was born in 1974, and was “in good health,” although he had “a history of right tibia fracture with surgical intervention prior to detention.” It was also noted that he “went on hunger strike in August 2005,” and had been “evaluated by behavioral health for cluster personality traits.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force failed to resolve the confusion about his nationality, noting that, although he “stated he was born in Amman, JO, because his Saudi parents were visiting Jordan at the time his mother went into labor,” and that the family “returned to Saudi Arabia within a month of [his] birth,” an analyst noted that a “visiting Saudi delegation did not identify him as a citizen during a July 2002 visit” (although the Jordanian authorities, who met with him, “did not identify him as a citizen” either).

According to al-Ghamdi’s account, he left university in Jeddah after one semester in order to work as an auto mechanic, and “was inspired to go to Afghanistan (AF) to help destitute immigrants” after reading a flyer issued by the Al-Haramain Intemational Foundation.” After obtaining a visa for Pakistan, he flew to Karachi, and then traveled to Kabul via Quetta, where, he said, “he spent three weeks at a religious institution, the Center for the Preservation of Islamic Virtue in Kabul.” There, Taliban representatives told him “where in Afghanistan he could assist orphans.”

He then “traveled to the first of these places,” the Bamiyan region, “where he remained for three months at Taliban centers,” and “reportedly spent two to three months teaching Shia orphans the Koran and attempting to convert them to Sunni Islam.” In addition, “he claimed to have bought the children food and clothing and helped the community at large by digging wells and helping to repair walls.” From Bamiyan, he said, he traveled to the Pul-e-Khumri region in northern Afghanistan, around the capital of Baghlan province, “where he reportedly spent one month. ”

He also said that he was then “escorted by the Taliban to Kunduz and then traveled by taxi to Taloqan, where he “reportedly spent two months teaching the Koran to children and distributing bread and rice to the poor.” He “claimed he resisted Taliban pressure to fight against the Northern Alliance, as he felt it was contrary to his missionary work to pick sides and fight fellow Muslims.” He also “admitted carrying a sidearm for protection while in Afghanistan, but denie[d] firing it or ever receiving military training.”

Describing the circumstances of his capture, he said that, after the US-led invasion began, “he decided to return to Saudi Arabia,” and “first went to Kabul before proceeding to Khost.” However, on or about December 5, 2001, while leaving Khost, he “was reportedly wounded during an air raid, rendered unconscious, and placed in a taxi,” and, when “he regained consciousness, he was in Miram Shah.” After explaining that “he did not know when or how he crossed the Afghanistan/Pakistan border,” he said that he was then transferred to US custody and held in the US prison at Kandahar airport. He was sent to Guantánamo on June 8, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: The Wafa Humanitarian Organization [and] Taliban student centers in Afghanistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he was “assessed to be deceptive,” and had given “very generic and innocuous descriptions of his activities while in Afghanistan, consistent with a cover story to hide possible participation in Al-Qaida terrorist training and combat against coalition forces,” and had “provided conflicting accounts of several details of his background.” It was noted, for example, that only on one occasion, during an interview in February 2002, had he “claimed to have worked as a laborer for the Al-Wafa organization, but ha[d] not mentioned his personal involvement in the organization during further questioning.” It was also claimed that his “frequently observed physical and martial arts training [was] inconsistent with his purported story as a simple missionary,” although it is difficult to see how that conclusion could be defended.

However, although it was assessed that al-Ghamdi was “a possible Al-Qaida member who fought alongside Al-Qaida and Taliban mujahideen against US/Coalition forces under the auspices of [Osama bin Laden]‘s former 55th Arab Brigade,” there was no actual evidence. The only witness was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), widely known as the most prolific and unreliable witness in Guantánamo, who lied about dozens of his fellow prisoners.

Basardah — and Basardah alone — “reported that detainee was a fighter and occasional leader of approximately 30 men in the Taloqan region,” and also “claimed he saw detainee at Taloqan with a Libyan named Omar, a military leader at Taloqan and at Tora Bora,” who “had been in Taloqan for approximately five years fighting against the Northern Alliance.” Basardah also “reported” that al-Ghamdi was “a fellow Yemeni” (even though he was not), who “fought with him in the Taloqan region of northern Afghanistan prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks,” and who, following the attacks, “went to Kabul and stayed in the same guesthouse” as him, and then “reportedly traveled to Kandahar, the last time [Basardah] saw [him] until they were reunited at JTF-GTMO.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed al-Ghamdi as being “of low intelligence value,” and, despite only having Basardah’s unreliable testimony to go on, as posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” He was also “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been non-compliant and hostile to the guard force and staff,” and, as a result, Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, updated a recommendation that he be transferred to continued detention in another country (dated April 22, 2005), and recommended him for transfer out of DoD control” instead, although he was not released for almost two years, and was then put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Majid Al Barayan (ISN 51, Saudi Arabia) Released September 2007

Majid al-Barayan, who was 29 years old at the time of his capture, was captured on the Pakistani border, as I explained in “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (3) – ‘Osama’s Bodyguards.’” In Guantánamo, he was subjected to a number of dubious allegations produced by his fellow prisoners — or even by “high-value” detainees, held in secret prisons run by the CIA, where the use of torture was widespread. For example, he was apparently identified, by unnamed sources and “an al-Qaeda member,” as “being on the front lines near Taloqan,” in northern Afghanistan, in April 2001, when he apparently “was assigned to an anti-aircraft artillery weapon,” and he was also accused of attending Al-Farouq, of being in Tora Bora, and, most bluntly, of being “a member of Al-Qaida.” Another prisoner — who I thought may have been Yasim Basardah, the most notorious liar in Guantánamo — said that he “saw the detainee at Osama bin Laden’s private airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan in early 2001,” which also appeared to be an unreliable claim.

For his part, al-Barayan had attempted to portray himself as a missionary, although his interrogators were unconvinced, noting that, although he claimed that he taught children in an orphanage, he did not know the name of the orphanage or any of the children’s names, and could not remember how many children were at the establishment. In addition, a hint that he may indeed have been at Tora Bora came in the following passage: “When the detainee was asked if things were confusing during the fighting, with people running up the hills and back down again, and many people dying, he replied, yes. When the detainee was asked if he fired at the Americans, he replied, no, not at the Americans. We could not see them.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Barayan was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated September 28, 2006, in which he was also identified as Majid Abdallah Said Barayan, and it was noted that he was born in September 1972, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that al-Barayan’s family was originally from the Hadramout region of Yemen, but evidently moved to Saudi Arabia (although this was not mentioned). According to his own account, it was noted that, between 1992 and 1994, he “worked as an accountant for the al-Aziziya Water Company in Saudi Arabia,” and, in 1995, traveled to the UK to attend a college in Salisbury, when he also visited the Finsbury Park Mosque in London. Four months later, he returned to Saudi Arabia, and, in 1998, he traveled to Seattle for 30 days, and “enrolled in an English language course.” On his return to Saudi Arabia, he “enrolled in Career Craft, a three-month employment placement program,” and then “found a job as an accounting clerk and was later promoted to warehouse supervisor.”

It was also noted that, in January 2001, he took a vacation in Malaysia, and also stopped in Pakistan, where he visited Karachi and Lahore, and, after returning home, during July 2001, “began contemplating dawa,” and “decided to travel to Afghanistan because he had heard it was in dire need of assistance.” In Quetta, he said, he went to a guesthouse, where he “told the guesthouse operator that he wanted to go to Afghanistan,” and “left the following morning for Kandahar, AF in a taxi,” adding that, “[s]ince he did not have to pay for the ride, he assumed that it had been paid for by the guesthouse operator.”

In Kandahar, he said, he was taken to a Taliban guesthouse, where he “was asked why he was in Afghanistan, and he replied that he was there for dawa.” He stated that “the guesthouse operator asked [him] if he would train to be a fighter, but [he] declined.” Approximately seven to ten days later, he said, “he was driven to a guesthouse in Kabul, where he was encouraged to join the struggle against the Northern Alliance, but again he declined,” and he was “then transported to a small town between Kabul and Ghazni, AF where he spent approximately six weeks teaching children at an orphanage how to properly clean themselves before prayer.”

He also stated that, approximately two to three weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he “fled the Kabul area to seek refuge in Khost,” where he “was provided refuge by an Afghan named Noor Muhammad,” who, approximately one month later, told him that “there was a group of Arabs getting ready to flee to Pakistan.” Muhammad “subsequently drove [him] to a safehouse where he joined approximately 30-40 Arab males who were traveling to the Pakistani border.” There they were seized by border guards, and “transported to Peshawar, PK where they were held for approximately two weeks.” He was transferred to the Kandahar Detention Facility on December 27, 2001, and was sent to Guantánamo on February 9, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Finsbury Park Mosque in London.”

In assessing his story, his brief stay in the UK six years before his capture was certainly regarded as significant by the Task Force. The Finsbury Park Mosque, for example, with input from British intelligence, was described, rather hysterically, as “a key transit facility in London for the movement of North African and other extremists to and from Al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan,” and it was also noted that al-Ghamdi attended the mosque with Muhammad al-Shabibi, a friend from Saudi Arabia, and another man named Sadeh, one of al-Shabibi’s friends, who he stayed with while on London, and who, without evidence, was described as “possibly” being Mossem Sadeh, allegedly “an Armenian facilitator connected to [Osama bin Laden] and associated with such poisons as Anthrax and Botulinum Toxin,” even though there was nothing to suggest that this was the case.

The Task Force also stated that he had “not been forthright about the time he spent in the United States and other countries,” which I regard as a hugely predictable analysis, with no evidential basis, and also noted that he was “assessed as acquiring fake Malaysian passport stamps to cover his true activity, which was to receive militant training at Al-Farouq Training Camp,” even though he “continue[d] to adhere to his cover story of teaching the Koran at an orphanage in Afghanistan.”

In attempting to justify its claim that he was “assessed to have participated in armed hostilities against US and coalition forces in Taloqan, Tora Bora and near Kabul under [Osama bin Laden]‘s former 55th Arab Brigade,” the Task Force drew on a handful of witnesses, although none of them were necessarily reliable. One, Hamud Dakhil Hamud (ISN 230, released in July 2007, and also identified as Humud al-Jadani), stated that al-Ghamdi “lived in Saudi Arabia, went to Afghanistan and fought in Tora Bora with Al-Qaida.” He also “claimed that he first saw [him] in Tora Bora and then later at a guesthouse in Kandahar in 2001,” and that al-Ghamdi “told him that his participation in hostilities at Tora Bora was his first jihad and that he had studied in America and Europe.”

I have no idea if these statements were accurate, but four other witnesses were certainly unreliable. One was Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held, and identified as Maad al-Qahtani), who was the most notorious torture victim at Guantánamo, making all his claims unreliable. He apparently “photo identified detainee as a mujahid from Saudi Arabia who was at Tora Bora.”

The second notoriously unreliable witness, as I guessed, was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), who, just to reiterate, is known as the most prolific and unreliable witness at Guantánamo. Basardah identified al-Ghamdi as “an Al-Qaida trained Arab fighter who holds both Saudi and Yemeni citizenship, but is a native Yemeni,” and said that he saw him in Tora Bora. He also “claimed that he knew [him] quite well, having lived with him for over a month in Taloqan and having fought together against the Northern Alliance at the front,” and “added that detainee was in charge of an anti-aircraft missile launcher on top of a Toyota truck.” He also said that he “saw detainee at a safehouse in Kabul,” and “remarked that [he] received training at al-Farouq.”

The last two unreliable witnesses, also well known in Guantánamo as liars, were: Abdul [Hakim] Bukhary (ISN 493, released September 2007), a Saudi who “identified detainee as an individual who was very close to [Osama bin Laden], visited the US, and issued fatwas at JTF-GTMO,” and Ali A. Motaieb (ISN 111, released in January 2009, and also identified as Ali al-Tayeea), an Iraqi who “remarked that the detainee had tried to organize a fatwa in JTF-GTMO.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been compliant but sometimes hostile to the guard force and staff,” and, as a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation for his continued detention (dated September 19, 2005) repeated that recommendation. Given this, it is not known why, 13 months later, he was released, although on his release, he was, of course, put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Isa Al Murbati (ISN 52, Bahrain) Released August 2007

In Chapter 12 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Isa al-Murbati, who was 36 years old at the time of his capture, was a grocer, married with five children, who had previously served in the army. Accused of traveling to Afghanistan in November 2001 with the intention of fighting, and of training to use an AK-47 in Kabul, he said in Guantánamo that he had never been in Afghanistan and had traveled to Pakistan for medical treatment. He pointed out that he was issued with a medical visa — dated 28 October 2001 and valid for one month, it was included in his passport, which was held by the US authorities — and was arrested by the police on arrival in Pakistan.

In Chapter 8, drawing on “Guantánamo Bay Detainee Statements,” compiled in May 2005 by his attorneys Mark Sullivan and Joshua Colangelo-Bryan of Dorsey & Whitney (PDF), I explained how al-Murbati said that, in the US prison at Kandahar, where he was transferred after his capture, he was “shackled to a pole outside in very cold weather,” and, “every hour, US military personnel threw cold water on [him] while he was shackled to the pole.” He said that this took place every night for a week, and added that on one occasion he was taken to an area away from the other prisoners, because Red Cross representatives were visiting the camp, and the authorities did not want them to see him.

Speaking of the abusive conditions at Guantánamo, particularly under Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, Isa al-Murbati said that, on one occasion, after an interrogation, the guards dragged him back to his cell by his shackles, causing his ankles to bleed, and then forced his head into the toilet and flushed it, and described another occasion when the lights in his block were suddenly turned off at night, and a group of guards, accompanied by a dog, entered his cell and sprayed mace in his eyes.

When al-Murbati’s lawyers first met him in October 2004, he was wearing a cast on his arm as the result of a series of incidents of escalating brutality that had been provoked when he asked one of his guards — a young, white sergeant with “a reputation for being difficult” — for a spoon. A few days later, when he was returned to his cell after an interrogation session and, as usual, put his shackled hands through the slot in the door so that the shackles could be removed, the sergeant grabbed the belt attached to the shackles and “pulled it violently, even putting his foot against the cell door to create greater leverage,” which caused him “significant injury.”

Al-Murbati also said that he was subjected to a package of abusive measures that was implemented in a widespread manner, and that involved, in his case, the air conditioning being turned off so that his cell became almost unbearably hot,  In addition, on several occasions, according to his account, the floor was “treated with a mixture of water and a powerful cleaning agent,” which was then thrown on his face and body, “causing great irritation’ and making it difficult to breathe.” He was also subjected to loud music and noise, and explained that he was played songs “that had Arabic language lyrics praising Jesus Christ,” and on other occasions “very loud music and white noise was played through six speakers arranged close to [his] head” for twelve hours, and “multiple flashing strobe lights were used as well,” which were so strong that he “had to keep his eyes closed.” He also reported that he was subjected to sleep deprivation, as part of the program known euphemistically as the “frequent flier program,” whereby he was “moved from cell to cell in the Tango and Oscar [isolation] blocks, typically on an hourly basis,” and, as a result, was “never able to sleep for more than short periods.” He did not specify how long he had been subjected to this, but it is known from other accounts that prisoners were moved in this manner — every few hours — for day, weeks and even months, and that this is clearly torture.

Just before his release, he told Joshua Colangelo-Bryan that he was “held in almost total isolation,” and was “regularly prevented from sleeping and from communicating with his fellow detainees,” as I explained in an article based on a report by Geoffrey Bew in Gulf Daily News. Al-Murbati had been held for over six months in Camp 6, the newest of the prison blocks at Guantánamo, where prisoners, including dozens cleared for release, were kept in isolation for at least 22 hours a day. Colangelo-Bryan reported that the guards in Camp 6 “run large fans,” which “sound like jet engines and prevent captives from communicating and deprive them of sleep,” and explained, “In his cell, Isa cannot see other detainees and he can barely communicate with them. He told me that it is possible to speak with his brothers through an air conditioning vent in his cell. However, to reach the vent, Isa has to stand on his cement bunk. Most often if he tries to talk to others this way, guards tell him to get off his bunk. They also threaten to take away the few items that Isa has in his cell if he does not follow their directions,” which, as Bew described it, “forces him to crouch to talk under the door, for which he is also berated if caught.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Murbati was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated July 15, 2006, in which he was identified as Issa Ali Abdullah al-Murbati, and it was noted that he was born in 1965, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, from 1984 to 1998, he “was a member of the Bahraini Air Force (BAF) as an F-5 mechanic,” and, in approximately 1993, “traveled to Lowery AFB in Denver, Colorado and attended electronics training.” It was also noted that, while he was a member of the BAF, he “attempted to open a bar in a hotel” with a friend, but the business failed and “resulted in [his] release from the Air Force for unspecified reasons.” He was apparently reinstated in 1997 but “released permanently in 1998 after being deemed unproductive.”

He then “opened a vegetable stand with his brother,” but, in approximately 2000, he quit “because of the long hours and obtained a job as a plumber,” which he stayed in for approximately eight months before injuring himself. At this point, as “a result of his failed business ventures, [he] had accrued a debt of 15,000 Bahraini Dinars (approximately $39,855 USD) for which he had been jailed five times for non-payment.”

At this obvious low point in his fortunes, Shaykh Mustafa, a missionary with the vast missionary organization Jamaat al-Tablighi, who was speaking at a mosque in Manama, told him “Allah would take care of his debts if he traveled to Afghanistan (AF) to fight jihad.” Mustafa asked him “if he would hand-carry an envelope of donations to Shaykh Mansur at the al-Makki Mosque in Karachi, Pakistan (PK),” and showed him an envelope “which contained $3000 USD in $100 USD denominations, and sealed it in front of him.” Al-Murbati then “obtained a one month visa for Pakistan,” and, on approximately November 2, 2001, flew to Karachi.

In Karachi, he delivered the envelope to Shaykh Mansur, spent twelve days at the mosque and then traveled to Afghanistan, where, with the assistance a man from the Karachi mosque, he and three others were taken to Kandahar. There, four unidentified Arabs apparently informed them that “there was not training available at that location.” The group then traveled to Kabul, and “resided in an unidentified house with twenty other individuals for four days,” until al-Murbati “heard that the Taliban was pulling out of the north, and decided to return to Kandahar,” where he apparently checked into the Chinese Hospital (aka the Mirwais Hospital), despite having no injuries.

There he apparently decided to return to Pakistan, and “departed the hospital with an unidentified group of individuals and headed towards Khost,” but after pulling over to the side of the road, with others, in order to break the Ramadan fast, he “was washing his hands after eating, [when] one of the jihadists from the group of fasters accidentally discharged a hand grenade,” and he “was injured by shrapnel in his neck, left wrist and portions of his right back,” and “was taken to a nearby clinic where the metal was removed.” Afterwards, “he was given an injection of painkiller, and placed on a bus headed towards Pakistan.” This bus “stopped at another clinic in the tribal lands to have the wounded passengers’ bandages removed,” and, the next morning, set off for Peshawar.

However, “approximately a half-hour from Peshawar, the bus was stopped at a Pakistani checkpoint, all occupants (except a single Pakistani) were arrested and detainee’s money (approximately $1000 USD) was taken.” He added that the Pakistani authorities “placed him in a hospital for two weeks and then transferred him to a Pakistani prison for two or three additional weeks.” The Task Force added that “Pakistani reporting” identified his date of capture as December 12, 2001, and he was transferred to US custody on December 27, 2001. The Task Force also noted that it was “probable, based on similarities in their accounts,” that al-Murbati, Asim al-Aasmi (ISN 49, released in February 2010), and Zayed al-Hussain (ISN 50, see above), who were all traveling from Khost, and were all injured, were captured together outside Peshawar.

Al-Murbati was sent to Guantánamo on June 8, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Possible Al-Qaida or Taliban recruiter, travel facilitator, and JT member, Shaykh Mustafa, Safehouse on Ansari Street in Kabul [and] Upper level Al-Qaida and Taliban personnel.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that his brother, Abd al-Rahim al-Murbati, was “a known financier who helped move funds for an Al-Qaida financial facilitator,” and was imprisoned by the Saudi authorities in June 2003. This led to Isa al-Murbati being “assessed to be a probable courier for the Al-Qaida network, using the JT as a cover,” although there was an absence of evidence. The Task Force suspected that his visit to Afghanistan in 2001 was not his first visit, but was unable to prove its suspicions, and, instead, relied on its innuendo regarding his brother, and claims from two dubious witnesses.

The first was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), a Yemeni known as the most prolific and unreliable witness in Guantánamo, who “photo-identified detainee stating he recognized [him] from the US prison in Afghanistan” — which, of course, has no significance as identification. Basardah “said he had very little information on detainee, other than the fact that he was a merchant working in the milk trade,” and “stated detainee would ship milk from Afghanistan to Bahrain.” Instead of recognizing that Basardah knew nothing about al-Murbati, an analyst noted that he had “never mentioned being involved in the milk trade,” and it was “interesting” that Basarfdah “would identify him as such.” Ridiculously, the analyst added, “The word ‘milk’ is often used by extremists as a cover word for the PK machine gun. It is possible that  detainee was couriering money under the guise of dawa (charitable) donations to acquire weaponry.” It is not known if this is the same analyst who, noting that, in a September 2003 letter to his niece, al-Murbati “cryptically, and out of context, inquire[d], “What is the news surrounding ‘Oranges’?” stated that the word “oranges” was “used by extremists as a cover word for hand grenades.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” Elsewhere, it was noted that he was “considered a high risk as he will probably engage in nefarious activity if released.” He was also “assessed as a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been non-compliant and hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation that he be retained in DoD control (dated May 6, 2005), recommended him for continued dentition. It is not known what changed in the next 13 months to lead to his release.

As I explained in an article after his release, drawing on a report in Gulf Daily News, Geoffrey Bew explained that, on arrival, al-Murbati “was whisked straight to the Public Prosecution in Manama for a roughly three-hour debriefing, where he was greeted by family members, including his eldest and youngest sons, MPs, supporters and friends.” His youngest son, seven-year old Ebrahim, who was just a baby when he last saw his father, held a bouquet of flowers for him, and said, “It is the first time I will to speak to my father. I am very happy.” Al-Murbati’s eldest son, 17-year old Ali, was “trembling with emotion as he declared the family’s delight,” and said, “I am so happy. I feel so good. I cannot believe it. We heard he was coming home, but could not believe it.” After the debriefing, al-Murbati returned to his home, where he was reunited with his wife and his two daughters.

Bew also reported that MP Mohammed Khalid, who helped campaign for the release of all the Bahraini prisoners, said that it was “a great day,” but added that “the next push would be for compensation.” “I am very happy with today’s event,” he said. “This is the last page in the Guantánamo Bay chapter. Now we want compensation for all the Bahrainis who have come home.”

Saud Dakhil Al Mahayawi (ISN 53, Saudi Arabia) Released July 2007

The story of Saud al-Mahayawi, who was 25 years old at the time of his capture, was completely unknown until two months after his release, when the allegations against him were released as part of a package of documents made publicly available by the Pentagon. As I explained in “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (3) – ‘Osama’s Bodyguards,’” according to the US authorities, he had not even traveled to Afghanistan until “the latter part of 2001,” when his “religious pilgrimage” began, following a meeting at a prayer session with an Afghan, who “explained that the people of his country needed to be instructed concerning the Koran.”

Revealing their cultural ignorance, those who compiled the Summary of Evidence against al-Mahayawi noted that he “later contacted the Afghan and expressed interest in going to Afghanistan to teach the Koran, despite [his] inability to speak the language,” an observation which indicates that the authors had clearly failed to comprehend that, as the literal word of God transmitted to the Prophet Mohammed in Arabic, the Koran is always learned and recited in Arabic, even if those learning it speak other languages.

Al-Mahayawi said that he sold his business and his car to raise the money to travel to Peshawar in Pakistan, where he was met by the Afghan, who took him to Khost to teach the Koran. He explained that he believed that, after about a month, his Afghan friend stole about 5,000 Saudi Riyals from him (about $1,300), which made him “very depressed and angry,” so that he “thought about going home.” When the US-led invasion began, he stated that he “feared for his life,” and asked the owner of the house he was staying in to arrange for a guide to take him to the Pakistani border, where, he said, he “surrendered himself to the Pakistani border patrol,” who “subsequently turned [him] over to the American authorities.”

In contrast to al-Mahayawi’s story, the US authorities alleged that he “was captured with an individual who stated he first met the detainee in Tora Bora,” and that he “was identified as an Al-Qaida fighter at a guard post in the valley” between Jalalabad and Tora Bora, where he “was armed with a Kalashnikov (AK-47) and fired his weapon after coming under fire from Afghans in the valley.” Another mysterious individual “stated that although the detainee claimed affiliation with Jamaat al-Tablighi [a vast apolitical proselytizing organization, with millions of members worldwide], he was actually a fighter at Tora Bora.”

In addition, it was claimed that “[s]everal of the individuals in the group with whom the detainee was captured are believed to have been bodyguards of Osama bin Laden,” indicating that he was part of a group identified as “the Dirty Thirty,” who were mostly accused of being bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, even though there has been no way of verifying if those claims are reliable, as they may have been produced by Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held), who was the most notorious torture victim in Guantánamo, and whose statements are therefore unreliable, or by others seized at the time whose statements were produced in unknown circumstances that may have involved torture or other forms of coercion. There was also one more unspecified, and very vague allegation attributed to a “senior Al-Qaida operative,” who apparently “identified the detainee and believed he saw him in Afghanistan.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Mahayawi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated April 15, 2007, in which he was also identified as Saud Dakhilallah al-Jihni and Saud Dakheel al-Hareth, and it was noted that he was born in August 1976, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, according to his own account, which largely corresponded with the one he later told his tribunal, he “dropped out of high school in 1998 after one year and began selling dates at a local market in Jeddah until 2001,” and, while visiting Mecca in 2000, “met a Pakistani named Abdul Rahman,” who told him “about the incorrect method many Afghans were using to practice Islam and suggested [he] travel to Afghanistan to help teach them correctly.”

In early September 2001, he said, he flew to Karachi, where he contacted Abdul Rahman. He then traveled to Peshawar, where Abdul Rahman met him and took him to a village outside Khost (mistakenly identified, I believe, as Torkham, which is a border town some distance from Khost). He added that he “was carrying 8,000 to 10,000 Saudi riyals (SAR) at the time,” and said that, in Afghanistan, while staying with Abdul Rahman in a house owned by a man named Abdullah, he “would teach poor and disadvantaged Muslims to read the Koran in Arabic and how to properly perform Islamic rituals.” After approximately one month, he said, Abdul Rahman “stole approximately 5,000 SAR from [him] and disappeared.”

Al-Mahayawi said he “used his remaining money to purchase cold weather clothes for himself and the children,” but after three months, “the violence in Afghanistan increased and [he] decided to leave Afghanistan to avoid death or injury.” He said that he “traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistani border with 30 other Arabs and surrendered to the Pakistani border patrol on 15 December 2001.” Taken to a prison in Peshawar, he was transferred to US custody on December 27, 2001, and was sent to Guantánamo on January 16, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Recruitment of clergy from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that he “was captured with the ‘Dirty 30,’” and explained that they had been “identified as being a mix of [Osama bin Laden] bodyguards, Al-Qaida members, and Taliban fighters who attempted to flee Afghanistan during the Al-Qaida withdrawal from Tora Bora.” It was also noted that al-Dahayawi “had no identification, documents, weapons, or equipment in his possession at the time of his capture.”

The Task Force also claimed that he was “a member of Al-Qaida who was active in Kandahar and engaged US and Coalition forces in combat action at Tora Bora,” although the two sources for this claim were both notoriously unreliable. One was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), well known as the most prolific and unreliable witness at Guantánamo, who identified al-Mahayawi as Saud al-Juhuni, or Shakir, and said he was “an Al-Qaida trained fighter at a guard post in the valley between Tora Bora and Jalalabad, AF during the Al-Qaida defense of Tora Bora against US and Coalition forces in early to mid-December 2001.” He also said that he “was armed with an AK-47 and fired his weapon when [he] came under fire from Afghans in the valley.” In another interrogation, Basardah said that he “claimed an affiliation with Jamaat al-Tablighi (JT), was a fighter at Tora Bora, and had unidentified problems with the Saudi authorities.”

The other unreliable witness was Mohammed al-Qahtani, who said he “met detainee in Kandahar and Tora Bora,” and “knew him as Shakir, a mujahid from Jeddah.” The references to the name Shakir look convincing, but they may have been prompted, and, in addition, an analyst noted that al-Mahayawi denied staying in Kandahar.

In further attempts to justify regarding al-Mahayawi as a threat, the Task Force referred to his “name and aliases” being found on a list in the pocket litter of an alleged Saudi fighter, which indicated to an analyst that he “probably stayed at an Al-Qaida-affiliated guesthouse and possibly attended an Al-Qaida training camp,” and “variations of [his] name and aliases” being “found on numerous associated Al-Qaida documents and computer files that were discovered during raids of safehouses in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2001 and 2003,” although these references are not necessarily reliable as there are significant doubts about the names and especially the alleged aliases involved.

As if to confirm this, the Task Force also claimed that al-Mahayawi “possibly arranged travel for mujahideen seeking personal visits to [Osama bin Laden],” which is, of course, in a different league from claims that he was a foot soldier who pretended to be a teacher. This convoluted claim came about because Abu Zubaydah, the supposed “high-value detainee” for whom the Bush administration’s torture program in secret CIA prisons was specifically invented, “stated that he saw detainee in Afghanistan.” This means that Zubaydah was the “senior Al-Qaida operative,” mentioned above, who apparently “identified the detainee and believed he saw him in Afghanistan,” and what was also noteworthy was the fact that the US authorities had picked up on another claim made by Zubaydah in unknown circumstances — that “an individual by the name of Abu al-Hareth” was “the facilitator for mujahideen traveling to visit [Osama bin Laden],” and decided that this was “a variant” of al-Mahayawi’s alias.

Despite the raft of dubious allegations above, it was clear that none of the witnesses had identified him as a bodyguard for bin Laden, as it was noted only that he “was captured as part of a group of 30 Al-Qaida fighters, including 18 who have been identified as UBL [bin Laden] bodyguards.” As was specifically noted, ”Contrary to a previous assessment, JTF-GTMO assesses that detainee was almost certainly not a UBL bodyguard. Despite detainee’s presence among a group of confirmed UBL bodyguards during the retreat from Tora Bora, statements by multiple Al-Qaida members, including senior Al-Qaida leaders and UBL bodyguards currently in custody at JTF-GTMO, indicate that detainee was not part of UBL’s security detail, but only joined the group of bodyguards during the withdrawal.”

Elsewhere, however, there were allegations from the Saudi authorities that also troubled the Task Force. It was noted that, “Prior to the Saudi delegation visit in 2002, Mabahith [Saudi intelligence] provided information on 37 detainees whom they designated as high priority targets,” and it was stated that he “was number 21 on that list, having been watchlisted by the Saudi government for his travels to Chechnya and jihadist activities in Ethiopia.” By way of further explanation, it was noted that, according to Mabahith, he “was listed on two Saudi government watch lists. The first was a list of individuals forbidden to travel for five years, per decree dated 23 February 1998. The second was a Watch and Arrest listing for detainee’s trip to Chechnya (NFI), per ministerial decree dated 21 February 2002.” It was also noted, “Mabahith arrested detainee in Mecca for attempting to create a new jihad organization (NFI) in A’Wkadin, Ethiopia.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed to be a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour has been semi-compliant and occasionally hostile toward the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation for “Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD) with Transfer Language,” dated February 27, 2006, recommended him for continued detention, although he was released just three months later, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Sultan Al Uwaydha (ISN 59, Saudi Arabia) Released November 2007

In Chapter 5 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Sultan al-Uwaydha, who was 26 years old at the time of his capture, was accused of having been in Tora Bora, of visiting one of bin Laden’s houses, and of having experience of assembling and sighting anti-aircraft weapons. I then looked at his story in more detail at the time of his release (and also in “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (3) – “Osama’s Bodyguards‘”), when, as I noted, his explanation for being in Afghanistan — that he traveled to “teach the Koran to poor and disadvantaged Muslims,” and that he duly taught the Koran to children in various locations, before hooking up with his uncle in Khost and escaping to Pakistan, where he was arrested — was severely at odds with the authorities’ version.

The authorities claimed that he was “arrested after crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan with 30 other persons suspected of being Osama bin Laden bodyguards,” and was, therefore, suspected of being one of the so-called “Dirty Thirty.” Other allegations, from an unidentified “source,” from “an Al-Qaida operative,” and from “a senior Al-Qaida operative,” purported to reinforce this notion that he was one of 30 bodyguards for bin Laden. One of these “sources,” for example, stated that “he knew the detainee and that he was probably an Osama bin Laden bodyguard because the detainee was always with Osama bin Laden,” although this sounded distinctly dubious, even before the release of the military files by WikiLeaks promised to shed light on the identities of those making the allegations.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Uwaydha was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated August 1, 2007, in which he was also identified as Sultan Ahmad al-Dardir Musa Uwaydha and Sultan Asman al-Uwaydah, and it was noted that he was born in 1974, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted, based on his own account, that, after graduating from high school, he “lived at home and worked for his older brother as a carpenter,” and also “participated in religious studies” at a mosque in Medina. He also said that, in 2000, after Muhammad Ghulam, a Pakistani visitor to his mosque, invited him to visit Pakistan, he “accepted the invitation and flew to Karachi, PK, where he stayed in a hotel for about a week before heading to Afghanistan (AF) to teach the Koran,” traveling with Ghulam via Quetta to Kandahar, where they stayed “as tourists before going to Ghazni.”

Al-Uwaydha said that he “taught the Koran to children at a mosque in Ghazni,” and, in approximately August 2001, left for Kabul, but, because he did not know any Arabs in Kabul, then “traveled to Khost to find his uncle, who was assessed to be Abd al-Rahman Shalabi Isa Uwaydha (ISN 42, still held, and also identified as Abdul Rahman Shalabi), but ended up traveling “to a nearby village where he taught at the local mosque for two to three months.” At the end of this period, when “the Northern Alliance had advanced south and entered Kabul,” he “returned to Khost, found his uncle, and they then decided to go to Pakistan.”

He added that he and his uncle “traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with 30 other Arabs and surrendered to the Pakistani border patrol on 15 December 2001,” after an eight-day journey. The Task Force claimed that he “was captured with a group known as the ‘Dirty 30,’ which reportedly “consisted of a mix of [Osama bin Laden] bodyguards, Al-Qaida members, and Taliban fighters who attempted to flee Afghanistan during the Al-Qaida withdrawal from Tora Bora.” It was also noted that al-Uwaydha “claimed he lost his passport, money, and other important documents during his travel from Afghanistan,” and that, after his capture, the Pakistani authorities held him in a prison in Peshawar, and transferred him to US custody on December 27, 2001. He was sent to Guantánamo on January 16, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Hideouts of UBL [Osama bin Laden] in Afghanistan, Travel history of UBL [and] Recruitment of clergy from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that he “fail[ed] to provide an accurate account of his reasons for traveling to, and activities while in Afghanistan,” and noted, as they did with all the prisoners captured at this time, that another prisoner had told them that “a Pakistani prison warden advised detainee’s group to say they were in Afghanistan to teach the Koran or for religious studies.” He was, instead, “assessed to be a member of al-Qaida” and a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, although the witnesses who purportedly confirmed this — and who were referred to anonymously above — were not necessarily reliable.

Two were “high-value detainees” held and tortured in secret CIA prisons. The first, Walid bin Attash,(ISN 10014, still held), described as a “[s]enior Al-Qaida operative,” apparently “photo-identified detainee as Hamza Sharif, one of UBL’s bodyguards, who arrived in Afghanistan at the end of 2000, trained at al-Farouq and then joined the security detail,” and the second, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (ISN 10012, convicted in federal court in New York in January 2011), also described as a “[s]enior Al-Qaida operative,” even though he was no more than a minor player, reportedly “photo-identified detainee as Hamza al-Sharif, who served as one of UBL’s bodyguards in late 2000 and early 2001.” Ghailani also “stated detainee was with UBL in Kandahar and Kabul and heard that detainee later fled with UBL to Tora Bora.”

Two other witnesses were also the victims of torture in the CIA’s network of secret prisons. The first, Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj (ISN 1457, still held), described as a “[s]enior Al-Qaida facilitator,” said he “recognized detainee as a Saudi from Medina who traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 and was a UBL bodyguard from that time forward” (even though al-Uwaydha reportedly arrived in Afghanistan in 2000), and also “stated detainee’s alias was Hamza al-Sharif and that detainee was close to UBL,” and the second, Sanad Ali Yislam al-Kazmi (ISN 1453, still held), described as an “admitted Al-Qaida member,” reportedly “identified detainee as Hamza Sharif, a bodyguard from Saudi Arabia.”

In addition, Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held), the most notorious victim of torture at Guantánamo, identified detainee as a probable UBL bodyguard because detainee was always with UBL,” and Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), well known as the most prolific and unreliable witness at Guantánamo, apparently “photo-identified detainee as a UBL bodyguard.” Basardah also said he “saw detainee four times in Afghanistan with UBL,” and “stated detainee traveled to Tora Bora to prepare the location three weeks before UBL’s arrival.” He also “emphasized detainee had close ties to al-Qaida.” In further interrogations, Basardah led the authorities to believe that al-Uwaydha “reportedly directed fire against US forces, was known for his skills with weaponry, and attended al-Farouq Training Camp.” Basardah told his interrogators that “he personally observed detainee arrange anti-aircraft fire against US forces in Tora Bora and that detainee was good at driving tanks,” and also claimed that he “was able to repair many different types of weapons.”

A further allegation from a torture victim came from Abu Faraj al-Libi (ISN 10017, still held), another “high-value detainee” held and tortured in secret CIA prisons, and described as a “[s]enior al-Qaida operative,” who said he “recognised detainee as Hamza, a driver for a guesthouse in Kandahar whom he had seen in 2000.”

It may be, of course, that all of the allegations above were true, but if that is the case then it is difficult to see why al-Uwaydha was released. He was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” although he was only “assessed as a low threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour” had only been sometimes “hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Buzby updated a previous recommendation for his continued detention (dated August 3, 2006) with a similar recommendation, although he was released just three months later, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Muhammad Al Jihani (ISN 62, Saudi Arabia) Released July 2007

As I explained in “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (3) – “Osama’s Bodyguards,’” Muhammad al-Jihani, who was 34 years old at the time of his capture, was a former taxi driver, who was so unforthcoming in his tribunal at Guantánamo that it was impossible to ascertain anything other than the fact that he claimed that he had been teaching the Koran in Afghanistan. When asked, “Did you have a place to do that? Did you already contact the mosque or something where you were going to teach?” he responded by saying, grumpily, “All these questions are in my files. Go back to the file and read the file.” The Summary of Evidence against him, released after he was freed, adds a little to the picture, but not very much.

Al-Jihani said that he had traveled to Afghanistan in June 2000, using his own money to pay for his travel, in order “to perform Islamic missionary work after hearing several fatwas issued by Imams in Jeddah,” and clearly refuted all claims that he had traveled for other reasons, including those made by an unidentified “source” who identified him “as one of 30 men who were Osama bin Laden bodyguards and drivers,” and another unidentified source who identified him as “one who visited Kabul, Afghanistan for approximately two weeks between fighting on the front lines.” In addition, a “senior al-Qaeda operative” allegedly claimed that al-Jihani “might have stayed at the Hamza al-Ghamdi guest house in Kabul,” and an “admitted jihadist” described him as a mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan, who “taught the Koran, fought at Tora Bora, Afghanistan and was one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards.” As with other prisoners, it was to be hoped that the military files released by WikiLeaks would shed light on the identities of those making these allegations.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Jihani was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated July 13, 2006, in which he was identified as Mohammed N. al-Juhani and Muhammad Naji Subhi al-Mahayawi al-Juhani, and it was noted that he was born in October 1967, and was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force, drawing on his own account, noted that he “worked as a self-employed taxi driver for approximately 15 years,” and that, as was discussed in the information presented to his tribunal, he said that he “traveled to Afghanistan (AF) to perform missionary work after hearing several fatwas (religious edicts) issued by imams (prayer leaders) in Jeddah.” He added that he left Saudi Arabia in June 2000 “without speaking to anyone about his trip,” and “did not receive any assistance from outside parties regarding his travel plans,” and explained that he traveled to Kabul via Karachi and Quetta, using “money that he had saved, between 7,000 and 10,000 Saudi Riyals (approximately $1,866 and $2,666USD), to fund his travel and personal expenses.”

Al-Jihani said that, in Kabul, he stayed with a man named Abdul Hadi, the imam of a mosque, and “turned over his passport and half of his money” to him. Then, for the next year and half, “he taught the Koran to young men between the ages of seven and seventeen,” and stated that he “never participated in any type of military training or combat.” At the end of November 2001, he said that “he left Kabul as it was no longer safe and traveled to Khost,” where he met up with with “a group of 30 men traveling to Pakistan.” On arrival in Pakistan, however, they were seized by Pakistani border guards, who, as the Task Force described it, “arrested detainee with a group of confirmed [Osama bin Laden] bodyguards, al-Qaida members and Taliban fighters,” otherwise known as the “Dirty 30.” He was then held in a prison in Peshawar, and transferred to US custody on December 27. 2001. He was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, although the Task Force conceded that his file “does not indicate why he was sent to JTF-GTMO; however, his transfer was likely due to his perceived associations with the 30 UBL bodyguards, Al-Qaida members, and Taliban fighters with whom he was arrested.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that al-Jihani “was unable to provide any details of his associate[s] or locations” for the 17 months that he said he was teaching in Afghanistan,” and noted that “reporting from other sources possibly identified [him] as a UBL bodyguard and a fighter in Kabul since 1999, as well as in Tora Bora.” These sources, however, were not necessarily reliable.

Two were “high-value detainees” held and tortured in secret CIA prisons. The first, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (ISN 10012, convicted in federal court in New York in January 2011), described as an “Al-Qaida operative,” said that al-Jihani “fought on the front lines under Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi” (ISN 10026, still held), who was described as “one of UBL’s most senior commanders and the person in charge of non-Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters (Al-Qaida’s 55th Arab Brigade) in the Afghanistan northern front,” and added that he “visited Kabul for two weeks prior to returning to the fight.” The second, Abu Zubaydah, the supposed “high-value detainee” for whom the Bush administration’s torture program was specifically invented, reportedly “believed detainee to be a Yemeni national who possibly stayed at the Al-Qaida affiliated Hamza al-Ghamdi guesthouse in Kabul and was seen on the front line in Kabul.” This was particularly worthless testimony, of course, as al-Jihani was not a Yemeni, and the allegations regarding Kabul mean nothing, and what it summons up, therefore, is a desperate Abu Zubaydah being shown photos while held in some torture dungeon, and trying to come up with something that would please his captors.

Another witness was also a victim of torture in the CIA’s network of secret prisons. Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj (ISN 1457, still held), described as an “Al-Qaida member and facilitator,” apparently “reported that detainee fought on the front lines north of Kabul in a place called Suraca El San’ani (NFI),” which was also a rather empty claim.

In addition, Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 63, still held), the most notorious victim of torture at Guantánamo, apparently “stated detainee was a mujahid at Tora Bora,” and “added he and the detainee were on a ‘Jihad mission’ there.” In another interrogation, al-Qahtani “identified detainee as an associate in Kandahar.” Another witness was Yasim Basardah (ISN 252, released), well known as the most prolific and unreliable witness at Guantánamo, who “claimed detainee fought in the Ktal region of the Tora Bora Mountains.”

Furthermore, when it came to the claim that al-Jihani was a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, it was revealed, crucially, that Basardah was “the only one to specifically name [him] as a bodyguard.” In a fascinating section, in which it was claimed that it was “possible the bodyguards may have information on [bin Laden]‘s intended movements which can provide clues to his current whereabouts” (and which is now no longer necessary, of course), the Task Force explained that “[s]ome of the significant reports which identify the bodyguards, but do not include detainee, are from debriefings of [Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj]; senior Al-Qaida facilitator Abu Zubayduh; senior Al-Qaida operational planner and former UBL bodyguard Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash (aka Khallad); and UBL’s driver [Salim Hamdan, ISN 149, released in December 2008]” — in other words, not Mohammed al-Qahtani, as was widely thought before the files were released (although al-Qahtani certainly was also responsible for “identifying” bodyguards).

In another significant passage, there was a reference to Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (ISN 212, but never held at Guantánamo), a particularly important “high-value detainee,” whose torture in Egypt in 2002 led to a false confession that Al-Qaida operatives had been meeting with Saddam Hussein to discuss obtaining chemical and biological weapons, which was then used to justify the invasion of Iraq, even though al-Libi retracted it. Sent back to Libya after several years in secret CIA prisons, al-Libi died in Gaddafi’s Abu Salim prison in May 2009, reportedly by committing suicide, although observers believed that he had been killed. In al-Jihani’s case, it was noted that “Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi’s inability to identify detainee from al-Libi’s time at the Yaqub Mosque and the detainee’s inability to provide information about personalities and descriptive features of the Yaqub Mosque casts additional doubt on his cover story.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed al-Jihani as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” because his “placement within Al-Qaida and his lack of cooperation indicate continued support to Islamic extremism and increases the potential of him rejoining these elements if released.” It was also noted that he was “a low threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behavior ha[d] been mostly compliant and non-hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Rear Adm. Harris, updating a recommendation that he be retained in DoD control (dated June 3, 2005), recommended him for continued detention, although it was noted, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to [al-Jihani] and/or to exploited intelligence, [he] can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO),” although that agreement was evidently not reached for another year, when he was finally released, to be put through the Saudi government’s extensive rehabilitation program.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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Freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington continues his 70-part, million-word series telling, for the first time, the stories of 776 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. Adding information released by WikiLeaks in April 2011 to the existing documentation about the prisoners, much of which was already covered in Andy’s book The Guantánamo Files and in the archive of articles on his website, the project will be completed in time for the 10th anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11, 2012.

This is Part 28 of the 70-part series. 348 stories have now been told. See the entire archive here.

In late April, I worked with WikiLeaks as a media partner for the publication of thousands of pages of classified military documents — the Detainee Assessment Briefs — relating to almost all of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. These documents drew heavily on the testimony of the prisoners themselves, and also on the testimony of their fellow inmates (either in Guantánamo, or in secret prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA), whose statements are unreliable, either because they were subjected to torture or other forms of coercion, or because they provided false statements in the hope of securing better treatment in Guantánamo.

The documents were compiled by the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo (JTF GTMO), which operates the prison, and were based on assessments and reports made by interrogators and analysts whose primary concern was to “exploit” the prisoners for their intelligence value. They also include input from the Criminal Investigative Task Force, created by the DoD in 2002 to conduct interrogations on a law enforcement basis, rather than for “actionable intelligence.”

My ongoing analysis of the documents began in May, with a five-part series, “WikiLeaks: The Unknown Prisoners of Guantánamo,” telling the stories of 84 prisoners, released between 2002 and 2004, whose stories had never been told before. This was followed by a ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004,” in which I revisited the stories of 114 other prisoners released in this period, adding information from the Detainee Assessment Briefs to what was already known about these men and boys from press reports and other sources. This was followed by another five-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released After the Tribunals, 2004 to 2005,” dealing with the period from September 2004 to the end of 2005, when 62 prisoners were released.

This, as I explained, was the period in which, after the prisoners won a spectacular victory in the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, when the Supreme Court granted them habeas corpus rights (in other words, the right to ask an impartial judge why they were being held), lawyers were allowed to meet the prisoners for the first time, and the secrecy that was required for Guantánamo to function as an interrogation center beyond the law was finally broken.

However, although the Bush administration allowed habeas petitions to proceed, Congress attempted to strip the prisoners of their habeas rights in the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, and the administration also responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling with its own inferior version of habeas, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, a sham process designed to rubber-stamp their designation as “enemy combatants” who could be held indefinitely.

With just 38 prisoners cleared for release after the CSRTs, another review process — the annual Administrative Review Boards — took over, reviewing whether prisoners still had ongoing intelligence value, and whether they still posed a threat to the US. These were essentially the decisions being taken by JTF GTMO and CITF, and they reveal how, in the “War on Terror,” prosecuting criminals (the few genuine terror suspects in Guantánamo) and holding soldiers off the battlefield until the end of hostilities had largely given way to the strange mixture of threat assessments and intelligence assessments that fill the Detainee Assessment Briefs.

With 260 prisoners profiled in the first 20 parts of this project, this latest ten-part series covers the stories of the 111 prisoners released in 2006 (and the three who died at the prison in June 2006) and readers will, I hope, realize that almost all of these prisoners were freed because of political maneuvering rather than anything to do with justice. The largest groups released by nationality in 2006 were Saudis (45 in total — 15 in May 2006, 14 in June and 16 in December) and Afghans (35 in total — 7 in February, 5 in August, 16 in October and 7 in December).

I also hope that readers will reflect on the problems of over-classification that have been thoroughly chronicled in the preceding series analyzing the Detainee Assessment Briefs. My analysis to date has established repeatedly that even patently innocent prisoners seized by mistake were regarded as a “low risk,” rather than as no risk at all, and it is important for readers to bear in mind that the entire process of detaining and processing prisoners and exploiting them for their supposed intelligence was shot through with a drive to conclude that they were all a threat, and to overlook the distressing fact that most of them were seized in a largely random manner, mostly by America’s Afghan and Pakistan allies, at a time when substantial bounty payments were widespread, and were never subjected to anything that resembled an adequate screening process.

For further information, also see Part One (which contained eleven stories about prisoners from a variety of countries, mostly captured in Afghanistan, and including Yasser al-Zahrani, who died in Guantánamo in June 2006), and Part Two (which featured another eleven stories, mostly of prisoners who survived the Qala-i-Janghi massacre in northern Afghanistan in November 2001). Part Three featured another eleven stories, including some examples of prisoners who “returned to the battlefield” after their release, and the story of a Libyan prisoner whose fie is full of statements made by other Libyans, including Abdelhakim Belhaj, now active as a commander of the Libyan rebels, who were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture in secret CIA prisons. Part Four told eleven more stories, of prisoners seized, for a variety of reasons, crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan after the US-led invasion in October 2001, and Part Five featured more of those stories, including four accounts of the Uighurs, Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province, who persuaded the US they were held by mistake, but had to wait until 2006 to be freed, when they were resettled in Albania, and not in the US, which accepted that it could not return them to China, but refused to allow them to live in America. Part Six involved more stories of Saudis and Afghans, including the particularly unfortunate story of a Saudi-born Uighur, who was tortured by Al-Qaida for allegedly plotting to assassinate Osama bin Laden, liberated from a Taliban prison, and then sent to Guantánamo. Part Seven featured more Saudis, a Yemeni, two Kazakhs, an Iranian and some Afghans, including some prisoners with serious mental health issues (and one juvenile prisoner), and the sad — and unresolved — story of Mani al-Utaybi, another of the three prisoners who died in June 2006, and this part features more mental health issues, another juvenile, three men sent to live in Albania because it was not safe for them to be returned to their home countries, and the last of the three prisoners who died in June 2006. Also see Part Nine and Part Ten.

The Complete Guantánamo Files: WikiLeaks and the Prisoners Released in 2006 (Part Eight of Ten)

Abdullah Al Qahtani (ISN 652, Saudi Arabia) Released May 2006

In Chapter 14 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how, after his release, Abdullah al-Qahtani, who was 22 years old at the time of his capture, told the newspaper Asharq Alawsat that, in Afghanistan, he had taken part in the Taliban’s military conflict, which he described as “skirmishes with the Russians and allies such as Ahmad Shah Massoud,” and also said that, after the US-led invasion began, he and a number of other Arabs negotiated a surrender with the Northern Alliance, and were surprised when they were handed over to the Americans.” In contrast, the Pentagon’s limited allegations are here.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Qahtani was a “Recommendation [for] Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated December 3, 2004, in which he was also identified as Abdulla Hamid al-Qahtani and Abdullah Mohammed, born in 1979, and it was also noted that he had latent TB, in common with many of the prisoners, but refused therapy “after three treatments.” It was also noted that he had “been seen for tooth decay” and “had a left 5th metatarsal fracture (foot) noted on x-ray after ankle injury,” for which he “received therapy” — for “chronic ankle pain.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, after one year of high school, “he worked for his father in a family owned business,” and then, in January 2001, met Abdallah Aiza al-Matrafi (ISN 5, released in December 2007, and also identified as Abdul Aziz al-Matrafi) who was identified as “the national director of Al-Wafa in Afghanistan/Pakistan.” A Saudi-based charity which was demonstrably involved in humanitarian work in Afghanistan, Al-Wafa was also regarded as a front for terrorism, and was blacklisted by the US, and defined by the Intelligence Interagency on Counter Terrorism (IITC) “as a Tier 2 NGO,” meaning an organization that has “demonstrated the intent and willingness to support terrorist organizations willing to attack US persons or interests.”

Al-Matrafi apparently recruited al-Qahtani, and his cousin Jabir al-Qahtani (ISN 650, released in November 2007), “to establish an Al-Wafa organisation in Lahore, Pakistan,” and in early February 2001 gave him $200 for travel expenses. After he and his cousin took a three-week vacation in Egypt, they met al-Matrafi in Lahore in April 2001, and “were driven to a large storage facility in Lahore,” where al-Matrafi told them “they would be accountable for all goods received from the United Arab Emirates and take regular inventories.” They apparently “lived on the second floor of the storage facility and were told by [al-Matrafi] to keep a low profile and not to be seen by the local populace.” Al-Jabrani explained that he “was told this [was] because he was a foreigner and it would make people in the area suspicious,” and said that he was also “introduced to a local Pakistani, Muhammad Gola, who was the acting director of the Al-Wafa office in Lahore, PK, and was told if he needed anything [to] talk to Gola.”

In September 2001, having not been paid, al-Qahtani said that he asked al-Matrafi “to pay him so he could travel back to Saudi Arabia,” and al-Matrafi told him that “if they travel[ed] to Afghanistan they would be paid the back wages plus any time worked while in Afghanistan.” He and his cousin agreed and traveled to Kabul, where they met al-Matrafi “in his villa” in the Wazir Akbar Khan District of Kabul, and where, according to al-Qahtani, he “was only paid $3000.00 USD.” He and his cousin then “continued working for Al-Wafa in the Wazir Akbar Khan District until captured by Northern Alliance on [sic] November 2001.”

He was sent to Guantánamo on May 3, 2002, allegedly to “provide information on the following: Activities of the Al-Wafa organisation under Abdul Aziz aka Abdallah Aiza al-Matrafi, Aspects of Al-Wafa funnelling financial support to illicit purposes, Lahore, PK, and Kabul, AF, offices of Al-Wafa [and] Recruitment procedures and network for Al-Wafa in Mecca, SA.”

However, as I explained in my article, “How to Read WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo Files” (originally published on WikiLeaks’ website when the Guantánamo files were first published, as part of my work liaising between WikiLeaks and its media partners):

[T]he “Reasons for Transfer” included in the documents, which have been repeatedly cited by media outlets as an explanation of why the prisoners were transferred to Guantánamo, are, in fact, lies that were grafted onto the prisoners’ files after their arrival at Guantánamo. This is because, contrary to the impression given in the files, no significant screening process took place before the prisoners’ transfer. As Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator who worked in Afghanistan, explained in a book that he wrote about his experiences (The Interrogators), every prisoner who ended up in US custody had to be sent to Guantánamo, even though the majority were not even seized by US forces, but were seized by their Afghan and Pakistani allies at a time when substantial bounty payments for “al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects” were widespread.

Given what he said after his release, it may be worth considering that, in this latter period, he may not have been working for Al-Wafa as he stated, but I see no reason to dispute the whole of the story of his humanitarian work with Al-Wafa, although this is what the Task Force did. Noting that he was assessed as being “affiliated with Al-Wafa” and “a member of Al-Qaida and/or its global terrorist network,” the US authorities were deeply suspicious about al-Qahtani’s claim that he “was promised over $6000.00 USD for working six months in Pakistan,” which was regarded as “an excessive amount of money since the average employee of Al Wafa was paid between $250- $300 USD per month.” It was claimed that Al Wafa “was known for providing money transfers for Al-Qaida” (although this allegation was never actually tested in an objective manner), and that, as a result, it was “possible that [al-Qahtani] was involved in that activity or distributing money to Mujahideen as they were exiting Afghanistan.”

In addition, it was noted that it had been “assessed that he [was] possibly a higher-ranking employee in the Al-Wafa or other extremist organization and received weapons training at Al-Wafa’s training camp in Kabul, Afghanistan (AF), and did not work in an alleged ‘warehouse’ in Lahore, PK, which research has proven to be non-existent.”

As a result of all these doubts, al-Qahtani was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may possibly pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed as a high force protection threat,” with “a past history of aggressive behaviour,” and “multiple acts of assault on his disciplinary record,” who had “routinely been aggressive and ha[d] two incidents of forced cell extractions,” had “incited disturbances on many different blocks and fail[ed] to act within the detention facility SOP.” As a result, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended him for transfer to continued detention in Saudi Arabia, although he was not released for another 17 months, when he was repatriated to be put through the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program.

Khudaidad (ISN 655, Afghanistan) Released February 2006

In Chapter 14 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Khudaidad (aka Khudai Dad), who was 45 years old at the time of his capture, was seized in a night-time raid by Afghan soldiers in Uruzgan in April 2002. It was alleged that his compound was used by Mullah Berader, a senior figure in the Taliban, that he himself was a Taliban official and that he was supposed to “assume a prominent leadership role in Kandahar,” but he said that he was actually just a poor farmer.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Khudaidad was an “Update Recommendation to Retain under DoD Control,” dated March 6, 2004, in which he was identified as Kudai Dat, born in 1957, and it was noted that he had been “diagnosed with Schizophrenia,” although it was also claimed that he was “otherwise in good health.”

In fact, Khudaidad had severe mental health problems, as was revealed in an attachment from the “JTF GTMO Behavioral Health Service and the Behavioral Science Consultation Team,” who reported that he “began to report symptoms of anxiety in November 2002, which resulted in his being hospitalized for acute symptoms of psychosis.” In January 2003, “he was referred to the transfer assessment team, which conducted a final interrogation,” and “was not interrogated again” for several months “while his file was being processed.” According to JTF GTMO’s daily incident reports, “he often refused his medication during this period,” but “[h]is condition improved, and he was cleared for a polygraph examination.” However, when this was to take place, he “began to have hallucinations again, and the polygraphers determined he was mentally unfit to examine.” It was also noted that it was “consistent with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, controlled with medication, for an individual to react to increased stress with psychotic symptoms.”

In July 2003, “he was started on a monthly dose of an antipsychotic to assist with compliance with his medication regimen.” It was noted that he then “responded well” to monthly does of Haldol Decanoate, and was “free of psychosis.” However, it was also noted that he could “be expected to experience intermittent difficulties related to psychosis over time without constant supervision of medication compliance,” and would “require continued psychiatric follow-up upon return to his native country.” Regarding his planned repatriation, it was noted that he would “require a mental health escort and supplemental medications ‘as needed’ in-flight,” and it was also noted that “[h]is long-term prognosis appear[ed] poor.”

Despite this, the “Update Recommendation,” following up on a recommendation that he be “considered for release or transfer to the control of another movement,” which was based on an assessment that he “was not affiliated with Al-Qaida or a Taliban leader” (dated March 22, 2003), included “New Information,” which led to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller’s recommendation that he be retained in DoD control, and was “contrary to his statements that he [was] nothing more than a farmer.”

According to “sensitive reporting,” which was not specified, Khudaidad was “referred to as a Mullah,” and “was possibly involved in negotiations between Mullah Omar and other Pashtun commanders for control of Kandahar during the disintegration of the Taliban regime.” According to this account, he “would have been acting in a leadership position,” but this was not convincing, given the use of the word “possibly.”

It was also noted that, “according to new information,” his claim that “he had only two brothers,” was untrue, as “he may have as many as seven brothers,” although, again, this was not presented as a hard fact. Related to this was a claim that he “supplied biographical information on a senior Taliban facilitator by the name of ‘Zainullah,’” who was regarded as a “possible brother” of his.

In addition, although it could not be confirmed that there was any significance to the claim that the compound where he was seized was “identified as the last known location of Mullah Berader and other top Taliban commanders,” and Khudaidad “denie[d] any knowledge of these individuals or of Taliban involvement in his town,” it was noted that his home “remain[ed] the center of Taliban resistance to the current government of Afghanistan,” and the authorities were deeply suspicious about that.

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests or its allies.” It was also noted, evidently by the guard force, and evidently without having ever been apprised of his severe mental health issues, that he had “shown by his actions in the cell that he ha[d] little regard for himself and [would] not listen to authority,” and that he had “refused medications, banged his head against the floor, exposed himself to others, and in general ha[d] been non-compliant.” Most alarmingly, given what was indicated elsewhere about his mental health, it was also noted that, “at many times, [he] trie[d] to make it appear that he [was] suffering from a mental breakdown,” when, in fact, he probably was.

As a result of the Task Force’s intelligence and threat assessments, Maj. Gen. Miller made his recommendation, although the Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) disagreed, having assessed him as a low risk. However, “In the interest of national security and pursuant to an agreement between the CITF and JTF GTMO Commanders, CITF [deferred] to JTF GTMO’s assessment that [he] pose[d] a medium risk.” CITF’s opinion may eventually have prevailed, but not for another 23 months.

Rashid Al Uwaydah (ISN 664, Saudi Arabia) Released May 2006

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (9) – Seized in Pakistan (Part One),” I explained how Rashid al-Uwaydah, who was 25 years old at the time of his capture, said in Guantánamo that he arrived in Pakistan in July 2001 “to escape possible arrest by the Saudi authorities for drug dealing,” but hoped nevertheless to buy drugs in Pakistan to sell in Saudi Arabia. After losing his passport, he was arrested in Islamabad with some Libyans he had met, who, he said, were from an official group recognized by the Libyan government, but who the Americans claimed were “helping Arabs get out of Pakistan.” It has not, to date, been possible to identify what happened to the Libyans seized with al-Uwaydah.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Uwaydah was a “Recommendation [for] Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated October 15, 2004, in which he was also identified as Rashid Awwad Rashid al-Uwaydha, born in 1976, and it was noted that he was “in good health, although he complain[ed] of acid reflux.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that he said, as he did in his review board at Guantánamo, that he “left Saudi Arabia to avoid being arrested for selling and smuggling pills in Saudi Arabia,” and “was advised by a Pakistani hashish smuggler” to go to Pakistan, where he was provided with a contact. He apparently arrived in Pakistan in June 2001, and planned to stay for a month before returning to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Uwaydah said that “he never attended any Taliban or Al-Qaida (AQ) affiliated training camps,” either in Pakistan or in Afghanistan, where, he said, he had never set foot. On approximately January 20, 2002, he was arrested by the Pakistani police “while residing at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Islamabad.” He was transferred to US custody on April 5, 2002, and the circumstances of his transfer to Guantánamo were not known to the Task Force, as it was stated that he was sent to Guantánamo on January 14, 2002, which was obviously impossible, and, in addition, it was “not documented in [his] file why he was sent to JTF GTMO.”

In assessing his story, the Joint Task Force noted, bluntly, that his “cover story of going to Pakistan to buy drugs and never entering Afghanistan [was] untrue,” although there was little information provided to establish if this was indeed the case. The Task Force noted that it was “unclear if [he] was arrested with a group of Libyans that were operating in the same hotel,” as he claimed, but the US authorities had no witnesses to any of his activities, only a few dubious claims that his name was found on Al-Qaida-related documents recovered from house raids.

Particularly significant was the fact that his name “was listed as one of 77 Saudi nationals whom a visiting Saudi Delegation considered to be of low intelligence value,” and “indicated the Government of Saudi Arabia would be willing to have these 77 detainees transferred to Saudi Custody for possible prosecution.”

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium to high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” although it should be noted that he was assessed as being a high risk, and the words “medium to” were added in a hand-written note. In assessing the risk he allegedly posed, the Task Force claimed that he “appear[ed] to be well connected to key facilitators in the Al-Qaida’s [sic] intemational terrorist network, ha[d] probably participated in terrorist training and hostilities against the US and coalition forces, and maintain[ed] the capability to continue to do so if released,” and therefore, it was “imperative” that he be ”retained in the custody of the US Government or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Govenment,” because his “continued detention [would] allow for further exploitation of his past affiliation with various terrorist groups and prevent him from engaging in further terrorist activity.”

The Task Force also declared him to be “an extremely hostile, radical Islamic,” whose threat assessment was “high,” because he had “a past history of aggressive behaviour,” had “aggressively assaulted the guards and ha[d] made many threats towards the guards.” As a result, it was perhaps surprising that Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended him for transfer to continued detention in Saudi Arabia, although it was noted that this decision only applied “if a satisfactory agreement can be reached that allows access to detainee and/or access to exploited intelligence,” and that, “If a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached for his continued detention in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he should be retained under DoD control.”

The Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) disagreed, having assessed him as “a medium risk on 7 May 2004,” but CITF deferred to JTF GTMO’s assessment that he posed “a medium to high risk,” in “the interest of national security and pursuant to an agreement between the CITF and JTF GTMO Commanders,” but even with the Task Force’s conditions, he was not released for another 19 months, and was then put through the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program.

Zakirjan Asam (ISN 672, Russia) Released in November 2006 (in Albania)

In The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Zakirjan Asam (aka Zakirjan Hassam), from Saratov Oblast, part of the Russian Federation bordering Kazakhstan, who was 27 years old at the time of his capture, was one of three prisoners released in Albania in November 2006 because the US authorities feared for their safety if they were returned to their home countries, although he was actually cleared for release in 2005. He was one of the 38 prisoners cleared of being “enemy combatants” after the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo which took place from July 2004 to March 2005, and which led to the swift release of all 38, except a Uighur and Saudi resident, Saddiq Ahmed Turkistani (ISN 491, profiled here), and those who could not be safely repatriated — five Uighurs profiled in Part Four and Part Five, and the two others released in Albania in November 2006, who are profiled below — the Egyptian Ala Salim (ISN 716), and the Algerian Fethi Boucetta (ISN 718).

In Chapter 14, I explained how Asam, a refugee, said in Guantánamo that he was deported from Kazakhstan to Afghanistan in spring 2001, and was betrayed, after the US-led invasion began, by Afghan villagers anxious to avail themselves of the reward money offered by the Americans for vulnerable individuals who could be passed off as members of Al-Qaida or the Taliban. He explained that the inhabitants of two villages in Kunduz province negotiated between themselves and asked him to pay them a $3,000 bribe or they would hand him over to the Americans. He said that “they knew they could sell me to the Americans for $5,000,” and that they explained to him that “because I am a Muslim they lowered the price for me.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Asam was  an “Update Recommendation [for] Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated March 25, 2005, in which he was misidentified as an Uzbek, and it was noted that he was born in May 1974. It was also noted that he “was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder with psychotic features and a non-specific psychosis,” and that he “suffer[ed] from migraine headaches.” It was also noted that he was taking “three psychiatric medications to control his illness,” and that the only restriction on his ability to travel (in other words, to be released from Guantánamo) was the requirement “to have his migraine and psychiatric medications available for the flight.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, according to his own account, after working as an auto mechanic, he moved to Kazakhstan in 1999, where he “was employed as a wheat farmer and construction laborer” until the spring of 2001, when Kazakh officials arrested him “due to lack of identification paperwork.” He was then apparently turned over to Tajik government officials “and was housed for two and a half months in a house with two unarmed guards,” before being “placed on a helicopter with a ‘Red Crescent’ emblem on the side and flown to Afghanistan,” where he was “put in a truck and transported to Kunduz.”

There, he said, he studied in a mosque, and, from May to November 2001, shared a house outside of the city “with eight women and three other males,” where he “maintained the generator for room and board.” When the US-led invasion reached Kunduz, he “fled to the mountains where he stayed for three days,” until Northern Alliances forces captured him “while he and two Uzbek-ethnic Afghans were sitting by a fire,” although “he was the only individual arrested.”

He was then taken to Dasht-e-Archi, where he was held in a house with “a group of unidentified Afghans for 25 days,” and where his captors said that, if he could raise $300, he would be freed. They then “released him to be able to acquire the funds,” but he “was later recaptured and jailed for one month before being turned over to US forces.” He was sent to Guantánamo on June 14, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: IMU [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan] and their activities in Tajikistan and Afghanistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that Asam was “assessed as being a probable member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” although no witnesses were found who had identified him, and all that the Task Force had to go on were similarities to the stories of others, which is hardly very convincing. It may be that he was an IMU recruit, as his story was full of holes, although there were certainly also a number of other strange stories circulating, concerning Afghanistan, the IMU and the countries to the north, indicating that men like Asam had been deported to Afghanistan, or deported and pressed into military service, meaning that his willingness, if he was indeed recruited, was difficult to gauge.

Above all, though, his mental health problems plagued his case, and, it seems to me, made any kind of objective assessment impossible. He was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” but part of that assessment involved a claim that his “psychological disorders may make him vulnerable to recruitment or manipulation by Islamic extremist organisations, who would exploit this vulnerability to utilize him to conduct terrorist activities.” It was also noted, in an analysis of his conduct (presumably submitted by the guard force) that he was “extremely violent and ha[d] been labeled as a psychiatric patient,” that he had “a past history of aggressive behaviour,” and that he had “six self-harm incident reports on record.”

Although it had been recommended that he be retained in DoD control on December 20, 2003, Brig. Gen. Hood drew on “information obtained since [his] previous assessment” to recommend that he be transferred to another country for continued detention, although this “information” was not specified. Of course, as the government evidently regarded it as unsafe to return him to Russia, the transfer recommendation was meaningless, as no third country would accept a former prisoner and then imprison them on America’s behalf. As a result, the trigger for his release was the decision, by his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, that he was not an ‘enemy combatant,” although it still took over a year and a half for a country to be found — Albania — that was prepared to accept him.

Since his release, no information has been provided regarding his mental health issues or how he has coped with his new life in a country that has offered him shelter, but very little in the way of support.

Salah Ahmed Al Salami (ISN 693, Yemen) Died in Guantánamo June 2006

As I explained in Chapter 19 of The Guantánamo Files, al-Salami (generally identified in Guantánamo as Ali Abdullah Ahmed), who was 25 years old at the time of his capture in Afghanistan in December 2001, was one of three prisoners who died at Guantánamo on June 9, 2006. having allegedly hanged themselves in a coordinated suicide pact. The other two were Yasser al-Zahrani, a Saudi (who was just 17 at the time of his capture), and Mani al-Utaybi, another Saudi, and all three were long-term hunger strikers, who had been force-fed on a daily basis for many months before their deaths.

The administration’s response to the deaths was extraordinarily callous. Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of Guantánamo, said, “This was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us,” and Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, described the suicides as a “good PR move to draw attention.” Stung by international criticism, the administration rapidly back-tracked, and Cully Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, was put forward to say, “I wouldn’t characterize it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life, because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country.”

In an attempt to stifle further dissent, and to bolster their view that the three men were hardened terrorists, the Pentagon released details of the allegations against them, which served only to highlight almost everything that was wrong with the system at Guantánamo. In the case of al-Salami, one of 15 men seized in a raid on a student house in Faisalabad on March 28, 2002, the same night that Abu Zubaydah, who was later tortured and became one of the CIA’s most notorious “ghost prisoners,” was seized. After al-Salami’s death, the Pentagon alleged, without providing any evidence at all, that he was “a mid- to high-level Al-Qaida operative who had key ties to principal facilitators and senior members of the group.”

Although none of the men had taken part in any tribunals, more detailed allegations against al-Salami surfaced in the alleged evidence against him in his CSRT, although a close inspection of the allegations reveals that they were mostly made by unidentified “members” of Al-Qaida, either in Guantánamo or in other secret prisons: “a senior Al-Qaida facilitator” identified him, another senior Al-Qaida figure — a “lieutenant” — identified him as being “associated with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and the “Al-Qaida weapons trainer from Tora Bora” allegedly identified him from his time in Kabul and at the Khaldan training camp. He was also identified as “an Al-Qaida courier,” and as someone who “worked directly for Osama bin Laden’s family.” Shorn of these allegations, which summon up images of various supposedly “significant” prisoners being shown photos of tier fellow prisoners — in what was known as the “family album” — in painful circumstances, the only other allegation was that the “Issa” guest house received the equivalent of jihadi junk mail: apparently, the residents of the house “routinely received endorsement letters from a well-known Al-Qaida operative” to attend the Khaldan camp.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Salami was a “Recommendation to Retain under DoD Control,” dated October 1, 2004, in which he was not identified by his real name, but only as Ali Abdullah Ahmed and Ali Abdullah Saleh, and it was noted that he was born in August 1979, and was “in good health,” although it was also noted that he had “a history of hunger striking and nephrolithiasis (kidney stones).”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, according to his own account, he “was a street vendor who sold clothing,” but “had been thinking about religious education for a long time and was prompted to travel to Pakistan to receive this education upon hearing God’s calling.” Around May 2001, “he quit his job, left his young wife, spent $500 USD on a passport, visa, and plane ticket,” which “was good for a return trip up to one year after purchase,” and flew from Sana’a to Karachi.”

After a week in Karachi, he took a bus to Faisalabad, where he “enrolled in Jamea Salafia University and began religious studies.” He said that he “was living in on-campus dormitories for five to six months,” but, about one month after the 9/11 attacks, “was asked to move out of the dorms on-campus,” and, “with several other Arab students, moved to an off-campus safehouse ran [sic] by a man named Issa.” He explained that, by the end of March 2002, he “was planning on staying in Pakistan until his plane ticket was just about to expire (another month and a half), but his plans were cut short” when Pakistani authorities raided the house, which was identified as the Crescent Textile Mill, on March 28, 2002.

He was then turned over to US authorities, and was sent to Guantánamo on June 19, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on: The safehouse in Faisalabad, PK, which was used to house foreign students who were attending the Jamea Salafia University [and] Routes of ingress between Yemen and Pakistan.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force stated its belief that he was “using the guise of studying Islam at the Jamea Salafia University while residing at the Issa safehouse as a cover story to conceal his true activities in Pakistan/Afghanistan.” An analyst pointed out that the Jamea Salafia University was “a religious madrassa (school) and not a state-funded or state-regulated school,” and that “[r]eligious madrassas in Pakistan are perceived to encourage militancy, religious extremism, and intolerance while thriving on anti-Western sentiment,” which may well have been true, but it did not mean that al-Salami was not a student.

It was also noted that he was captured “with fifteen others, many of whom have been identified by senior Al-Qaida personnel,” although this claim was extremely difficult to corroborate. What was clear was that Abu Zubaydah had some sort of connection with the house, but it was unclear exactly what that connection was, beyond being a place where, on occasion, men fleeing Afghanistan — whether as combatants of civilians was unclear — could be housed.

It was certainly not appropriate for the Task Force to declare that “The Issa safehouse was under the control of Abu Zubaydah, an Al-Qaida top lieutenant and aid to Osama bin Laden,” as the house was under the control of the Pakistani named Issa, and the claims about Zubaydah were and are wildly exaggerated.

As  a result, it was worth regarding with skepticism an analyst’s note that, although ”[s]everal Arabs captured at the Issa safehouse ha[d] used the same rigid cover story that they were merely educating themselves and studying Islam,” it was possible that “the house could have been used as a collection point for Al-Qaida members seeking and returning from Al-Qaida terrorist training.”

There are also grave doubts about the legitimacy of a raft of other claims made by Zubaydah and others seized with him in another house raid in Faisalabad on March 28, 2002. Zubaydah, for example, allegedly “identified” al-Salami, claiming that he had seen him in Kandahar with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that “he might have seen detainee in Kandahar three or four times,” but there is no reason to trust this statement, and nor is there any reason to trust a statement made by Abu Yasir Al-Jaza’iri, described as “a senior Al-Qaida facilitator,” who “identified” al-Salami, and made a number of outlandish claims about him, as al-Jaza’iri was a “ghost prisoner,” also seized in Pakistan in March 2003, whose whereabouts have never been explained by the US government. Either held in secret CIA torture prisons, or in Pakistani custody, his testimony is, therefore, probably as unreliable as that of Abu Zubaydah.

Al-Jaza’iri apparently said that al-Salami’s cousin was arrested on arrival in Karachi in 1999 “due to visa violation issues,” and al-Salami “was sent by the family to secure his cousin’s release from jail.” He also said that he first met al-Salami at a guesthouse in Kandahar in the spring of 2000 and “place[d] him back in Pakistan in late 2000 assisting in efforts to release his cousin.” It was also al-Jaza’iri who claimed that he was “an Al-Qaida courier,” and he also claimed that he “was the younger brother of Assadallah al-Sindhi, a popular Al-Qaida member killed in 1996,” and also, most outrageously, it seems to me, that al-Salami “and his cousin Nadim were responsible for caring for the logistics of the families of [Osama bin Laden]‘s son-in-laws, Awa al-Madani and Abdallah al-Madani, that included travel arrangements, lodging, and healthcare arrangements.” An analyst noted that this claim “establishe[d] the detainee’s stature in relation to UBL and adds validity to Zubaydah’s statements identifying that detainee associated with Senior Al-Qaida Operational Planner KSM,” but it does no such thing, as there is no indication that any of it is true.

Other dubious claims were made by Noor Uthman Muhammed (ISN 707, captured with Zubyadah), and described as the “Al-Qaida trainer from Tora Bora,” who allegedly identified al-Salami as having been in Kabul and at the Khaldan camp, although no further details were provided to corroborate his claims, and Walid bin Attash (ISN 10014), another “high-value detainee” held in secret CIA prisons, and sent to Guantánamo in September 2006 with Zubaydah, KSM and 11 others. Bin Attash, described as a “senior Al-Qaida operational planner,” said that he “recognized detainee by his distinct birthmark, but cannot remember any details,” which is also meaningless as an allegation.

In conclusion, the Task Force assessed him as being “of medium to high intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he had “a history of aggressive behaviour in the camp, often defiantly failing to comply with instructions.” As a result, Brig. Gen. Hood recommended that he be retained under DoD control, and he went on to resume the “history of hunger striking” and resistance to his detention identified in his file until his death 20 months later. What is particularly sad, reading through this file, is that, although JTF GTMO notified the Criminal Investigative Task Force of its recommendations on October 1, 2004, CITF did not agree, having “assessed [him] as a low risk on 12 April 2004.”

In spite of the government’s official account of the men’s deaths, the claim that they committed suicide was doubted by their fellow prisoners at the time, and also by other commentators, although it was not until December 2009 and January 2010 that serious doubts were expressed in a concerted and thoroughly researched manner.

In December 2009, the Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey published a 136-page report, “Death in Camp Delta” (PDF), which comprehensively undermined the conclusion of the official investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and in January 2010, Harper’s Magazine published an extraordinary article by law professor Scott Horton (which I discussed here), revealing the story of Army Staff Sgt. Joe Hickman, and a number of other soldiers — the tower guards who “had the responsibility and ability to observe all activity in the camp, [but] were not interviewed” by the NCIS — who suggested that, earlier in the evening on which the men allegedly committed suicide, they had been taken from the cell block in which they were held to a secret facility outside the main perimeter fence of Guantánamo — known to the soldiers as “Camp No” — where they had either been deliberately killed, or had a died as the result of particularly brutal torture sessions. “They didn’t die in their cells,” Sgt. Hickman explained to me in March 2010.

Despite these claims, the Justice Department shut the door on a proposed inquiry in November 2009, and an attempt by family members (including al-Zahrani’s father) to pursue accountability in the US courts was turned down in September 2010, and is currently being appealed.

Jamal Kiyemba (ISN 701, Uganda) Released February 2006

In Chapter 13 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Jamal Kiyemba, who was 22 years old at the time of his capture, was born in Uganda, but had been a British resident since the age of 14, when he was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK following the death of his father and came to live in the UK with his mother, eventually embarking on a degree in pharmacy at Leicester De Montfort University that he never completed.

Although he lived in the UK for eight years, Kiyemba never claimed British citizenship, and on his release, he was sent to Uganda, and home secretary Charles Clarke prohibited him from setting foot in the UK again. As was reported in an article about him in the Mail on Sunday after his release, he told his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal action charity Reprieve, “I may not be British according to some bit of paper but in reality I am a Brit and always will be. My doctor, my local mosque, my teens, my education, employment, friends, taxes, home and above all else my family — it is all in Britain.” In contrast to this account, the limited allegations against him in Guantánamo are available here.

Kiyemba was arrested in March 2002 in Pakistan, where he went to study Arabic and the Koran because it was “very cheap,” without ever having set foot in Afghanistan, although he admitted that he was taught how to use a Kalashnikov by a Pakistani he met, and that he “left England with the intention of finding a way to fight jihad” in Afghanistan, “to defend the Muslims who were being killed.” After his arrest, he was held for two months, beaten by Pakistani intelligence officers, threatened with torture and then transferred to Bagram.

In Chapter 14, I explained how, in describing Bagram, Kiyemba recalled a 48-hour period, when he was “hung on the door for two hours and then allowed to sit for half an hour but never allowed to sleep,” and was then taken for interrogation for two hours at a time, adding, “I had to kneel on the cold concrete throughout the interrogations with my cuffed hands above my head.” He was also interviewed by MI5 officers, who showed him photos of supposed terrorists in the UK and told him they would only be able to help him if he helped them, but he didn’t know any of them. He recognized Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, but had only ever seen them on TV.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Kiyemba was an “Administrative Review Board Input,” dated November 3, 2004, in which the Joint Task Force recommended that he be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention,” following his last assessment, dated August 2, 2004, in which he was actually recommended for “Release or transfer to the control of another country for continued detention (TRCD).” The full details of this assessment were not included , although it was noted that he was assessed as being of low intelligence value, and of posing a medium risk.

In assessing his threat level, the Task Force claimed that he was “an admitted jihadist who attempted travel to Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks,” and that he was “committed to defending Islamic nations against aggression, citing any system like democracy which tries to end Islamic law is worthy of Jihad against it,” and “adding that such systems are ultimately oppressive.”

It was also claimed that he “had acquired support in the UK and abroad from tiered organisations” including the vast, apolitical missionary organization Jamaat al-Tablighi (which was regarded by the US authorities as a front for terrorism), and the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and, additionally, it was claimed that he “received military training in the use of the AK-47 while in Peshawar, PK, from support members belonging to the LET.”

It was also noted that “Pakistani police arrested [him] near Peshawar where he was attempting to enter Afghanistan with three other men who also ended up in Guantánamo — Mohammed al-Amin (ISN 706, a Mauritanian released in September 2007, but described as having been “assessed as a low level jihadist”), Mustafa al-Hassan (ISN 719, a Sudanese prisoner released in October 2008, but described as “a suspected Al-Qaida operative”), and Amir Yacoub al-Amir (ISN 720, another Sudanese prisoner, released in May 2008, but “assessed as a probable Al-Qaida operative”).

On his return to Uganda, Kiyemba was “confined to a ‘safe house’” for two months, according to the Ugandan press, although it would seem fairer to explain that he was held under a form of house arrest for this period. On April 17, 2006, he told a reporter, Emmy Allio, “I am now a very happy man because I am free to live my life. I have visited all my relatives. This is the first time I am free since 2002.” He also said, “I did not expect anything good in Uganda but I was instead treated quite fairly. I thank the Uganda security for being good to me. I thank all Muslims in Uganda and elsewhere who have been praying for me.”

He added, “Last week, the Uganda security told me that I am a free man. The officer told me, ‘You are free to go out and live your life but be careful with wrong groups out there.’” A security source told the reporter that the Ugandan government “did not find any cause to continue to detain him,” although the official added, “He is a free man, but we shall nab him if he falls in wrong groups.”

Even so, as the reporter described it, “his joy upon being released has quickly brought misery. Kiyemba is afraid of the future, saying he does not know what to do, having dropped out of university in 2001 to join ‘an Islamic cause against western imperialists in Afghanistan’ after the Taliban fell.” At the time, he said, “I was ready to assist my brothers there in any possible way, financially or by holding a gun, to defend them,” but now, he said, “I am looking for a job. I want to complete the university course. I want to be independent. I need help. I am determined to complete my studies but I need my independence. I need to sustain myself, not be a burden to relatives.”

He was unwilling to speak about his experiences in US custody, stating only, “In Guantánamo Bay, it was more of psychological torture. As a Muslim, you must be prepared to suffer and die for your religion. Being in Guantánamo Bay taught me one thing: to be patient and to put my trust in God.”

There have been no recent reports about Jamal Kiyemba.

Ala Salim (ISN 716, Egypt) Released November 2006 (in Albania)

In The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Ala Salim (aka Allah Saleem), a religious scholar who was 34 years old at the time of his capture, was one of three prisoners released in Albania in November 2006 because the US authorities feared for their safety if they were returned to their home countries, although he was actually cleared for release in 2005. He was one of the 38 prisoners cleared of being “enemy combatants” after the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo which took place from July 2004 to March 2005, and which led to the swift release of all 38, except a Uighur and Saudi resident, Saddiq Ahmed Turkistani (ISN 491, profiled here), and those who could not be safely repatriated — five Uighurs profiled in Part Four and Part Five, and the two others released in Albania in November 2006, who are profiled in this article — the Russian Zakirjan Asam (ISN 672, see above), and the Algerian Fethi Boucetta (ISN 718, see below).

In Chapter 13, I explained, drawing on the Pentagon’s documents, how Salim was one of several dozen prisoners seized in house raids in Pakistan in 2002 (mainly in April and May) who were mostly working for charities regarded by the US authorities as fronts for terrorism. Those seized were, in general, office workers or teachers, but in some cases people who just happened to live at an address regarded as a house where “terror suspects” were being “harbored” were also seized.

Salim, who became an influential figure to the Arabs in Guantánamo, had lived until the age of 22 in Egypt, where, like thousands of other young men, he was arrested several times but never charged, and after living in Saudi Arabia he moved to Pakistan, where he was distributing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for the International Islamic Relief Organization at the time of his capture.

In an interview conducted for McClatchy Newspapers’ major report on 66 released Guantánamo prisoners that was published in 2008, Salim, identified as Abd al-Maqsut Muhammad Sagim Mazruh, spoke to reporter Matthew Schofield, although the reporter noted upfront that, “After years of imprisonment, alleged torture, countless interrogations and unrelenting psychological pressure, there are some things that Abd al-Maqsut Muhammad Sagim Mazruh won’t talk about. He won’t say why he was in Pakistan in late 2001 or early 2002, when he was arrested. He won’t talk about how he made a living. He won’t discuss why he can never return to Egypt, his country of birth, or his three previous arrests and — according to documents filed with the Albanian government — torture in those prisons.”

He did, however, discuss why he thought “there can be no doubt that he’s innocent of all terrorism charges and suspicions, and why “there can be no doubt that the US never had any evidence against him.” As he said (via an interpreter), “I’m sitting here, aren’t I? Is there any reason to believe that if the United States could produce any evidence against me, any evidence at all, they would have set me free? I was innocent when I was arrested. I am innocent now.”

Mazruh (Salim) said that “a US military tribunal at Guantánamo told him in 2005 that he was innocent.” McClatchy noted that “there are no public records to confirm that,” but added that the decision to “declare him no longer an enemy combatant” was “the closest [the US government has] come to admitting that it made mistakes.”

Describing him as a “timid, soft man,” the McClatchy article also noted that he recalled that the allegations against him — and specifically, a claim that he was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden — “created waves of laughter” from his fellow prisoners, who, he said, told him, “You were his bodyguard? And he’s still alive? He’s still free, and he hires the likes of you to protect him? You need a bodyguard; how could you be one?”

Turning to his limited freedom in Albania, McClatchy noted that it was not “a freedom he cherishes.” Living in “a small room in a refugee center, in a walled complex on the edge of the capital, in a neighborhood of rutted and pitted gravel roads cut through by a trash-filled creek,” he was, in Schofield’s words, “trapped without knowing the language, without work or even a permit to work. His wife and children wait in northern Africa, and he’s filed a petition with the Albanian government to allow them to join him, a petition that other former detainees are watching closely because they haven’t seen their families since they were arrested, either.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Salim was a “Recommendation to Retain under DoD Control,” dated July 2, 2004, in which he was identified as Allah Muhammed Salim, born in January 1967, and it was noted that he was “in good health,” although he “had a lung biopsy prior to detention,” had “a history of migraines,” and had also been a hunger striker.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, after graduating from an Egyptian university in 1989, he was sponsored by a mosque in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to travel to Islamabad to assist Afghan refugees. After explaining that he was “not allowed to train or fight in the Soviet-Afghan War due to his poor hearing and vision,” he said that he traveled to Peshawar, where he worked as an assistant storage supervisor for the [International] Islamic Relief Organization” until 1991, when he began ten years of religious study — six at a university in Peshawar, and four more at a university in Sadiqabad.

After the 9/11 attacks, however, “he heard that Americans were rounding up Arabs in Pakistan,” and an acquaintance “advised him to go to a larger city [Lahore] and stay with a Pakistani man called Wasim.” He did so, staying at the house “with five unidentified men,” but just ten days after his arrival he was seized by Pakistani police. he said that he “spent nearly 70 days in a Lahore, PK, prison, followed by two months in an Afghanistan prison.”

He was sent to Guantánamo on August 5, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was because he “possibly has information pertaining to: Beit Al-Ansar, a Saudi charitable organization operating in Peshawar, PK [who he stayed with for ten days in 1989], A facility near the Pakistan border belonging to Jalal Al-Din Al-Haqqani [the Afghan warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani] in 1989 [and] Refugee operations and weapons training taking place at the “Center” [elsewhere described as being close to the Afghan/Pakistan border, and a place where, in 1989, he reportedly "went to see a famous, but unidentified, fighter who fought against the Russians"]. Ironically, when it came to attempts to justify his detention, the Task Force noted that he had “admitted that he [was] a jihadist, that he traveled to Pakistan to assist the Muslims in Afghanistan who were fighting the Soviets,and that he would kill Russians if he had the opportunity” — exactly the same sentiments that, when he traveled to Pakistan in 1989, were being financially supported by the US government to the tune of billions of dollars every year.

Despite having no information about him indicating that he was involved in any way with militancy or terrorism, the Task Force nevertheless stated that he had been “associated with three terrorist organisations” — Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al-Qaida and Harkat Ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a Pakistani militant group that he allegedly “attempted to train with,” and with whom he allegedly worked, at “the Center,” which was “affiliated” with Jalaluddin Haqqani, according to US analysts. The main problem with this allegation was that this alleged involvement took place in 1989, when Haqqani was a US-funded ally against the Soviet Union.

The US authorities suggested that he had been “arrested twice in Egypt for distributing propaganda for the EIG [Egyptian Islamic Jihad],” and that he admitted in one interrogation that he was actually deported from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, rather than being sponsored by a mosque, but it is uncertain how much truth there is to these accounts, or how relevant what Salim was doing in the late 1980s was to his activities nearly 15 years later.

No satisfactory reason was given for his alleged involvement with Al-Qaida, although, in assessing the risk he posed, the Task Force stated that it was assessed that he was “very intelligent/educated” and had “provided support to multiple terrorist groups by organizing their finances and personnel.” Even though no evidence was provided to support this assertion, it was further claimed that his “poor vision and hearing and other medical problems [we]re probably valid, but this would make the perfect cover as being not useful to the fighting force and being underestimated by anti-terrorist forces.” In addition, it was claimed that “[t]hese disabilities would not hinder him from distributing material, collecting data, organizing records and delegating tasks to be completed by junior personnel.”

In conclusion, he was assessed as being “of high intelligence value,” and of posing “a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” because of the groundless assessment above, and an additional claim that, “by examining his attitude to pursue jihad,” the Task Force had decided that he had “performed hostilities against the US and coalition forces by supporting terrorist organizations in an administrative role.” It was also noted that his “overall behavior ha[d] been generally non-compliant and aggressive,” that he had been “preaching and teaching to the other detainees in an angry manner,” and, “[w]hen asked to stop, he continue[d],” that he had “involved himself in a riot,” had “participated in hunger strikes,” and had been “caught hoarding food.” In general, this section concluded, he had “refused to follow the guard force’s instructions.”

For this, he was, no doubt, regularly punished, but for the authorities, all that counted were the assessments of the risk he posed and his intelligence value, leading to Brig. Gen. Hood’s recommendation that he should be retained in DoD control, which lasted until a tribunal concluded, instead, that he was not an “enemy combatant,” and should be released, setting in motion the process that eventually led to his release in Albania.

Fethi Boucetta (ISN 718, Algeria) Released November 2006 (in Albania)

In The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Fethi Boucetta, a teacher who was 38 years old at the time of his capture, was one of three prisoners released in Albania in November 2006 because the US authorities feared for their safety if they were returned to their home countries, although he was actually cleared for release in 2005. He was one of the 38 prisoners cleared of being “enemy combatants” after the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo which took place from July 2004 to March 2005, and which led to the swift release of all 38, except a Uighur and Saudi resident, Saddiq Ahmed Turkistani (ISN 491, profiled here), and those who could not be safely repatriated — five Uighurs profiled in Part Four and Part Five, and the two others released in Albania in November 2006, who are profiled in this article — the Russian Zakirjan Asam (ISN 672, see above), and the Egyptian Ala Salim (ISN 716, also see above).

In his tribunal in Guantánamo, Hamad Gadallah (ISN 712, released in July 2005), who was a Sudanese accountant for a charity, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, that had fallen under US suspicion, mentioned that his downstairs neighbor, who did not work for the RIHS, had also been seized on the same day as him, May 27, 2002. The neighbour was Fethi Boucetta, one of three teachers, working in a school run by the Saudi Red Crescent, and the other two teachers were also captured at the same time. The Pentagon’s limited allegations against him are available here.

A doctor who fled Algeria in 1996 to avoid military service, Boucetta sought asylum in Pakistan, where he was taken on as a teacher by the Red Crescent. Speaking of the circumstances of his arrest, his lawyer told the Washington Post in May 2006 that the Pakistani police “went to his house and asked to speak with somebody else [Hamad Gadallah], and Fethi said he didn’t know that person and that he wasn’t there. [They] came back with Americans in plain clothes, and they said they wanted to question him. That’s when he was arrested.”

Despite being arrested by mistake, it took until May 2005 for the Americans to accept that he was a completely innocent man, and in the meantime the allegations that mounted up against him were staggering. It was alleged that he “reportedly was an active member of the Islamic Salvation Front” (the Algerian political party whose suppression by the army in 1992 provoked the civil war that began the following year), that he traveled to Afghanistan from the Yemen, where he taught from 1993 to 1996, “at the request of the Taliban” (he actually travelled to Pakistan and carried on teaching), that he “reportedly organized combatants to fight for the Taliban,” and that he “reportedly has organized extremist networks in Arab countries and has contacts throughout the Middle East.”

In an interview conducted for McClatchy Newspapers’ major report on 66 released Guantánamo prisoners that was published in 2008, Boucetta, identified as Abu Mohammed, told the reporter Matthew Schofield that, “[o]n the night the soldiers came for him, [he] was resting at home with his pregnant wife and five children.” He added that they “showed him a list of the men they were looking for,” and that “[t]he address for his building was on the list, but his name was not.” He added, “As they turned to leave, he asked the soldiers what they needed, but was told it was none of his concern.”

However, the soldiers returned 15 minutes later, and “asked whether they could look through his apartment.” He said that he remembered “thinking he had nothing to hide, so he stepped aside,” and was handcuffed, while the soldiers searched the house. They then “uncuffed him, apologized for the inconvenience and departed,” but they returned for a third time, and it was on this occasion that his nightmare began, when “they asked him to accompany them to a nearby office, to answer questions.”

Boucetta told McClatchy’s reporter, “I did not like to leave my family at night, but knew in my heart I had done nothing wrong, and I was not on their list — they showed it to me — so I knew I had nothing to fear.” That should have been the case, but instead, he did not see his wife and children again, and still had no idea “why he was taken away that night or why he then was told he was being taken home but instead was shackled, then flown to a US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. Or why, after two months there, he was told that he was being taken home to his family but instead was flown to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, half a world away, where he was kept locked up for four more years, including 18 months after he was told that he was, in effect, innocent of charges that he says were never fully articulated.”

After asking, “So why was he arrested?” McClatchy analysed the supposed evidence, noting that, beyond simply dismissing the charges against him as laughable — the claim that he was a member of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front, that he left Yemen for Afghanistan at the request of Al-Qaida, and that he helped recruit fighters — Boucetta “said he doubted that these could really be the reasons he was picked up.”

He explained that the Islamic Salvation Front “formed after he left Algeria in 1989,” and in any case he “was never a member,” and he also explained that he had ”worked as a doctor for a non-governmental organization in Afghanistan until 1992,” adding that it “would have been easy to find out that he hadn’t been back since,” and that “he’d been working for and with the United Nations and Red Crescent, the Islamic-nations version of the Red Cross, from that point on.”

The details in his story were pretty compelling. He explained that, from 1996 to 2002, his “medical license and passport needed to be renewed,” but he had “refused to return to Algeria and instead lived in a United Nations refugee camp in Pakistan,” where “he taught math and Arabic in a Red Crescent-sponsored school.” As a result, “there were multiple witnesses to his presence and many sign-in documents, none of which was brought before the tribunal” at Guantánamo. This was unsurprising, as the presumption was that everyone had been correctly designated as an ‘enemy combatant” on capture, even though no effort was made to ascertain whether or not prisoners had been seized by mistake, and it was, therefore, something of a miracle that even 38 prisoners were, like Boucetta, found not to be “enemy combatants” by their tribunals.

Highlighting further omissions, Boucetta said that, “although United Nations workers could have vouched for his presence in Pakistan — and, according to his attorney, spent years working for his release — US officials refused to listen to them,” and in the end he “boycotted his own hearing because he thought it was a sham.”

He also explained that throughout his detention — “both in Afghanistan, where he was made to stand for hours with his hands cuffed high above him, and in Cuba, where the punishment was far more psychologically than physically challenging” — he was repeatedly interrogated about Algeria, even though, as he said, “I told them, ‘I have not been in Algeria for 15 years.’” Despite this, he said, “They would ask about political movements there, and I had to say, honestly, that I had no idea what they were talking about.” All the questions, he explained, related to radical Islamist groups which “formed after he’d left Algeria.”

After explaining that he had been in Guantánamo “with two men he used to commute to work with in Pakistan, men with whom he was seen every day teaching at school and who, like him, were subjected to occasional home searches as refugees,” he said that the fact that he had become a refugee in Pakistan had aroused US suspicions, but stated that the reasons he didn’t want to return home had nothing to do with terrorism, and were, instead, to do with “a personal feud.”

As a result, he was stuck in Albania, reflecting on a broken promise by officials at Guantánamo, who “had promised him a home, a place where he could bring his family and start a new life.” Instead, he said, there was no work, and “no hopes of ever being able to provide a home and education for his children.” When asked about his life, he replied, “My life here? I wake in time to go to breakfast at the refugee center. That’s my life. There is nothing more.”

Even though he had so obviously been seized by mistake, the US authorities were determined to find reasons to justify his detention, hence the long list of allegations that I mentioned in The Guantánamo Files, which duly surfaced in the classified documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. The file relating to him was a “Transfer Recommendation to Another Country for Continued Detention,” dated August 30, 2003, in which he was identified as Fatai Busita, born in 1963, and it was noted that he had been diagnosed with latent tuberculosis, in common with many of the prisoners, but was “otherwise in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force presented all the allegations that were later dismissed by his tribunal at Guantánamo. It was noted that the left Algeria in 1987 after completing medical school, but an analyst claimed that this was because of the alleged terrorist connections that he later dismissed. It was also noted that he stated that he then traveled extensively through Afghanistan and Pakistan from 1989 to 1993, working for five different NGOs, including the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, which were all regarded as “known cover organisations for several terrorist groups including Al-Qaida,” even though this was generalized scaremongering at its worst, as the organizations he was working for were actually involved in humanitarian aid and charitable work.

The Task Force noted that he then traveled to Yemen in 1993, where, he said, he “got married, and found employment until 1996, when he bought a forged passport, and moved back to PK because he feared a crackdown on non-Yemeni Arabs,” and added that he “claimed” that “he worked as a teacher for primary and middle school, and as an Arabic teacher at a school funded by the Saudi Red Crescent Organization.”

Regarding his capture, it was stated that the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence Directorate arrested him in Lahore “as part of a crackdown on Arabs in Pakistan in May 2002,” which was perhaps not meant to be what it sounded like — a confession that social cleansing was taking place, using terrorism as a cover. In further explanation, the Task Force claimed that the ISI “conducted a series of raids against suspected Al-Qaida residences and support facilities connected with the Afghan Support Committee,” adding that “[n]ine individuals were arrested including the detainee, all on suspicion of being Islamic extremists,” but neglecting to mention that Boucetta’s arrest was, very literally, an afterthought. It was also noted that he was sent to Guantánamo on August 5, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was “because of his knowledge of NGOs in the Peshawar, PK area.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force claimed that he was “of minimal intelligence value to the United States,” but posed “a medium threat to the US,” because he had been “assessed as being a member of Al-Qaida,” and, more specifically — again without anything resembling evidence — that he was “an Al-Qaida member and ha[d] severed [sic] in that capacity for many years, becoming a hardened and trusted terrorist operative.” It was, however, particularly noted that he was “considered a high threat risk to the government of Algeria,” and also “a significant threat,” who “may be wanted there for his subversive activities.” In addition, although the Task Force claimed that he “refuse[d] to be cooperative concerning his role as an operative” — because he had no role as an “operative” — it was nevertheless claimed that he “may still also possess intelligence information that the Algerian government would find beneficial in its efforts to curtail extremism within Algeria.”

As a result, Brig. Gen. James E. Payne III of the US Army, who signed the memo, recommended him for transfer to another country for continued detention, although he was not actually released for another three years and three months, and, after his tribunal intervened to discredit the allegations against him and to conclude that he was not an “enemy combatant,” it was also obvious that he could not be returned to Algeria, hence the long search for another country that was prepared to take him.

Shams Ullah (ISN 783, Afghanistan) Released October 2006

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (11) – The Last of the Afghans (Part One) and Six ‘Ghost Prisoners’,” I explained how Shams Ullah was seized by US forces, some months before his arrival at Guantánamo in October 2002, and, as I also explained in “The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo” and “WikiLeaks and the 22 Children of Guantánamo,” was just 16 or 17 years of age when he was seized.

According to the US military, he had fired “a whole magazine of ammunition” at the American and Afghan soldiers who had stopped him during a patrol, but although Shams himself had vague recollections of the events, his uncle, Bostan Karim (ISN 975), who was seized some months later by US forces (and is still held in Guantánamo), noted that he had “a mental problem,” and gave an alternative explanation for the circumstances surrounding his capture, when he appeared as a witness at his review board hearing. “When the Americans came to our house there was a Kalashnikov in our house and he knew that the Americans would take this gun,” Karim said. “So, he took the gun and went to the mosque. The Americans asked him to stop and he didn’t stop, so they shot him and he became lame.”

As with all but three of the 22 confirmed juveniles held at Guantánamo, Shams was never treated with anything approaching the kind of care that juveniles are required to receive under the terms of the Optional Protocol to the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and in fact, in his book Enemy Combatant, the released British prisoner Moazzam Begg explained how the authorities’ disregard for Shams’ age — and his wounds — was apparent when they were held together at the US prison in Kandahar airport. “Shams had been shot in the upper thigh, and the bone was shattered so he couldn’t walk,” Begg wrote. “He couldn’t make it to the toilet, he couldn’t get his own medications, or his water, or his food. And he couldn’t wash, so he started smelling quite badly.”

Begg ended up teaching the boy how to walk again, and also explained the story of his capture, as it had been explained to him, which backed up the story told by Bostan Karim: “Shams told me the story of his wounds: US helicopters had descended one night and attacked his house during a sweep of the area. He fired his uncle’s weapon at them. They fired back. He was hit, and captured.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Shams Ullah was an “Administrative Review Board Input,” dated October 26, 2004, in which, essentially confirming his story, it was noted that he “was captured during a raid on his family compound in Khost, Afghanistan (AF), conducted by US Special Forces and Afghani Military Force (AMF) personnel,” and that, when the raid began, “he grabbed his AK-47 and went to hide it,” and, when the AMF ordered him to stop, “a firefight broke out,” and he fired his magazine full of ammo at the AMF forces, threw down his weapon and attempted to flee,” but “was shot in the hip and captured.”

It was also noted that the compound he was captured in belonged to his uncle, Bostan Karim, described as “a suspected Al-Qaida cell leader and bomb-maker” (although this has not been proved) “who was captured by Pakistani Forces at the Khurgi checkpoint in Pakistan on 13 August 2002 along with Abdallah Muhammad aka Wazir” (ISN 976, released in December 2007).

In addition, it was claimed that he was “a member of the Arbaqi security group,” which “provide[d] security to all merchants and their businesses at the bazaar located in Khost,” and, when it came to assessing him, the Task Force concluded that he was “of low intelligence value,” and that, “[a]fter extensive searches on national-level counter-terrorism databases, no further intelligence ha[d] been collected or found” concerning him. It was also noted that he was assessed as posing “a Medium threat to the US and its allies,” and Brig. Gen. Hood, updating a recommendation that he be retained in DoD control, dated November 11, 2003, in which he was assessed as being a high risk, and of medium intelligence value, recommended instead that he be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention (TRCD),” although he was not released for another two years.

Abdul Salaam (ISN 826, Afghanistan) Released February 2006

In Chapter 14 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Abdul Salaam, who was 27 years old at the time of his capture, was part of a family of businessmen from Bermel, in Paktika province, who were caught up in what the Americans described as “a sweep of the Bermel town bazaar,” which was as random as it sounds. Khan was seized with his brother Haji Osman Khan (ISN 818, released in March 2004), who was 50 years old, and 19-year old Noor Aslam (ISN 822, also released in March 2004), who was his cousin, and the family ran a hawala (a money exchange/forwarding business) with branches in Pakistan and the UAE. Salaam explained in a review board at Guantánamo that he was seized at his shop by American and Afghan soldiers, but he insisted that he was an honest businessman and had never received money on behalf of the Taliban or al-Qaeda. He also explained that the money the family received at the hawala was from families outside the country who were supporting their families in Afghanistan.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Abdul Salaam was an “Update Recommendation to Release or Transfer to the Control of Another Country (TR),” dated May 13, 2005, in which he was also identified as Abdul Salam Ghulamjohn, born in 1975, and it was noted that he was “in good health,” although he had been seen for “chronic low back pain, acid reflux, and constipation,” and was “currently on Zantac and Metamucil.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force managed only to flesh out the story he and his relatives had repeatedly told, Abdul Salaam said that his family business, established 30 years before, consisted of a “Hawala (money exchange/forwarding business), telephone public call office business, and limited travel reservations,” and that, after living with his family as a refugee in Miram Shah, Pakistan from 1983 to 2000, where he and his cousin opened a money transferring business that they operated for nine years, returned to Afghanistan and opened another money transferring business in Bermal with his brother, Haji Osman Khan.

It was also noted that, when pressed about the money transferring business, he “finally admitted to transferring large amounts of money, the largest being 2.5 million rupees, which equals to [sic] about 42 thousand US dollars,” and also explained how the business also involved another branch in the UAE, couriers, and an accountant in Afghanistan responsible for keeping money in a safe and distributing it.

The intention of all these questions was, of course, to demonstrate that the hawalas had been involved in transferring significant funds for Al-Qaida and/or the Taliban, but there was no truth in those suspicions, as the US authorities finally realized, although not until after he had been seized, sent to Guantánamo and held for up to three years before his innocence was more or less admitted.

In telling the story of his capture, he said that he “went to work on the morning of 7 September 2002,” but, approximately twenty minutes later, “three Afghan army soldiers and three US soldiers entered his shop” and “took his telephones and searched his store,” and “also confiscated five personal photographs that he had of himself, relatives and friends.” The soldiers also searched the shop next to his, where his accountant had his shop (and the safe), and then “led him away from his shop and took him to the Afghanistan Government building in town.” He “did not know why he was arrested, but believed that someone must have provided false information to the US or Afghan Governments,” which sounds like an accurate analysis.

After his capture, he was held first at Bagram, and was then sent to Guantánamo on October 28, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Economic issues in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Foreign trade in Pakistan, Afghanistan,and the United Arab Emirates [and] Hawala money transfer system in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force concluded that he was “of low intelligence value to the US,” and also that he posed “a low risk, as he is unlikely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” This was, to be honest, another example of over-classification, as he was clearly of no intelligence value and did not pose a threat to the US at all, because, in a more thorough analysis of his case, it was stated unequivocally that he was “assessed as not being a member of the Taliban and/or Al-Qaida’s terrorist network,” and that, although it “was first assessed [that he] was involved in money laundering operations,” the Task Force had concluded that “nothing ha[d] been found to support this claim,” after “reviewing all of the available documentation.”

It was also noted that it was “highly probable” that his “statements that he and his family [we]re honest businesspeople, ha[d] no connections to the Taliban or Al- Qaida, and ha[d] never transferred any money for or on behalf of the Taliban or Al-Qaida [we]re truthful.” The Task Force added “Through debriefings with relatives of detainee and other individuals who operated Hawalas in Pakistan (PK) and Afghanistan, it cannot be confirmed [he] was doing anything illegal.”

It was also noted that his “overall behavior ha[d] been generally compliant and non-aggressive,” and, as a result, the only remaining problems with his case were that, even after his release was recommended by Brig. Gen. Hood, it took another nine months for him to be freed, at which point he had pointlessly spent three years and four months in Guantánamo.

Qadir Khandan (ISN 831, Afghanistan) Released October 2006

In Chapter 14 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Qadir Khandan, who was 32 years old at the time of his capture, was a pharmacist, who seems to have been a victim of the warlord Pacha Khan Zadran and his nephew, Jan Baz Khan, who lied about him to the Americans to get him arrested. Zadran was a US ally until it was finally realized that he was using them for his own ends, but along the way he was responsible for sending several men to Guantánamo on the basis that they were involved in anti-coalition activities, when they were actually his own enemies.

Khandan insisted in Guantánamo that he was “enemy number one of Jan Baz and Pacha Khan,” and got into trouble with them because, he said, he realized that, when they were working with the Americans, they were using them for their own ends. Arrested at his home in September 2002 and accused of running a safe house for a bomb-making cell, Khandan pointed out that he was working for the Karzai government in the National Security Office in Khost, and that, as a pharmacist, bombs were “truly against my ideology.”

He also explained that he was badly abused by American soldiers in a prison in Khost. “They put tight round glasses around my eyes, had my ears shut with plugs and I was covered with a bag,” he said, adding, “I was ordered to stand up 24 hours for 20 days in a row. I had blood coming out of my body and my nose for days because I was tortured so much.” Describing what appear to be otherwise unreported murders in US custody, he also said, “I saw four people die right in front of me.”

In an interview conducted for McClatchy Newspapers’ major report on 66 released Guantánamo prisoners that was published in 2008, Khandan (identified as Qadar Khandan) he said that, “no matter how many times the American soldiers struck him,” he insisted that “he’d worked as a nurse for warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s organization during its fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s — when the US supported Hekmatyar — but that he’d broken off all links afterward.”

He told the same story to McClatchy’s reporter, but Ismail Khosti, the head of the Khost office of the Afghan Commission for Peace and Reconciliation, said that, despite sticking to is story, Khandan “was closely aligned with Hekmatyar.” Khosti said, “He was a commander for them in this province, not the top commander, but a commander. When the Taliban left Khost, there was a mujahideen (holy warriors) council formed, and Khandan was the only representative of Hezb-e-Islami on that council.”

McClatchy’s reporter noted that this association “appear[ed] to be what sent US troops to his door,” although Khandan was concerned to explain how US forces had abused him, stating that, when Special Forces operatives “took him to a nearby base and questioned him,” they “made him stand for two days straight with no food or water,” and “frequently punched him” and “played loud music and brought dogs in to bark and snap at him.”

Khandan “said he wouldn’t break down and confess,” and, McClatchy’s reporter noted, “it appears that he never did,” also noting that he remained angry about his experiences in US custody. From Khost, where, he said, he was deprived of food and water, he was sent to Kandahar for four days and then to Bagram for about five months.

On arrival at Bagram, he said, “he and a group of other detainees were stripped naked and photographed,” and then the questioning began again, and the Hekmatyar allegations that he persistently denied. “They told me to accept their charges or they would send me to isolation,” he said. “I told them they could send me to isolation for 10 years and those things would still not be true.”

He added that he was indeed sent to an isolation cell, “a small plywood box with metal bars over the top,” where guards “hung him by his wrists from the bars” and “left him there for 20 days, taking him down only for three 15-minute meal breaks and for the bathroom when he needed it.” He explained, “My heels weren’t touching the ground, only my toes, and I had on earphones, goggles and a hood. Three or four times I became unconscious. The guards would open the gate and come in and punch me in the stomach.”

Discussing Guantánamo, where he was sent early in 2003, Khandan said that his “experience with the interrogators was the same,” but that “no one hit him at Guantánamo.” He also said that he “told them, repeatedly, that he’d left Hekmatyar’s fold many years before,” but “was questioned every day during his first month,” although “then the sessions dropped to once a month, then once every two months and, at one point, almost a year.” He also said that “he spent much of the time between interrogations in isolation cells, twice for seven-month stretches,” and estimated that “he spent some 17 months in isolation” during his three and a half years at Guantánamo.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Khandan was a “Recommendation for Transfer to the Control of Another Country with Conditions (TWC), Subject to the Conclusion of an Acceptable Transfer Agreement,” dated September 3, 2005, in which he was identified as Khadan Kadir and Khandan Kadir, born in 1969, and it was noted that he was “in good health,” although he had “a history of a panic disorder with agoraphobia.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that he attended school at a refugee camp in Pakistan, and then “participated in an Afghan refugee medical training program,” and “received his nursing certification in 1989 and worked at a Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) hospital during the war against the Soviets.” It was also stated that he “worked with HIG between 1987 and 1992, and completed high school in Peshawar, PK, in 1991.”

It was also noted that, from 1995 to 2002, he worked at his own pharmacy in Khost, and claimed he also worked in the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Khost, during the Karzai government, “working in office number 7, which was responsible for monitoring open sources  i.e. radio, newspapers.” He also admitted that “he owned a Kalashnikov and a pistol, but he only used these weapons for protection,” and also insisted that he had “never been a member of any terrorist organization.”

The Task Force also noted that US and Afghan forces came to his house in Khost on September 20, 2002, but he “jumped a fence, and hid in a room housing women and children,” until one of the women told US forces that the was hiding there. After he surrendered, he was “found to have several documents and a small address book.” After being held at Bagram, he was sent to Guantánamo on February 6, 2003, to “provide information on the following: Security services, Security forces, Intelligence, security programs and capabilities, Counter Intelligence services [and] International terrorism.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he was apparently seized with Pacha Khan Zadran’s son, Abdul Walid, and his nephew,Jan Baz, but an analyst, revising history to erase the fact that Zadran was initially a US ally, described him as “a significant warlord who appointed himself governor of the Paktia province, AF, undermined US and Coalition forces along the Afghan/Pakistan border, [and] opposed the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA), and President Hamid Karzai’s appointments for local leadership positions in Khost, Paktia, and Paktika Provinces.” It was also claimed that he was related to Pacha Khan Zadran, and it was noted that he said he “was jailed for not supporting Zadran’s bid for Provincial Governor.”

There were more allegations concerning Khandan’s supposed ties to three other Guantánamo prisoners — Bostan Karim (ISN 975, still held), Obaidullah (ISN 762, also still held) and Shams Ullah (ISN 783, released in October 2006, see above), which will be discussed in detail in articles dealing with Karim’s and Obaidullah’s cases.

Overall, his story was quite confusing, and I’m not sure that the US authorities knew what to make of it either. However, he was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and of posing “a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was “assessed as a low-moderate threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] recently been compliant and non-hostile to the guard force and staff.” As a result, Maj. Gen. Hood, updating a recommendation that he be transferred for continued detention in Afghanistan (on August 20, 2004), recommended him for “transfer with conditions,” although he was not released for another 13 months.

After his release, following the McClatchy interview, Khandan was also interviewed by the BBC, when, in a broadcast in June 2009, he said, “They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans. They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death.” He added, “They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you.”

Nothing more was heard about Khandan until January 15, 2010, when the Pentagon responded to a FOIA request submitted by the ACLU in April 2009, and released the first ever list of prisoners held at Bagram, as of September 22, 2009, when Khandan, identified by his Guantánamo number, and named as Khadan Kadir, was included, although no further information has been provided to explain what he was supposed to have done to be recaptured, when it took place, and whether he was still held.

Also see Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Nine and Part Ten of this series.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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Freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington continues his 70-part, million-word series telling, for the first time, the stories of 776 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. Adding information released by WikiLeaks in April 2011 to the existing documentation about the prisoners, much of which was already covered in Andy’s book The Guantánamo Files and in the archive of articles on his website, the project will be completed in time for the 10th anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11, 2012.

This is Part 27 of the 70-part series. 337 stories have now been told. See the entire archive here.

In late April, I worked with WikiLeaks as a media partner for the publication of thousands of pages of classified military documents — the Detainee Assessment Briefs — relating to almost all of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. These documents drew heavily on the testimony of the prisoners themselves, and also on the testimony of their fellow inmates (either in Guantánamo, or in secret prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA), whose statements are unreliable, either because they were subjected to torture or other forms of coercion, or because they provided false statements in the hope of securing better treatment in Guantánamo.

The documents were compiled by the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo (JTF GTMO), which operates the prison, and were based on assessments and reports made by interrogators and analysts whose primary concern was to “exploit” the prisoners for their intelligence value. They also include input from the Criminal Investigative Task Force, created by the DoD in 2002 to conduct interrogations on a law enforcement basis, rather than for “actionable intelligence.”

My ongoing analysis of the documents began in May, with a five-part series, “WikiLeaks: The Unknown Prisoners of Guantánamo,” telling the stories of 84 prisoners, released between 2002 and 2004, whose stories had never been told before. This was followed by a ten-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004,” in which I revisited the stories of 114 other prisoners released in this period, adding information from the Detainee Assessment Briefs to what was already known about these men and boys from press reports and other sources. This was followed by another five-part series, “WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released After the Tribunals, 2004 to 2005,” dealing with the period from September 2004 to the end of 2005, when 62 prisoners were released.

This, as I explained, was the period in which, after the prisoners won a spectacular victory in the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, when the Supreme Court granted them habeas corpus rights (in other words, the right to ask an impartial judge why they were being held), lawyers were allowed to meet the prisoners for the first time, and the secrecy that was required for Guantánamo to function as an interrogation center beyond the law was finally broken.

However, although the Bush administration allowed habeas petitions to proceed, Congress attempted to strip the prisoners of their habeas rights in the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, and the administration also responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling with its own inferior version of habeas, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, a sham process designed to rubber-stamp their designation as “enemy combatants” who could be held indefinitely.

With just 38 prisoners cleared for release after the CSRTs, another review process — the annual Administrative Review Boards — took over, reviewing whether prisoners still had ongoing intelligence value, and whether they still posed a threat to the US. These were essentially the decisions being taken by JTF GTMO and CITF, and they reveal how, in the “War on Terror,” prosecuting criminals (the few genuine terror suspects in Guantánamo) and holding soldiers off the battlefield until the end of hostilities had largely given way to the strange mixture of threat assessments and intelligence assessments that fill the Detainee Assessment Briefs.

With 260 prisoners profiled in the first 20 parts of this project, this latest ten-part series covers the stories of the 111 prisoners released in 2006 (and the three who died at the prison in June 2006) and readers will, I hope, realize that almost all of these prisoners were freed because of political maneuvering rather than anything to do with justice. The largest groups released by nationality in 2006 were Saudis (45 in total — 15 in May 2006, 14 in June and 16 in December) and Afghans (35 in total — 7 in February, 5 in August, 16 in October and 7 in December).

I also hope that readers will reflect on the problems of over-classification that have been thoroughly chronicled in the preceding series analyzing the Detainee Assessment Briefs. My analysis to date has established repeatedly that even patently innocent prisoners seized by mistake were regarded as a “low risk,” rather than as no risk at all, and it is important for readers to bear in mind that the entire process of detaining and processing prisoners and exploiting them for their supposed intelligence was shot through with a drive to conclude that they were all a threat, and to overlook the distressing fact that most of them were seized in a largely random manner, mostly by America’s Afghan and Pakistan allies, at a time when substantial bounty payments were widespread, and were never subjected to anything that resembled an adequate screening process.

For further information, also see Part One, which contained eleven stories about prisoners from a variety of countries, mostly captured in Afghanistan, and including Yasser al-Zahrani, who died in Guantánamo in June 2006, and Part Two, which featured another eleven stories, mostly of prisoners who survived the Qala-i-Janghi massacre in northern Afghanistan in November 2001. Part Three featured another eleven stories, including some examples of prisoners who “returned to the battlefield” after their release, and the story of a Libyan prisoner whose fie is full of statements made by other Libyans, including Abdelhakim Belhaj, now active as a commander of the Libyan rebels, who were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture in secret CIA prisons. Part Four told eleven more stories, of prisoners seized, for a variety of reasons, crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan after the US-led invasion in October 2001, and Part Five featured more of those stories, including four accounts of the Uighurs, Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province, who persuaded the US they were held by mistake, but had to wait until 2006 to be freed, when they were resettled in Albania, and not in the US, which accepted that it could not return them to China, but refused to allow them to live in America. Part Six involved more stories of Saudis and Afghans, including the particularly unfortunate story of a Saudi-born Uighur, who was tortured by Al-Qaida for allegedly plotting to assassinate Osama bin Laden, liberated from a Taliban prison, and then sent to Guantánamo, and this seventh part features more Saudis, a Yemeni, two Kazakhs, an Iranian and some Afghans, including some prisoners with serious mental health issues (and one juvenile prisoner), and the sad — and unresolved — story of Mani al-Utaybi, another of the three prisoners who died in June 2006. Also see Part Eight, Part Nine and Part Ten.

The Complete Guantánamo Files: WikiLeaks and the Prisoners Released in 2006 (Part Seven of Ten)

Nawaf Al Otaibi (ISN 501, Saudi Arabia) Released May 2006

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (2) – Tora Bora,” I explained how Nawaf al-Otaibi, who was 29 years old at the time of his capture, was accused of traveling to Afghanistan in June 2001 and training at a Libyan camp. It was also alleged that he “was identified as being captured in Tora Bora,” although he stated that he did not receive any training and never possessed a weapon while he was in Afghanistan, and added that, if given the opportunity to return home, he would “seek employment as a school teacher.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Otaibi was a “Recommendation [for] Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated September 7, 2004, in which it was noted that he was born in November 1972, and had latent TB, in common with many of the prisoners, although he was described as being in “good health.” It was also noted that he had been “seen several times by the medical teams during routine and sick call rounds,” and had been “complaining of back, ear and head pains,” and also that he had been “treated in Kandahar for multiple wounds of an unidentified type,” and had “also been treated for abrasions on both ankles (resolved).”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, around June 2001, he met a man named Adil, who had apparently “trained at a Libyan training camp — described as “a Libyan terrorist training camp” — in Afghanistan. Having reportedly “decided to train there as well,” he traveled to Karachi, where “he met a man named Hassan” — presumably, therefore, some sort of facilitator — “who paid for his travel to Quetta.” He then traveled to Kandahar and on to Kabul “with a man named Abu Assam,” who was evidently another volunteer.

The two were then told that the training camp — in common with others, it should be noted — “was closed due to the events of 9/11,” and the fear of retaliation. They then stayed for a month in a safehouse, allegedly “hoping for the training camp to reopen, but it never did.” When Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance, he and twenty other Arabs “spent three weeks trying to make it to the Pakistan border,” although only “six or seven individuals” survived the US bombing campaign that accompanied their travel.

They then went to an Afghan village, where they surrendered. Imprisoned in Jalalabad for ten days, al-Otaibi was then transferred to a prison in Kabul for another month (probably a prison run by the Northern Alliance), and was then sent to the US prisons at Bagram airbase and Kandahar airport. He was sent to Guantánamo on May 4, 2002, allegedly because he “may be able to provide information on the following: A Libyan terrorist training camp in or near Kabul, AF [and] A safe house in Quetta, Pakistan, Kandahar and Kabul, AF.”

However, as I explained in my article, “How to Read WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo Files” (originally published on WikiLeaks’ website when the Guantánamo files were first published, as part of my work liaising between WikiLeaks and its media partners):

[T]he “Reasons for Transfer” included in the documents, which have been repeatedly cited by media outlets as an explanation of why the prisoners were transferred to Guantánamo, are, in fact, lies that were grafted onto the prisoners’ files after their arrival at Guantánamo. This is because, contrary to the impression given in the files, no significant screening process took place before the prisoners’ transfer. As Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator who worked in Afghanistan, explained in a book that he wrote about his experiences (The Interrogators), every prisoner who ended up in US custody had to be sent to Guantánamo, even though the majority were not even seized by US forces, but were seized by their Afghan and Pakistani allies at a time when substantial bounty payments for “al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects” were widespread.

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that the man named Hassan, who paid for his travel to Quetta, may have been “the Al-Qaida facilitator Hassan Ghul,” who, according to the Task Force, “worked under the Al-Qaida Senior Operational Commander Khalid Shaykh Muhammad [aka Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, ISN 10024].” What the Task Force failed to mention was that Hassan Ghul was a CIA “ghost prisoner,” seized in Iraq but held in a variety of locations as part of the CIA’s network of secret torture prisons.

Beyond al-Otaibi’s own words, there was nothing to incriminate him directly in any activities directed at the United States. The Task Force concluded that he was “of medium intelligence value,” and posed “a medium risk,” as “he may possibly pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies,” because he was assessed as “a member of Al-Qaida and/or its global terrorist network,” who had “shown deception by changing his story (when the Saudi delegation came to visit, he said that “he went to AF on a self-appointed religious mission, to investigate the Taliban’s unorthodox method of praying for the deceased and to see ‘The Cloth’ that purportedly belonged to the Prophet Mohammad”).

It was also claimed that he had “demonstrated a commitment to Jihad by paying for and traveling to Afghanistan on his own accord,” and that he “left college to take up arms against the US and its allies and, if released, he will probably attempt to aid the enemy once more” — which was an interesting way of describing an intention to fight with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, before the 9/11 attacks, when the Northern Alliance were, to be honest, only nominally allies of the US, which had done little to help them in their long battle against the Taliban.

It was also noted that his “overall behaviour ha[d] been generally noncompliant and aggressive,” although “most [of] his behavior problems were failures to follow simple directions; such as not giving trash to guards.” Although Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the commander of Guantánamo at the time, recommended him for transfer to continued detention in Saudi Arabia (on the basis of nothing more than intent), and although the Saudi government clearly had no suspicions about him (or they would have been mentioned), he was not released for another 20 months, when he was repatriated to be put through the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program.

Saleh Al Zuba (ISN 503, Yemen) Released December 2006

In Chapter 4 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Saleh al-Zuba, who was 46 years old at the time of his capture, had a non-military explanation for being in Afghanistan. Accused of fighting in Tora Bora, he said that he had coronary artery disease and went to Pakistan for medical treatment, and was only in Afghanistan because he did not have enough money for an operation, and was told that a charitable organization in Afghanistan might provide extra funding.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Zuba was an “Update Recommendation [for] Release or Transfer to the Control of Another Country (TR),” dated June 27, 2004, in which the contradictions in the US military’s assessment of him were not reconciled. The file did not include any detention information, meaning that the claims aired in his CSRT are all that exists to evaluate what he was doing in Afghanistan. As a result, the claims that he admitted” to “being at Al-Farouq training camp” and to “being in Tora Bora while Osama bin Laden was present” and “participat[ing] in the battle for Tora Bora” must be weighed against his evident illness, which, I believe, can only lead to a conclusion that his confessions were lies, produced under unknown circumstances to appease his captors.

In the file released by WikiLeaks, the Task Force described a serious, and life-threatening medical history, which would make armed adventures in the Tora Bora mountains seem particularly unlikely. It was confirmed that al-Zuba had “known coronary artery disease with symptoms for 8-10 years,” that he had a catheterization in Yemen” that was “not successful,” according to al-Zuba, and that he “had stents place[d] in two vessels in March 2003,” when “he had an occluded, non-operable right coronary artery.” “Since then,” the report continued, he “had some episodes of chest pain, but no myocardial infarction.”

It was also noted that he had “a history of hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, also with H. pylori and history of epigastric pain,” but he “refused to finish medical regimen for eradication of H. pylori.” He also had a “history of shrapnel to left shoulder in 2001,” and a history of depression in Yemen in the 1990s, before his capture. It was also noted that his “medications include[d] Tricor, Atenolol, ECASA, Plavix, Lipitor and Isordil.”

Finally, it was noted that he reported that “he estimate[d] he walk[ed] 2 km twice per day,” presumably before his capture, as walking was severely restricted in Guantánamo, and that every couple of weeks he would have “an episode of chest tightness and mild dyspnea [shortness of breath] while walking that resolve[d] when he rest[ed].” It was also noted, “These symptoms have not worsened or become more frequent and do not occur at rest,” but in their prognosis, the medical professionals at Guantánamo advised that al-Zuba’s “coronary artery disease could reoccur,” and that he “require[d] regular surveillance, as the stents can fail.”

Although al-Zuba was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and it was noted that, on June 4, 2004, Brig. Gen. Hood recommended that he be “considered for transfer for continued detention,” his case was reassessed just three weeks later, and he was recommended for release or transfer, because JTF GTMO had determined that he posed “a low risk, due to his medical condition.” Without his serious health problems, it is not known how long he would have been held, as, when it came to his behaviour in Guantánamo, as opposed to anything he may have done before his capture (even though in al-Zuba’s case there was nothing), it was noted, with obvious disapproval, that he had “a history of noncompliance,” and that, although his “reported occurrences ha[d] typically been refusal of meds and meals,” he “also had incidents requiring physical restraint by guards and appear[ed] to be a leader on the blocks.”

Even with the recommendation for his release, on health grounds, he was, shockingly, not freed for another two and half years, although he was still one of the lucky Yemenis, as only 23 have been released from Guantánamo throughout the prison’s history, primarily because of institutional fears regarding security in Yemen, and as a result over half of the 171 prisoners who remain at Guantánamo at the time of writing are Yemenis.

Two and half years after his release, al-Zuba was interviewed by Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, one of three former prisoners to meet “for an afternoon at a hotel lounge.” The three men — who also included Walid al-Qadasi (ISN 10014, released in March 2004) and Mohsen al-Askari (ISN 221, released in June 2007, and also identified as Ali Mohsen Salih) — “said it was the first time they had been together since Guantánamo.”

According to the US authorities, he would have been 53 or 54 years old at the time, but he told Shephard he was 60, “maybe more,” and “his weathered face and occasional labored breathing [did] make him appear older.” He was working as a pipefitter and handyman, but he said that work was “hard to find.” Repeating his story, he said that “his only connection with Afghanistan was to ask for help from an Afghan charity to have an angioplasty in Pakistan,” and he also stated that, during interrogations at Guantánamo, “they spared no method of torture or humiliation in dealing with us.”

He also said that “he spent time with many of the Yemeni detainees still in Guantánamo,” and argued on behalf of those he believed were “wrongly imprisoned” — men he described as teachers, students and charity workers. “The longer these people stay in detention, the more complicated their mental state is and the state of their relatives,” he explained. “And this definitely will lead to negative consequences. So why don’t they address this issue in the proper way so that the person can return to his country safely and not be a threat?”

In March 2010, al-Zuba spoke to a reporter from NPR, explaining that, on his return to Yemen in December 2006, he had “spent a few more months in Yemeni custody, then was freed when a relative vouched for him.” He also explained that his employment prospects had taken a turn for the worse. According the reporter, he was spending “most days at home, watching TV.” He said he “tried to open a honey store, but the owner wouldn’t rent to him because he heard Zuba had been in Guantánamo.” Once a month, he explained, he had to “check in with local security officers.” The article was about a possible rehabilitation program for Yemenis in Guantánamo, but as al-Zuba said, “I don’t need a rehabilitation program. Right now, I just need a job.”

In another interview, for AFP in January 2010, al-Zuba was more talkative, warning that, “If the former detainees of Guantánamo, who were released after being unjustly imprisoned for a long time and tortured, do not receive help to quickly reintegrate into their society, they could be tempted by extremism and violence,” and adding, “If an innocent man who has been tortured does not get support from the authorities in his country in order to reintegrate … he could become extremist, explode himself (as a suicide bomber) and kill innocents.”

Noting that he had two wives and ten children, the author of the article, Taieb Mahjoub, wrote of his unemployment, noting also that he complained that the government had “done nothing to look after him or help him find a stable source of income.”

Describing himself as a “pacific Islamist” who wants to “apply (Islamic law) sharia … but not according to the model of those who launch attacks or kill innocents in the name of Islam,” al-Zuba ran through his story again, adding more detail. He said that “he was nabbed by chance in the Afghan region of Tora Bora” by Afghans “who “sold (him) for 5,000 dollars” to the Americans. After traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan for medical treatment, as advised by some Arabs he met, he said that he ended up in a training camp and then in Tora Bora, where he “saw Osama bin Laden getting out of a minibus accompanied by gunmen, following an air raid on the area.” He added, “They did not try to recruit me due to my age and frail health.”

Speaking of his treatment in Guantánamo, he said, “At the beginning, the Americans did not treat me for the heart problems I had, but after medical exams, they operated on me and hospitalized me for four months. After that, physical torture stopped, only to give way to psychological torture.” He added, “My memory has suffered, but I shall never forget how much I suffered at Guantánamo, where at the end of six years I was told that my detention was unjustified and that my presence was a mistake. Although I have never been to school, I learned a lot during this journey, much more than I could have learned at university. At Guantánamo, I learned a lot about Al-Qaida and radical groups, stuff that I had never known.” He also remembered “remarks made by a US investigator to prisoners as they were being released.” The investigator said, “You are not members of Al-Qaida, but from now on, you are well placed to become so.”

Khalid Al Muri (ISN 505, Saudi Arabia) Released May 2006

In “The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras (2) – Tora Bora,” I explained how, in the case of Khalid al-Muri, who was 26 years old at the time of his capture, all that was available until WikiLeaks released the Detainee Assessment Briefs in April 2011 was a one-page Summary of Evidence for his CSRT, in which it was alleged that he was “a member of al-Qaeda,” who traveled to Afghanistan in August 2001, and “received military training at an Al-Qaida camp near Kabul” until September 2001. It was also alleged that he “manned a fighting position in the Tora Bora mountain region from mid-November through mid-December 2001,” and that he surrendered to coalition forces near Jalalabad, which could indicate that he fled from Tora Bora.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Muri was a “Recommendation [for] Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),” dated September 24, 2004, in which it was noted that he was born in September 1975, and had “a history of testicular pain.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that he and a friend traveled to Zenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian War, in 1995, where they “taught the Koran,” and “spent their summer vacation working on behalf of a charitable organization.” In 2000, he traveled to Mecca for the Al-Umra ceremonies with three friends, and “met a Yemeni named Abu Thabitt who owned a molasses business,” and who, after al-Muri confided in him that he wanted to travel to Afghanistan “to teach the Koran and learn military training as part of the jihad,” said he would assist him and provided him with a contact in Karachi.

After resuming his university studies, al-Muri “purchased a round trip ticket In the summer of 2001, and traveled with Nasir Maziyad Abdallah al-Qurayshi al-Subi’i (ISN 497, released in February 2007, and also identified as Nasir al-Subii). On arrival, their contact, Abu Omar, traveled with them to Quetta, where his “personal vehicle was waiting for them.” They then traveled to the Al-Nebras guesthouse in Kandahar. Soon after, al-Subi’i reportedly left the guesthouse to attend the Al-Farouq training camp (identified as “the Al-Farouq terrorist camp”), while al-Muri went to Kabul to “attend training at Camp 9, also known as Camp Malik.”

In November 2001, after two months at Camp Malik, al-Muri “and an unknown group” left “when the fighting began,” and fled to the Tora Bora mountains, where he “was assigned to an unidentified fighting position.” He said that he never saw the leaders, but only “heard them on the radio.” After leaving Tora Bora, he traveled with a group towards the Pakistani border, but they were captured by Northern Alliance forces on December 18, 2001. He was imprisoned in Jalalabad for eight days, and then in Kabul (probably in a prison run by the Northern Alliance) for another month, and was then taken to the US prison at Bagram airbase. He was sent to Guantánamo on April 30, 2002, on the spurious basis that he “could provide information on: Training Camp Number 9, Curriculum of mountain and plains warfare taught by Al-Qaida, Safehouse in Quetta, PK, and Kandahar, AF [and] Abu Thabitt, possible jihad recruiter in Saudi Arabia, and his counterpart in Pakistan.”

In assessing his story, an analyst first claimed that Zenica served as “a major stronghold for Al-Qaida and other extremist Islamic groups within Bosnia,” and that it was “unlikely [he] performed charity work in Bosnia.” There was actually no reason for believing the analyst’s point of view, but it was typical, as every analysis was geared towards establishing that prisoners were significant.

Regarding his time in Afghanistan, the Task Force tried to make out that he was suspicious, although they had little to go on, beyond an odd claim that “other US Intelligence Agencies” had identified him “as the subject of an attempt by extremist[s] to buy the freedom of a large number of foreign fighters captured in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan,” in which “[p]articular urgency was given to freeing a captive identified as detainee, Khalid Rashid al-Marri,” to which an analyst noted, “Due to the specific request for assistance to be rendered to detainee, he is possibly a high-level operative or has connections with some of the more influential members of Al-Qaida.”

Beyond this outlandish-sounding claim, there were only more general suspicions — that his credibility was low, that he was “believed to have been deceptive during interrogations,” and that he had a “changing cover story.” He was assessed as being “of medium intelligence value,” and although no specific threat level was included, I imagine that he was assessed as “a medium risk.” It was noted that he was assessed as “a member of Al-Qaida and/or its global terrorist network,” and that “his knowledge of weapons and commitment to jihad in Afghanistan as well as intentions of jihad in Chechnya make it imperative [he] be retained in the custody of the US Government or Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Government,” which “will allow for further exploitation of his past affiliation with various terrorist groups and prevent him from engaging in further terrorist activity.”

As a result, Brig. Gen. Hood recommended that he be “transferred for continued detention to his country of origin (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) if a satisfactory agreement can be reached that allows access to detainee and/or access to exploited intelligence,” adding, “If a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached for his continued detention in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he should be retained under DoD control,” and it evidently took a while for a “satisfactory agreement ” to be reached, as he was not released for another 20 months, when he was repatriated to be put through the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program.

Sultan Al Anazi (ISN 507, Saudi Arabia) Released December 2006

In Chapter 4 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Sultan al-Anazi, who was 27 years old at the time of his capture, said in Guantánamo that he traveled to Pakistan before 9/11 to study with Jamaat al-Tablighi, the vast and apolitical missionary organization that, nevertheless, was regarded in Guantánamo as a front for terrorism, and then went to Jalalabad on a specific mission. After the collapse of the Taliban, he said that “Afghanis would look for Arabs to hold as hostages or kill so they could take our money and possessions,” and described how he fled with the other Jamaat al-Tablighi members to a village near Tora Bora, where they waited for an opportunity to escape that never came. “When I was in the village,” he said, “it was bombed by the United States and I decided to give up because I didn’t want to die. Many people were killed as a result of the bombing of the village and I didn’t want to be next. The people from Jamaat al-Tablighi that I fled with were killed by the air raids and I was injured.”

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to al-Anazi was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated June 15, 2006, in which he was identified as Sultan Sari Sayel al-Ja’afari al-Anzi, born in July 1976, and it was noted that he was “in good health.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that, in 1998, he began working as a personal driver for schoolteachers, and, in mid-2001, “decided to travel to Pakistan on vacation,” choosing Pakistan “because he had already traveled to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.” Later in the year (on an unspecified date), he flew to Karachi, where he met a man at a mosque, Abu Islam, a member of Jamaat al-Tablighi, who convinced him to travel with him to Kandahar.

In contrast to al-Anazi’s claim that he was a missionary, the Task Force picked up on one interrogation in which he allegedly stated that his “intent was to receive training in Afghanistan,” and claimed that, in Kandahar, he and Abu Islam “stayed in a guesthouse owned by an Arab,” but al-Anazi “was unable to attend a training camp,” because “they were all closed” — indicating that he arrived in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Anazi said he then met a friend, Abu Yahya, from Saudi Arabia, who invited him to stay at his house in Jalalabad. After two months at Yahya’s home, he said that, on or about November 17, 2001, he, Abu Yahya and five other Arabs “went to the Abu Zubayr (variant: Zubair) Center in the Tora Bora region to hide,” where he “worked as a cook” for “approximately one month,” and then left for Pakistan with a group of other men. One major problem with this particular scenario was that the Abu Zubayr guesthouse (aka Hajji Habash) was actually in Kandahar, many hundreds of miles from Tora Bora.

According to the Task Force, the “Senior Al-Qaida commander” in Tora Bora was Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi (aka Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi), the former emir of an independent training camp, Khaldan, and one of the most notorious of all the CIA’s “ghost prisoners,” as he was sent to Egypt to be tortured, where he came up with the false claim (used to justify the invasion of Iraq) that Al-Qaida operatives had been meeting with Saddam Hussein to discuss obtaining chemical and biological weapons, and, after being sent around a number of secret prisons, was returned to Libya, where he died, in deeply suspicious circumstances, in May 2009. The Taliban had closed al-Libi’s camp in 2000, when he refused to allow it to be taken over by Osama bin Laden, so it is unlikely that al-Libi, if he was indeed commanding forces in Tora Bora, could adequately be described as a “Senior Al-Qaida commander.” However, while this story needs to be explored in further detail, what is clear from al-Anazi’s file is that it contains the first statement in the Detainee Assessment Briefs that I’ve so far come across that was attributed to al-Libi, who apparently “reported that an air strike hit the first group as they were led out of Tora Bora but only those capable of walking accompanied him.”

Afghan forces then took al-Anazi, “along with other wounded individuals, to a Jalalabad hospital.” He was then transferred to what was described as “the Ministry of Security prison in Kabul” (perhaps Pol-i-Charki), and was transferred to US custody on January 21, 2002, and taken to Bagram. He was sent to Guantánamo on June 12, 2002, on the spurious basis that it was to “provide information on the following: Recruitment for terrorist organizations or the Taliban.”

In assessing his story, the Task Force noted that he was “assessed to be an Islamic extremist affiliated with Jamaat [al-] Tablighi (JT) and a probable Al-Qaida member,” which only really reveals the extent to which Jamaat al-Tabighi was unjustly regarded as a front for terrorism. Facts, however, were elusive or non-existent, leading the authorities to note that he “probably received training at Al- Farouq and then stayed in a series of caves in Tora Bora with a possible Saudi Al-Qaida cell operative,” and that he was “probably part of a group of fighters sent out of Tora Bora by Al-Qaida commander Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi.”

That reference to “a possible Saudi Al-Qaida cell operative” involved a slightly desperate attempt to tie him to a man named Abu Zubayr al-Rimi, who he was apparently with in Tora Bora “during the entire month of Ramadan 2001.” The authorities noted that this was the alias of Sultan Jubran Sultan al-Qahtani (killed on September 23, 2003), who was “on Saudi Arabia’s 19 most wanted list from early May 2003 as well as an FBI Be On the Lookout (BOLO) Alert.” An analyst, clutching at straws, noted that, if this was “the same al-Rimi,” then al-Anazi “may have heard al-Rimi speak about future operations,” or he “possibly ha[d] knowledge of associates of al-Rimi, like Abu Bakr al-Azdi, who is in Saudi custody.”

More realistically, it is, of course, very possible that al-Anazi came up with a cover story that disguised both his intention to participate in jihad, and his arrival in Afghanistan in time to attend Al-Farouq, as the Task Force repeatedly insisted, and it may be, as also noted, that his story was very similar to that of two other prisoners, Abdullah T. al-Anzy (ISN 514, released September 2007, and also identified as Abdullah al-Anazi) and Ranam Abdul Rahman Ghanim al-Harbi (ISN 516, released July 2007, and also identified as Ghanim al-Harbi), who “reported that they spent the entire month of Ramadan at Tora Bora, departed Tora Bora on or about 17 December 2001, and were wounded during an air strike,” and who were also “treated at a Jalalabad hospital after being wounded,” and “transferred to the Ministry of Security prison in Kabul and then to the custody of US forces on 21 January 2002 at Bagram.”

However, there was nothing in his file to indicate that he was anything other than an insignificant foot soldier, and this appeared to have been recognized by the Task Force, which assessed him as being “of low intelligence value,” and of posing ”a medium risk, as he may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” It was also noted that he was assessed as “a high threat from a detention perspective,” because his “overall behaviour ha[d] been non-compliant and hostile to the guard force and staff,” but as his behaviour included “exposing himself to guards,” it is, perhaps, worth considering that he had unaddressed mental health issues.

The most important assessments came from the Saudi intelligence service, and al-Anazi’s fellow prisoners throughout the “War on Terror” prison network. Significantly, it was noted that, “After the 2002 Saudi delegation visit, detainee was identified by the Saudi Ministry of Interior’s General Directorate of Investigations (Mabahith) as one of the 77 Saudi nationals of low intelligence and law enforcement value to the US Government but of whom [sic] the Saudi Government would attempt to prosecute if transferred to its custody from US control.”

On the US end, it was also noted that “[m]ultiple Al-Qaida operatives and leaders in US custody were not able to identify the detainee,” to which an analyst added, “This gives some validity to detainee’s timeline — that he was not in Afghanistan for very long and/or did not participate within significant Al-Qaida circles of influence.” As a result, although it was recommended that he be retained in DoD control on October 1, 2004, and Rear Adm. Harry Harris recommended him for continued dentition, it was also noted that, “If a satisfactory agreement can be reached that ensures continued detention and allows access to detainee and/or to exploited intelligence, detainee can be Transferred Out of DoD Control (TRO)” — and this happened just six months later, when he was repatriated to be put through the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program.

Abdul Rahman Khowlan (ISN 513, Saudi Arabia) Released December 2006

In Chapter 4 of The Guantánamo Files, I explained how Abdul Rahman Khowlan, who was 29 years old at the time of his capture, denied allegations that he received military training at the Al-Farouq training camp and was captured in Tora Bora. He said that he was captured in Jalalabad, and told what appeared to be a particularly fantastical story — that he went to Afghanistan to “retrieve the clothing of the Prophet Mohammed from a shrine in Kandahar with financial backing from a prominent Saudi businessman,” a mission which, if successful, would have made him “more popular than Michael Jackson,” in his own words.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file relating to Khowlan was a “Recommendation for Continued Detention Under DoD Control (CD),” dated March 31, 2006, in which he was also identified as Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Husayn al-Khawlan, born in 1974, and it was noted that he was “in good health,” although he had “chronic eczema,” was “a former hunger striker,” had “a history of chronic right shoulder pain,” and “had a left anterior cruciate ligament tear in August 2005.”

In telling his story, the Joint Task Force noted that the story he told, as recounted above, of being “an artefact thief in search of the clothing of the Prophet Mohammed” only came about as an abrupt change in his story, after he had already admitted “several key associations” as part of “his claimed motive and purpose [of] traveling to Afghanistan [for] jihadist training to fulfil a religious obligation.”

In this version of events, he “dropped out of high school in 1990 and worked part-time at a family convenience store until 2001,” when he went to Afghanistan. How that came about was complicated. He apparently “decided he wanted to get married, but felt his excessive weight would pose a problem.” On a visit to Jeddah, with his older brother, he “saw a poster declaring a fatwa supporting training for jihad as a religious duty,” and then met a man named Abu Muith, “who sold dates near his brother’s house,” and who, in summer 2001, had a conversation with him “regarding his desire to marry, his weight concern, and the fatwa supporting jihadist training.” Abu Muath recommended that he visit Afghanistan “for two months of training to fulfill the religious obligation,” noting that “[t]he physical training regimen would also afford him an opportunity to lose weight.”

Abu Muath then bought his plane ticket and provided him with some spending money (3,000 Saudi riyals, or approximately $800), and set off for Karachi in July 2001. On arrival, he liaised with Abu Muath, and, after a week in a guesthouse, flew to Quetta with an unidentified man who had bought tickets for them. They were then met by a man named Muhammad Rahim (aka Rakhim Khan) and taken to a guesthouse, “where they stayed for less than a week,” and he “and five others then traveled to an unknown location near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border,” and “drove motorcycles over the border,” before taking a bus to the Al-Ansar guesthouse in Kandahar, where he stayed for up to two weeks “waiting for enough recruits to gather before being taken to Al-Farouq.” It was also noted that, at this time, Osama Bin Laden “visited the guesthouse and encouraged the trainees to continue the jihad.” He also apparently said he “shook UBL’s hand during this visit.”

He then “traveled to Al-Farouq with approximately fourteen other individuals,” where he stayed for approximately a month and a half, until, two days after the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden reportedly “came to the camp and gave a speech to the trainees.” Two days later, he “and approximately forty-nine others were ordered to leave the camp,” and traveled to Kabul, and then Jalalabad, where they “stayed in the Nejma Al-Jihad Guesthouse (variant: Najim Al-Jihad),” and, after approximately two weeks, went to a crop field or forest at the foot of the Tora Bora mountains, where they stayed for three weeks.

During Ramadan (presumably in late November 2001), he and others apparently “traveled to the top of the Tora Bora Mountains,” where “they were subjected to constant attack from coalition air strikes.” The leaders then “told the group that they could have the passports back and leave Afghanistan when the bombing ended,” and Khowlan said he left in a large group, “traveled back down the mountain and surrendered to unidentified Afghanis” on December 10, 2001. He was then transferred to a Northern Alliance prison in Kabul for a month, and was “