Sabri Mohammed Ebrahim Al Qurashi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sabri Mohammed Ebrahim Al Qurashi is held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1]

Al Qurashi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 570.^[2] American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Qurashi was born in 1970, in Hudaydah, Yemen.

1 Press reports
2 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
- 2.1 Allegations
3 Administrative Review Board hearing
- 3.1 The following factors favor continued detention:
- 3.2 The following primary factors favor release or transfer:
4 References

[edit] Press reports

Al Qurashi is notable because Reuters reported that his dossier, from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal contained the allegation that he was associated with terrorism because he was wearing a Casio F91W watch.^[1] Approximately one dozen of the Guantanamo detainees remain in detention because they were wearing a watch that U.S. intelligence officials identified as a Casio F91W, a watch that terrorists have used to help build time-bombs.

The BBC quoted from Al Qurashi's transcript: "All I know about the watch is that it is a Casio... I know it has a compass. When we pray we have to face Mecca"^[3]

The Casio F91W does not have a compass.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Casio F91W, in daily alarm mode. The watch is currently set to ring an alarm, and flash its light, at 7:30am.

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 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 Tribunal. 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. Sabri Mohammed Ebrahim Al Qurashi was one of those 169 detainees.^[4]

[edit] Allegations

a. The detainee is a member of the Taliban.

The detainee traveled from Yemen to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan in September 2000.
The detainee received training at al Farouq training camp for over a year.
The detainee received training on the Kalishnikov ^[sic] rifle and the PK while at al Farouq.
The detainee was in Afghanistan in December 2001, when the U.S. bombing campaign began.
The detainee stayed at a safehouse, Pakistan.
The detainee was arrested with a Casio watch.
The Casio watch, which was commonly given to al Farouq attendees, indicates that the detainee most likely went through the course voluntarily.
The detainee was captured by Pakistani authoriites in a raid on a safehouse in Pakistan in February 2002.

[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 Qurashi chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[5]

[edit] The following factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment

The detainee traveled to Pakistan to purchase perfume for later resale, and to fulfill his religious Dawa.
The detainee traveled from Sanaa, Yemen to Karachi, Pakistan; then on to Quetta, Pakistan; Spin Boldok ^[sic], Afghanistan and Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The detainee arrived in Afghanistan with $3,000.
A senior al Qaida lieutenant recognized the detainee in a photograph. He saw the detainee in 2001 at a guesthouse on the frontlines in Afghanistan.
The detainee was identified as a mujahideen fighter.
After Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance, the detainee joined a group of about 100 Arabs in the mountain regions. More than half were armed with Kalashnikov weapons, and they were led by Abu Muhammad Al Musri ^[sic].

b. Training:

The detainee trained at the al-Farouq military training camp. He identified Abu Muhammad al Musri as the leader of the camp.
The detainee stated he spent about three days learning to disassemble the Kalashnikov, and then trained on a different type of weapon identified as a PK.
The detainee stayed at the al-Farouq camp for a total of about 45 days.

c. Connections/Associations:

Abu Khaloud offered to assist the detainee with travel arrangements, but was unable to complete them due to the heightened state of alert in Pakistan.
Abu Khaloud has been identified as the manager for the Al Ansa guesthouse. He arranged for individuals to go train at the al-Farouq camp.

d. Other Relevant Data:

The detainee stated that when he was arrested all of his property was taken from him, including his casio ^[sic] watch.
The Casio ^[sic] digital watch was given to al-Farouq attendees.
The Casio watch model F-91 has been used in bombings that have been linked to al Qaida and radical Islamic terrorist improvised explosive devices.
On 7 February 2002, the Pakistanis raided a Karachi statehouse ^[sic] and captured the detainee and approximately 15 other individuals.

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

a. The detainee stated he did not receive any weapons, explosives or terrorist training while at al-Farouq.

b. The detainee stated he did not know al-Farouq was an al Qaida training center until he later reached Karachi.

c. The detainee adamantly denies being at al-Farouq.

d. The detainee stated he learned details about the al-Farouq camp from Khalid Dossieri, a Saudi who was staying at a guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan.

e. The detainee claimed the Pakistani authorities fed him the details he provided about the camp.