Ali Mohsen Salih

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Ali Mohsen Salih is held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number was 221. The Department of Defense reported that he was born on October 26, 1980, in Guban, Yemen.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 1.1 Allegations
- 1.2 Testimony
2 Administrative Review Board hearing
- 2.1 The following primary factors favor continued detention:
- 2.2 The following primary factors favor release or transfer:
3 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal notice read to a Guantanamo captive. During the period July 2004 through March 2005 a Combatant Status Review Tribunal was convened to make a determination whether they had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Participation was optional. The Department of Defense reports that 317 of the 558 captives who remained in Guantanamo, in military custody, attended their Tribunals.

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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Ali Mohsen Salih was one of those 169 detainees.^[2]

[edit] Allegations

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban or al Qaida:

The detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight in support of the Jihad.
The detainee received weapons training at al Farouq.
While detainee was training at al Farouq, Usama Bin Laden visited and lectured to the camp.
The detainee joined the Taliban on 11 September 2001.

b. The detainee supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces:

The detainee was a soldier with the Taliban forces on the front lines near Bagram, Afghanistan.

[edit] Testimony

There is no record that Salih chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

[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.

The factors for and against continuing to detain Salih were among the 121 that the Department of Defense released on March 3, 2006.^[3]

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment

The detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight in support of the Jihad.
The detainee stated that he felt anyone who took up arms against Muslims was an enemy of Islam and made no distinction between terrorists and regular Muslims.
In June of 2000, the detainee heard from friends that the Taliban in Afghanistan would provide a home for those who chose to live there. In July of 2000, the detainee departed Qatar and traveled through several countries to get to Afghanistan

b. Connections/Associations

The detainee joined the Taliban on 11 September 2001.
While the detainee was training at al Farouq, Usama Bin Laden visited and lectured to the camp.
The detainee was recognized by a senior al Qaida lieutenant.

c. Other Relevant Data

The detainee stated that he could not judge if the 911 terrorist actions were wrong because he is not an Islamic scholar and said, “The were just following the directions of the scholars”, “That is what we do.”

d. Training

The detainee attended al Qaida’s al Farouq terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and during the month of July 2001, he observed and listened as Usama Bin Laden gave a speech at the camp about the need for jihad.

e Intent

The detainee was a soldier with the Taliban forces on the front lines near Bagram, Afghanistan.
The detainee possessed small notebooks with several pages of phrases hand-written in both French and Arabic languages, as well as drawing of rifles, a cleaver, a spatula, pliers and a glove. Words from one of the pages include “poudre (melange explosif),” “graphite,” “salpetre,” “nitre,” “secret,” and “electrique.”

[edit] The following primary factors favor release or transfer:

The detainee said that he heard from some of his friends that the Taliban, in Afghanistan, would provide a home for those who chose to live there. Ali wanted to move to Afghanistan because he was unhappy with the quality of his life. He also thought he could find a wife more easily there.
The detainee further states that he did not like to fire the Kalishnikov rifle.