Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia

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Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia is a Kuwaiti, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.<^[1] Al Rabia's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 551. ^[2] The Department of Defense reports that he was born on June 24, 1959, in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

[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 Rabia chose to appear before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[3]

[edit] polygraph

Al Rabia had a polygraph administered, although the Tribunals had refused the requests of other detainees to be polygraphed.

[edit] allegations

The allegations Al Rabia faced, during his Tribunal, were:^[4]

a The detainee provided material support to the Taliban and al Qaida.

1. Detainee traveled to Afghanistan in October 2001.
2. Detainee met with Usama Bin Laden on four occasions during July 2001.
3. Detainee delivered money to Usama Bin Laden.
4. Detainee’s name and telephone numbere were found in an address book recovered from the residence where senior al Qaida operative Khalid Shaykh Muhammad ^[sic] was captured.
5. Detainee provided coordination and logistical support to Taliban fighters in Tora Bora.
6. Detainee was present at an al Qaida meeting in the Tora Bora mountains in which the topics discussed included the distribution of SAM-7s and other anti-aircraft weapons.
7. Detainee was an operator for the Al-Wafa NGO and likely transferred large sums of money through a front company.

[edit] testimony

Al Rabia offered his testimony in English.

Al Rabia introduced himself to the Tribunal. He said he was a 45 year old married man, with four children who had worked for Kuwaiti Airways for thirty-four years. He works for the airline as an engineer, and also has a Masters of Business Administration. He is also the part owner and manager of a health club in Kuwait. In addition he does some volunteer work.

[edit] four meetings with Bin Laden

Al Rabia first traveled to Afghanistan on June 1, 2001.

Al Rabia described how one of the patrons of his health club, named Abu Suliyman, convinced him he should travel to Afghanistan, to see for himself the magnitude of the famine and refugee problems. Suliyman was going to make the travel arrangements. He was to travel with a distinguished scholar named Abu Muldah.

The purpose of his visit was to meet with public health officials. Abu Muldah was planning to meet with Bin Laden, because he was worried he might be a false prophet. When Al Rabia's appointments were all finished during his first two days he was free to join Abu Muldah during his meeting with Bin Laden.

When they got close to the border the contact who had met them at the airport told them they looked too rich, and should surrender to him everything that showed they were rich men, and ride in to Afghanistan on the back of motorbikes.

Al Rabia remembered some of the question Abu Muldah had asked Bin Laden. In answer to a question about whether Bin Laden approved of killing innocent people, Bin Laden replied that he had not ordered the bombing of the African embassies, but he was not disappointed.

Al Rabia described the other occasions he was in the same room as Bin Laden - two banquets with many guests, and a brief courtesy farewell visit.

Al Rabia decided he would coordinate aid for the refugees from Afghanistan. But he decided that he would avoid all contact with Abu Suliyman, Bin Laden or any of their associates, because he and Abu Muldah were not impressed by Bin Laden's answers.

[edit] Computerized Voice Stress Analysis tests

Al Rabia made frequent reference to the positive results from his CVSA, which he believed were further confirmation, over and above his polygraph tests, confirming that his story was truthful.^[5]

His dossier also contains a series of three e-mails, from unnamed officers to David L. Taylor, a senior administrator in the Office of Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants about the use of computerized voice stress analysis tests.^[6] Those memos explain that Stephen Cambone, the Deputy Secretary of Defense responsible for intelligence, had directed that the CVSA were not reliable. CVSA were to be administered only as a prop. Officers were directed not to request copies of the CVSA tests administered, in order to keep unreliable tests from confusing the permanent record.

[edit] March 4th 2005 Summary of Al Rabia's role

Joint Task Force: Guantanamo published a six page summary of the intelligence it claimed it had gained from the detainees, on March 4, 2005.^[7] A paragraph of that summary, in the Financial Issues section, reads:

"Another detainee claims to have traveled to Cambodia to assist with relief efforts at an unidentified orphanage on the behalf of an Islamic organization. By his own admission, this detainee met UBL as many as four times during July 2001 and is believed to have substantial ties to al-Qaida. He was approached by an al-Qaida leader to straighten out logistics and supply problems that al-Qaida was experiencing in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan."

[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 Rabia chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[8]

[edit] References

1. ^ Sketches of Guantanamo Detainees-Part II, The Guardian, March 15, 2006
2. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
3. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf) from Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, pages 13-43
4. ^ Summary of Evidence (.pdf) from Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, page 47
5. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf) from page 26 of Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia's Combatant Status Review Tribunal
6. ^ Re: CSRT using CVSA results (.pdf) from page 55 of Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia's Combatant Status Review Tribunal
7. ^ JTF-GTMO Information on Detainees, Department of Defense, March 4, 2005
8. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Fouad Mahoud Hasan Al Rabia's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 115