Mohammed Fenaitel Mohamed Al Daihani

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Mohammed Fenaitel Mohamed Al Daihani is a citizen of Kuwait, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Daihani's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 229. The Department of Defense reports that Al Daihani was born on November 4, 1965, 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 Daihani chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

[edit] allegations

The allegations Al Daihani faced during his Tribunal were:

a. -- The general summary of the allegations that establish an association with terrorism were missing from the transcript. --

1. The detainee worked for the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.
2. The Revival of Islamic Heritage Society appears on the Terrorist Exclusion List of the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security Terrorist Organization Reference Guide.
3. The detainee's name appeared on a hard drive recovered from a suspected al Qaida safe house in Islamabad, Pakistan.
4. The detainee voluntarily traveled from Kuwait to Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Hajj in 2000, where he met Faisal (FNU), an employee of the Sanabal Charitable Committee.
5. The Sanabal Charitable Committee is considered a fund raising front for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
6. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is listed as a terrorist organization in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Terrorist Organization Reference Guide.
7. The Detainee admitted to donating approximately 2,250 dinars to the Sanabal Charitable Committee.
8. The Detainee voluntarily flew from Karachi, Pakistan] on 9 September 2001, where he first joined Faisal and Abdul Hakeem.
9. Abdul Hakeem was identified as an employee of the Sanabal Charitable Committee.
10. Hakeem was also identified as a major recruiter for the LIFG
11. Sometime after 9 September 2001, the Detainee, Faisal and Hakeem traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
12. In December 2001, the Detainee failed at attempts to be smuggled across the Iranian border.
13. The Detainee traveled between Kandahar, Kabul, Heart ^[sic], and Jalalabad, Afghanistan during November/December 2001, before being smuggled into Pakistan, apprehended by Pakistani authorities and turned over to U.S. forces.

[edit] Opening statement

Al Daihani said he was on a two month holiday. He decided to spend the last two weeks of his vacation visiting Afghanistan. He had donated some funds, for digging wells, and he wanted to visit the project, to make sure his money was being used wisely, for the purposes he donated it for. He left Kuwait on September 9, 2001. And wasn't able to leave because, in reaction to the attacks of September 11, 2001, All of Afghanistan's neighbors closed their borders. Travel within Afghanistan was very difficult. He wasn't able to cross into Pakistan until December 15, 2001. He had his passport and other travel documents. The Pakistani authorities he sought help from reassured him that they would take him to the Kuwaiti embassy. Instead they turned him over to the Americans.

Al Daihani said the allegations he faced were new to him. None of his interrogators had ever asked him any questions about these topics.

[edit] Response to the allegations

The caption to this poster, distributed by the CIA in Afghanistan, reads: “You can receive millions of dollars for helping the Anti-Taliban Force catch Al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. This enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

• Al Daihani said that the Society for the Revival of Islamic Heritage was a legitimate charity, recognized by the Kuwaiti government, that sponsored humanitarian projects around the world, even in the USA.
• Al Daihani said he didn't work for the Society. He only donated to it. Furthermore, that donation wasn't recent, it was six years prior to the attacks of 9-11.
• In response to the allegation that his name was found on a hard drive belonging to an al Qaeda suspect, Al Daihani pointed out that the names of the Kuwaiti captives in Guantanamo was a matter of public record. He disputed that his name being found on an al Qaeda suspect's hard drive implied he had any association with al Qaida. He suggested that if his interrogators had seen his name being found on the hard drive was significant, they would have interrogated him about it -- and since they didn't the Tribunal should assume they did not regard it as meaningful.
• Al Daihani acknowledged participating in the Hajj in 2000. He acknowledged meeting a man named Faisal in Mecca, who suggested he donate money to finance the drilling of wells in drought-stricken areas of Afghanistan.
• Al Daihani said that he had believed that the Sanabal Charitable Committee was a legitimate charity, with its main office in London. He had no idea that it had any association with terrorism.
• Al Daihani acknowledged donating money to the Sanabal Charitable Committee, but the amount was $2,250, not 2,250 dinars. $2,250 is worth one third as much as 2,250 dinars.
• Al Daihani acknowledged meeting Faisal and Abdul Hakeem when he arrived in Karachi on September 9, 2001.
• Al Daihani responded to the allegation that Hakeem was a terrorist recruiter by saying he knew Hakeem and Faisal as ordinary people.
• Al Daihani corrected the allegation that he traveled to Afghanistan after September 11th, this was incorrect. In all his interrogations he thought he had made clear he traveled to Afghanistan on September 10, 2001. He had told his interrogators, many times, when they had asked him, that there was no way he would have traveled to Afghanistan after September 11th.
• Al Daihani repeated that he had been trying to escape from Afghanistan ever since September 11.
• Al Daihani said that he was sold to the Americans for a bounty.

Al Daihani's Personal Representative reminded him to tell the Tribunal about his hospital stay. Al Daihani then told the Tribunal that the day he arrived in Afghanistan he came down with a severe case of food poisoning, that kept him in the hospital for three or four days. He called his family from the hospital. And he believes that

"I think the American Intelligence heard my calls to my family or something and they know this. A lot of people who are detained here, some of them, they provided to them their phone calls to their families from Afghanistan. But it wasn't to their advantage. But [it] works to my advantage, these phone calls, because it was me telling my family I was trying to get out of Afghanistan."

[edit] Tribunal member's questions

Unusually, the first question from the Tribunal members was posed first to the Recorder, and then to al Daihani's Personal Representative.

• Al Daihani repeated that none of his interrogators had ever said anything about his name being found on an al Qaida suspect's hard drive.
• The Tribunal member then asked: "They must have asked you at one point about your associations with al Qaida?" -- Al Daihani told his Tribunal that none of his interrogators had ever asked him about al Qaida. He went on:

  "...the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society just once did they ask me, 'Did you donate to it?' I said yes, I donated to it. Even I mentioned this in the papers ^[sic]. They asked me about Kuwaiti organizations; just did I know of [them] in a general sense. Even the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, they didn't ask me about it in great detail. Even if they had asked me about it, I don't know anything specific about it. Only they asked me ^[sic], 'How do you present any project to them?' and I told them how I did it. I signed [up] a contract with the organization in the country they are working in. All official business, you know how it is between nations. When the project [is complete] they just bring me the pictures and everything. That's what I told them.

• Al Dahaini confirmed he was an educated man, with a good job, in Kuwait. He was a government auditor, and had worked as a government auditor since 1989.
• Al Daihani was asked if he was aware, when he traveled to Afghanistan, that Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war. Al Daihani responded:

  "In the Kuwaiti media, some people visited Afghanistan, and they described the situation inside of Afghanistan and the war was in the North of Afghanistan. The situationw was better than before; there was peace in most of the cities in Afghanistan.

• Al Daihani donated enough money to dig five wells. If the projects had been handled by the Revival of Islamic Heritage he wouldn't have felt a need to travel to see the projects in person. The Revival of Islamic Heritage Society handled its projects in a very professional way, with contracts, and installments when they could document that certain stages of the work had been accomplished. He decided to visit in this case because the project to dig wells wasn't being overseen by the Society for the Revival of Islamic Heritage.
• Al Daihani said he was with eight or nine other people when he was captured. He wasn't with Faisal or Abdul Hakeem.
• Al Daihini confirmed his group had hired a local guide to take them through the mountain passes.
• Al Daihani agreed that a small donation like his wasn't sufficient, in and of itself, to justify and inspection visit. The reason he planned an inspection trip was that, if the project had gone well, he was considering sponsoring the drilling of further wells.

[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.

There is no record that Al Daihani participated in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[3] But 61 pages of documents that his lawyers submitted to his Board were released to the public.

[edit] References

1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mohammed Fenaitel Mohamed Al Daihani's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 71-82
3. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Mohammed Fenaitel Mohamed Al Daihani's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 169