The Full List of Prisoners Charged in the Military Commissions at Guantánamo

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I first put this list together in the last week of March 2014, because it seemed to me that there was no one place where those interested in Guantánamo could find out who had been charged in the three versions of the military commissions that have been in existence at the prison (and in US law) since 2001. I then updated it at the end of September 2016. Please donate to support my work if you can, as I rely on your donations to support projects like this and the articles I write on a regular basis.

Those charged number just 30 prisoners in total, out of the 779 men and boys held at Guantánamo since it opened in January 2002, although in half of those cases the charges have been dropped. Just eight prisoners have been convicted — and just two of those have taken place through trials rather than plea deals — and five of those men have been released. Seven other cases are ongoing.

I’ve been covering the commissions since 2006, and I have never found that they have established any kind of legitimacy, compared to federal courts, where crimes should be tried. This conclusion has only been strengthened in recent years, as conservative appeals court judges in Washington D.C. have overturned two of the eight convictions on the basis that they were for war crimes that were invented by Congress rather than being internationally recognized — something that is readily apparent from any analysis of their post-9/11 history, particularly, I believe, with reference to the disgraceful case of Omar Khadr, a former juvenile prisoner made to sign a plea deal in which he admitted responsibility for war crimes that were invented by his captors.

Below is a short history of the post-9/11 commissions followed by the list of the 30 prisoners who have been charged, in all three versions of the commissions — those established in 2001, 2006 and 2009. I have not specifically listed the charges against them, but those can be found by following the links — generally to Pentagon charge sheets, or to articles I have written about the commissions since 2007.

A brief history of the chaotic military commissions at Guantánamo

The military commissions were dragged out of the history books by Dick Cheney on November 13, 2001, when a Military Order authorizing the creation of the commissions was stealthily issued with almost no oversight, as I explained in an article in June 2007, while the Washington Post was publishing a major series on Cheney by Barton Gellman (the author of Angler, a subsequent book about Cheney) and Jo Becker. Alarmingly, as I explained in that article, the order “stripped foreign terror suspects of access to any courts, authorized their indefinite imprisonment without charge, and also authorized the creation of ‘Military Commissions,’ before which they could be tried using secret evidence,” including evidence derived through the use of torture.

Cheney’s military commissions, which involved various chaotic pre-trial hearings but no trials, lasted until June 28, 2006, when, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a challenge brought by one of the ten men charged (Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who had taken a paid job as one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers), the Supreme Court ruled that the commission system lacked “the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.”

Almost immediately, however, the Bush administration responded by negotiating with Congress for a new version of the commissions to be launched, and the result was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Between February 2007 and December 2008, 27 prisoners were charged in the military commissions (including nine of the ten men previously charged), although only three cases went to trial — David Hicks in March 2007, Salim Hamdan in July 2008, and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul in October 2008. For a brief rundown of most of these stories, see my article from November 2008, “20 Reasons To Shut Down The Guantánamo Trials.”

When President Obama took office in January 2009, he initially suspended the commissions, but in a speech in May 2009 he announced that they were back on the table. He then worked with Congress to revive them, and the result was the Military Commissions Act of 2009. According to an announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder in November 2009, there were supposed to be two types of trials under the Obama administration — in federal court, for the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, as well as in the military commissions. However, when the administration faced criticism for planning to hold the 9/11 trial in New York, President Obama dropped the plans, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions.

Nor were the military commissions free of problems. Senior Obama administration officials had told Congress (see here and here) that certain charges designated as war crimes in the MCA of 2006, and intended for the 2009 version — providing material support for terrorism, and, possibly, conspiracy — were not regarded as war crimes, and would probably be overturned on appeal. Congress failed to take the advice on board, but this was indeed what happened in October 2012, in another victory for Salim Hamdan, when his conviction was overturned, and in January 2013 the conviction of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul was also overturned, in a ruling that was confirmed in July 2014 and again — more or less — in June 2015. The government is still appealing, but the effect has been for the military to concede that the total number of prisoners who will face trials by military commission (or have already faced trials) out of the 779 men held since the prison opened, is unlikely to exceed 20. In fact, at current estimates, it will be no more than the 15 already charged and/or convicted.

Military Commissions under President Bush, as authorized by Military Order No. 1 (2001-2006)

1. David Hicks (ISN 002, Australia) was charged on June 10, 2004. His intended trial was delayed on several occasions, firstly on November 9, 2004, after Judge James Robertson, in the District Court in Washington D.C., ruled that the US could not hold a military commission unless it was first shown that the detainee was not a prisoner of war. That ruling was unanimously reversed by a three-judge panel in the court of appeals (the D.C. Circuit Court) on July 15, 2005, led by Judge A. Raymond Randolph, but Hicks’ trial was delayed again because, on November 7, 2005, the the Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari to hear the case. On November 15, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stayed the proceeding against Hicks until the Supreme Court issued its ruling (the ruling in June 2006 that brought this version of the commissions to an end).

2. Ibrahim al-Qosi (ISN 054, Sudan) was charged on June 29, 2004. Because of the rulings outlined above, al-Qosi’s case was stayed twice, on November 9, 2004 and November 7, 2005, before the first version of the commissions was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2006.

3. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul (ISN 039, Yemen) was charged on June 29, 2004. For al-Bahlul’s struggle to represent himself — and the ethical problem this caused to the lawyer assigned to represent him, Army Maj. Thomas Fleener — see “The Defense Will Not Rest,” an article in GQ in July 2007, which I wrote about here.

4. Salim Hamdan (ISN 149, Yemen) was charged on July 13, 2004. See the entry for David Hicks (above) for Hamdan’s important role in bringing this first version of the commissions to an end. Hamdan was represented by Neal Katyal of Georgetown University Law Center and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, with support from the Seattle law firm Perkins Coie. Also see “Taking on Guantánamo,” a profile of Swift from Vanity Fair in 2007.

5. Omar Khadr (ISN 766, Canada) was charged on November 4, 2005. He attended pre-trial hearings in the second week of January 2006, prior to the first version of the commissions being scrapped. In March, after all the prisoners facing commissions were placed in solitary confinement, Khadr wrote to the court to complain, “Excuse me Mr. Judge … I’m being punished for exercising my right and being co-operative in participating in this military commission. For that, I say with my respect to you and everybody else here, that I’m boycotting these procedures until I be treated humanely and fair.”

6. Ghassan al-Sharbi (ISN 682, Saudi Arabia) was charged on November 4, 2005. For al-Sharbi’s struggle to represent himself — and the ethical problem this caused to the lawyer assigned to represent him, Navy Lt. William Kuebler — see “The Defense Will Not Rest,” an article in GQ in July 2007, which I wrote about here.

7. Sufyian Barhoumi (ISN 694, Algeria) was charged on November 4, 2005.

8. Jabran al-Qahtani (ISN 696, Saudi Arabia) was charged on November 4, 2005.

9. Binyam Mohamed (identified by the US as Binyam Muhammad) (ISN 1458, Ethiopia-UK) was charged on November 4, 2005. At a hearing on April 6, 2006, Mohamed insisted on representing himself, and held up a sign in court — for the benefit of the watching world — which read, “con mission.” He stated, “This is not a commission, it’s a con mission. It’s a mission to con the world.”

10. Abdul Zahir (ISN 753, Afghanistan) was charged on January 20, 2006. He is the only one of the ten not to be charged again when the military commissions were revived by Congress in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. In April 2013, he was one of 71 prisoners recommended for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in June 2016, and in July 2016 he was approved for release.

Military Commissions under President Bush, as authorized by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (2006-2008)

1. David Hicks (ISN 002, Australia) was charged for a second time on February 2, 2007, and reached a plea deal on March 26, 2007. He was given a seven-year sentence on March 31, 2007, of which all but nine months was suspended, and returned to Australia on May 20, 2007, where he was imprisoned. He was released on December 26, 2007. In November 2013, Hicks appealed his conviction, following successful appeals by Salim Hamdan, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul (on two out of three charges) and Noor Uthman Muhammed (see below). His conviction was overturned on February 18, 2015 by the Court of Military Commissions Review, as I reported for Al-Jazeera, and was the fourth conviction to be overturned (see Salim Hamdan and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, below, and, under Obama, Noor Uthman Muhammed).

2. Salim Hamdan (ISN 149, Yemen) was charged for a second time on April 5, 2007, and was convicted of providing material support for terrorism (but acquitted of conspiracy by the military jury) on August 6, 2008, after a two-week trial. He was given a sentence of five and a half years, but the judge, Keith Allred, allowed for time served since he was first charged (61 months), meaning that he had just five months to serve. He was repatriated to Yemen on November 26, 2008, where he was imprisoned until December 27, 2008, when he was released. His conviction was overturned by the court of appeals in Washington D.C. (the D.C. Circuit Court) on October 16, 2012. This ruling, in conjunction with the overturning of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul’s conviction (see below), seems to have made it impossible for most of the planned prosecutions at Guantánamo, which involve material support for terrorism — and in some cases conspiracy — to proceed.

3. Omar Khadr (ISN 766, Canada), a juvenile at the time of his capture, was charged for a second time on April 5, 2007. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2007 until President Bush left office. See my articles here, here, here and here.

4. Mohamed Jawad (ISN 900, Afghanistan), a juvenile at the time of his capture, was charged on October 9, 2007. His prosecutor, Darrel Vandeveld, resigned on September 25, 2008, complaining that vital information was being withheld from the defense. In October 2008, his judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, determined that Jawad’s confessions about throwing a grenade at a US military vehicle, which he made to Afghan and US officials after his capture in December 2002, were inadmissible because they had been obtained through torture and intimidation. In July 2009, he had his habeas corpus petition granted by Judge Ellen Huvelle in the District Court in Washington D.C., and he was repatriated to Afghanistan on August 24, 2009 (also see here and here).

5. Ahmed al-Darbi (ISN 768, Saudi Arabia) was charged on December 20, 2007. He was arraigned in April 2008, although he refused to attend the hearing. In September 2008, his military-appointed lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, resigned, complaining about the ethical problems of representing someone who did not wish to be represented (as al-Darbi didn’t), and explaining that al-Darbi never came to trust him because “the attorney-client relationship is close to impossible to establish” in a system in which a lawyer is imposed on a prisoner.

6. Ibrahim al-Qosi (ISN 054, Sudan) was charged for a second time on February 8, 2008. In April 2008, he too boycotted his arraignment, telling the judge, “I do not recognize the justice or the lawfulness of this court,” and adding, “What is happening in your courts is in fact a sham, which aims solely that the cases move at the pace of a turtle in order to gain some time to keep us in these boxes without any human or legal rights.”

7. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul (ISN 039, Yemen) was charged for a second time on February 8, 2008, and was convicted in November 2008 after a one-sided trial in which he refused to mount a defense, and given a life sentence. His conviction was overturned by the court of appeals in Washington D.C. (the D.C. Circuit Court) on January 25, 2013. The US government appealed, but the ruling, in conjunction with the overturning of Salim Hamdan’s conviction, seems to have made it impossible for most of the planned prosecutions at Guantánamo, involving material support for terrorism — and in some cases conspiracy — to proceed. See this article for the rather confusing outcome of the government’s appeal on July 14, 2014, which, nevertheless, confirmed that al-Bahlul’s material support conviction was overturned, and also confirmed that his conviction for soliciting others to commit war crimes was overturned as well. As I described it, “on the third count on which he was initially convicted, conspiracy to commit war crimes, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected a constitutional challenge brought by al-Bahlul, but did so, as the National Law Journal explained, in ‘a fractured ruling that left unclear how future cases against terrorism suspects might proceed.'” In June 2015, the court confirmed its ruling, but then agreed to an en banc hearing, which took place on December 1, 2015. On October 20, 2016, by six judges to three, the court reinstated al-Bahlul’s conspiracy conviction. It is now likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.

8. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (ISN 10024, Pakistan-Kuwait), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 11, 2008. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2008 until President Bush left office. See here, here and here.

9. Ramzi bin al-Shibh (ISN 10013, Yemen), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 11, 2008. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2008 until President Bush left office. See here, here and here.

10. Mustafa al-Hawsawi (ISN 10011, Saudi Arabia), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 11, 2008. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2008 until President Bush left office. See here, here and here.

11. Walid bin Attash (ISN 10014, Saudi Arabia), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 11, 2008. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2008 until President Bush left office. See here, here and here.

12. Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (aka Ammar al-Baluchi) (ISN 10018, Pakistan-Kuwait), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 11, 2008. Pre-trial hearings took place from June 2008 until President Bush left office. See here, here and here.

13. Mohammed al-Qahtani (ISN 063, Saudi Arabia) was charged on February 11, 2008, but the charges were dropped on May 12, 2008 after the commissions’ convening authority, Susan Crawford, concluded that he had been tortured at Guantánamo. “We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture,” she told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post in January 2009. Al-Qahtani went before a Periodic Review Board in June 2016, which approved his ongoing imprisonment in July 2016.

14. Mohammed Kamin (ISN 1045, Afghanistan) was charged on March 12, 2008. The Obama administration dropped the charges against him on December 11, 2009. At the time, Pentagon officials said they would re-file charges against him, but it never happened. In June 2013, it was revealed that, in January 2010, President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force had recommended him for ongoing detention without charge or trial, but instead he was put forward for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in August 2015. He was approved for release in October 2015, and was freed in the United Arab Emirates in August 2016.

15. Ahmed Khalfan Ghalani (ISN 10012, Tanzania), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on March 31, 2008 and arraigned on October 22, 2008. Under Obama, however, he was moved to the US mainland (in May 2009) for a federal court trial that began in September 2010 and resulted in a conviction on a single charge of conspiracy and a life sentence in January 2011. Despite this, lawmakers have passed legislation preventing President Obama from bringing any other Guantánamo prisoners to the US mainland for federal court trials.

16. Noor Uthman Muhammed (ISN 707, Sudan) was charged on May 23, 2008. The charges were dropped on October 21, 2008, after Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation, but were reinstated on December 5, 2008.

17. Ghassan al-Sharbi (ISN 682, Saudi Arabia) was charged for a second time on May 28, 2008, but the charges were dropped on October 21, 2008, after Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation. In April 2013, he was declared to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in June 2016. He was recommended for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial in July 2016.

18. Sufyian Barhoumi (ISN 694, Algeria) was charged for a second time on May 28, 2008, but the charges were dropped on October 21, 2008, after Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation. In July 2013, Barhoumi sought to be charged and tried, in the hope of being released from Guantánamo — although prosecutors showed no willingness to prosecute him. Three months earlier, however, he had been made eligible for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in May 2016, and in August 2016 he was approved for release.

19. Jabran al-Qahtani (ISN 696, Saudi Arabia) was charged for a second time on May 28, 2008, but the charges were dropped on October 21, 2008, after Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation. In April 2013, he was declared to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in May 2016.

20. Binyam Mohamed (identified by the US as Binyam Muhammad) (ISN 1458, UK-Ethiopia) was charged for a second time on May 28, 2008, but the charges were dropped on October 21, 2008, after Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation. He was released to the UK in February 2009, primarily because his US-instigated torture in Morocco, which the British either knew about, or were negligent in not finding out about, had been exposed in the UK courts, and was causing a Transatlantic headache.

21. Mohammed Hashim (ISN 850, Afghanistan) was charged with providing material support for terrorism and spying on May 30, 2008, and the charges were approved by the convening authority on October 21, 2008. However, on December 20, 2009, he was repatriated to Afghanistan (and the charges were dropped). For more, see my article, “Afghan fantasist to face trial at Guantánamo,” written when he was initially charged.

22. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (ISN 10015, Saudi Arabia), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on June 30, 2008, and the charges were referred to the convening authority on December 19, 2008.

23. Abdul Ghani (ISN 934, Afghanistan) was charged on July 28, 2008, but the charges were dropped on December 19, 2008. In September 2012, it was revealed by the Justice Department that he had been cleared for release by President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force in January 2010, and in December 2014 he was freed. For more, see, “Close Guantánamo: Abdul Ghani, An Insignificant Afghan Villager Held for Nine Years.”

24. Obaidullah (ISN 762, Afghanistan) was charged on September 9, 2008. For more, see my article, “Guantánamo trials: another insignificant Afghan charged,” written when he was initially charged.

25. Fayiz al-Kandari (described as Faiz al-Kandari) (ISN 552, Kuwait) was charged on October 21, 2008. The charges were dropped on June 29, 2012 by the convening authority, Retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald. In April 2013, he was declared to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board, and after being approved for ongoing imprisonment after a review in June 2014, he was approved for release in September 2015 after a second review in July 2015, and was freed in January 2016.

26. Fouad al-Rabiah (described as Fouad al-Rabia) (ISN 551, Kuwait) was charged on October 21, 2008. However, in September 2009, he had his habeas corpus petition granted in the District Court in Washington D.C. by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, which uncovered extraordinary evidence of how coerced confessions were extracted from al-Rabiah at Guantánamo. He was released in December 2009.

27. Tarek El-Sawah (aka Tariq al-Sawah) (ISN 535, Egypt) was charged on December 12, 2008. In April 2012, the charges against him were dropped on the advice of Michael C. Chapman, the legal advisor to the convening authority. In October 2013, I reported how his lawyers were seeking his release because he is physically and mentally ill. See, “Lawyers Seek Release from Guantánamo of Tariq Al-Sawah, an Egyptian Prisoner Who is Very Ill.” Six months earlier, however, he had been declared eligible for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in January 2015. He was approved for release in February 2015, and was freed in Bosnia in January 2016.

Military Commissions under President Obama, as authorized by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (2009-)

1. Ibrahim al-Qosi (ISN 054, Sudan) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the third time) made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. Al-Qosi accepted a plea deal on July 7, 2010, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he was to be held for just two more years instead of the 14-year sentence delivered by a military jury. He was repatriated to Sudan in July 2012. In April 2014, as Steve Vladeck described it for Just Security, the Court of Military Commission Review turned down a request on al-Qosi’s behalf, by his appointed appellate defense counsel, Navy Captain Mary McCormick, for “funding from the Department of Defense that would allow her to travel to Sudan with an interpreter to seek out and meet with Al Qosi so that she could consult with him, and he could make an informed decision on whether he wanted her to represent him and whether she should challenge his military commission conviction.” Furthermore, in May 2015, the D.C. Circuit Court dismissed an appeal submitted on al-Qosi’s behalf, “on the ground that his appointed appellate defense counsel, Navy Captain Mary McCormick, did not have al-Qosi’s permission to appeal the Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR)’s April 2014 decision, and so there was no case or controversy to review.” In December 2015, it was reported that he had appeared in a video released by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

2. Omar Khadr (ISN 766, Canada) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the third time) made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. Khadr accepted a plea deal in October 2010, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he received an eight-year sentence (consisting of one more year at Guantánamo, followed by seven in Canada) instead of the 40-year sentence delivered by a military jury. He was repatriated to Canada in September 2012. In November 2013, his US lawyer, Sam Morison, announced that he was challenging his conviction, and Khadr’s own comments are here. In May 2015, he was finally released on bail in Canada, to resume his life.

3. Noor Uthman Muhammed (ISN 707, Sudan) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the second time) made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. Muhammed accepted a plea deal in February 2011, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he received a sentence of two years and ten months. He was repatriated to Sudan in December 2013. On January 9, 2015, he was the third prisoner to have his conviction overturned, when, as the Pentagon reported, “the convening authority for military commissions disapproved the findings and sentence, and dismissed the charges in the case of United States v. Noor Uthman Muhammed.” The Pentagon’s press release also stated, “Subsequent to his commission proceedings, decisions by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in separate commissions cases established that it was legal error to try the offense of providing material support for terrorism before a military commission. The decisions of the D.C. Circuit are binding on commissions cases and the convening authority’s action to disapprove the findings and sentence in Muhammed’s case is required in the interests of justice and under the rule of law.”

4. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (ISN 10015, Saudi Arabia) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the second time) made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. For my reports on the stumbling progress of his pre-trial hearings, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. And see here for the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in July 2014 condemning the US for implementing a program of extraordinary rendition and torture, and Poland for hosting a CIA “black site” from 2002 to 2003, and here for the order for Poland to pay €100,000 in damages to al-Nashiri. For my latest article, see here.

5. Ahmed al-Darbi (ISN 768, Saudi Arabia) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the second time) made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. Al-Darbi accepted a plea deal on February 20, 2014, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he “will spend at least three and a half more years at Guantánamo before he is sentenced,” and will then probably be transferred to Saudi Arabia to serve out the remainder of a sentence that is expected to be between nine to 15 years, “depending on his behavior in custody,” as the New York Times described it. Also see here.

6. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (ISN 10024, Pakistan-Kuwait) had the announcement of his intended federal court trial in New York made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. However, under pressure from critics, President Obama dropped the plan, and KSM and his four co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions. For more, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

7. Ramzi bin al-Shibh (ISN 10013, Yemen) had the announcement of his intended federal court trial in New York made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. However, under pressure from critics, President Obama dropped the plan, and the five 9/11 co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions. For more, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

8. Mustafa al-Hawsawi (ISN 10011, Saudi Arabia) had the announcement of his intended federal court trial in New York made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. However, under pressure from critics, President Obama dropped the plan, and the five 9/11 co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions. For more, see here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

9. Walid bin Attash (ISN 10014, Saudi Arabia) had the announcement of his intended federal court trial in New York made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. However, under pressure from critics, President Obama dropped the plan, and the five 9/11 co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions. For more, see here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

10. Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (aka Ammar al-Baluchi) (ISN 10018, Pakistan-Kuwait) had the announcement of his intended federal court trial in New York made by Attorney General Eric Holder on November 13, 2009. However, under pressure from critics, President Obama dropped the plan, and the five 9/11 co-defendants (all accused of involvement the 9/11 attacks) were once more charged in the military commissions. For more, see here, here, here, here, here and here.

11. Obaidullah (ISN 762, Afghanistan) had the announcement of his intended trial by military commission (for the second time) made on January 6, 2010. In June 2011, however, the charges were dropped. In April 2013, he was declared to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board, which took place in April 2016. In May 2016, he was approved for release, and he was freed in the United Arab Emirates in August 2016.

12. Majid Khan (ISN 10020, Pakistan), a “high-value detainee” held in CIA “black sites,” was charged on February 14, 2012, and accepted a plea deal on February 29, 2012, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea and an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors in the 9/11 trial, he will apparently receive a 19-year sentence, although that, it was stated at the time, would not be delivered until four years after his trial. Four years came and went, however, because of the glacial slowness of pre-trial hearings for the 9/11 trial, and in September 2016, at a hearing to arrange for Khan to drop the no longer applicable material support plea in his plea deal, he was told he would have to wait for sentencing for another three years. For my report on this, see here.

13. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (ISN 10029, Iraq) was charged on June 7, 2013. He was one of the last prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo, and it was announced on February 14, 2014 — despite Ali Hamza al-Bahlul’s largely successful challenge of his conviction for conspiracy — that a charge of conspiracy had been added to his charge sheet. Also see here, here and here.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and 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. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).