Ali Abdul Motalib Awayd Hassan Al Tayeea

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Ali Abdul Motalib Awayd Hassan Al Tayeea is a citizen of Iraq, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Al Tayeea's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 111. The Department of Defense reports that Al Tayeea was born in Baghdad, Iraq. The Department of Defense provided a birthday, or an estimated year of birth, for all but 22 of the 759 detainees. Al Tayeea is one of those 22.

1 Press reports
2 Accused of leveling false allegations
3 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
4 Administrative Review Board hearing
5 References

[edit] Press reports

When the Department of Defense first complied with US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff's court order and released the transcripts of the Guantanamo detainees, they weren't identified by name. However, a small number of the detainee's names were mentioned in the body of the transcripts. Al Tayeea's transcript was one that contained his name.

A widely republished story from the Associated Press described Al Tayeea as a mechanic who had been jailed by Saddam Hussein's regime.^[2]

An article in The Weekly Standard has extensive excerpts from the testimony Al Tayees offered during his Tribunal. He described a long history of emigration from country to country in the mid-east, that finally left him working, as a driver, for the Taliban, in Afghanistan.^[3]

The Weekly Standard reported that Al Tayeea's nickname in Guantanamo was "Pimp Daddy".^[3]

Al Tayeea said he met John Walker Lindh, "the American Taliban", who he describes as a "good guy" and a "jackass".

I don't believe in the Taliban, but being hungry and homeless, I worked there for 2 1/2 months and traveled in an old Russian car called a Gas 66. There are many of these in Iraq; it's a bulls--car. Everyday there was a broken engine, so I requested the money to fix it. I put a little of the money in my pocket and I'd go fix it. I didn't want to go every day. The f--ing Taliban is f--ing my life.

The Weekly Standard reports that Al Tayeea doesn't get along with the other Guantanamo detainees, and had bragged, to his Tribunal, about threatening to keep informing on the other detainees:

"They call me motherf--all the time and I say, "f--Osama Bin Laden and f--the Taliban." I'm very happy and I tell them I'll stay here forever and give information about them. I tell them, "f--you, if you believe in Osama Bin Laden.""

[edit] Accused of leveling false allegations

Jawad Jabber Sadkhan had a statement from detainee 758 submitted as evidence at his Tribunal.^[4] In his statement detainee 758 identified himself as "Shaker Al Iraqi (Abass Abdou Erromi)". The official record identifies him as Abbas Habid Rumi Al Naely.^[1] He testified that he suspected the accusation against him and detainee 433 were the result of animosity from detainee 111, who he identified as "Ali Abdou Ahtaleb Al Iraqi" and detainee 252, who he identified as "Yassin Basro Al Yamani". The official record shows detainee 252 as Yasim Muhammed Basardah.^[1] Al Naely says he knew Sadkhan in Afghanistan, and he knew him as a good, peaceloving, family man. Al Naely said that the two men he identified as Sadkhan's accusers did not know him in Afghanistan, and their accusations were complete fabrications.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Al Tayeea chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[5]

[edit] Administrative Review Board hearing

Detainees who were determined to have been properly classified as "enemy combatants" were scheduled to have their dossier reviewed at annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Administrative Review Boards weren't authorized to review whether a detainee qualified for POW status, and they weren't authorized to review whether a detainee should have been classified as an "enemy combatant".

They were authorized to consider whether a detainee should continue to be detained by the United States, because they continued to pose a threat -- or whether they could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country, or whether they could be set free.

Al Tayeea chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[6]