Saed Khatem Al Malki

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Saed Khatem Al Malki is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Malki's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 157. American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Malki was born in 1969, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Identity

Al Malki's name is spelled differently on two official lists:

• His name was spelled Saed Khatem Al Malki on the list the Department of Defense released on May 15, 2006.^[1]
• His name was spelled Saad Farhan Khatem Al-Malki on the Saudi press release that announced his repatriation on May 19, 2006.^[2]

[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 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. Saed Khatem Al Malki was one of those 169 detainees.^[3]

[edit] Allegations

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida:

1. The detainee traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan via Syria prior to 11 September 2001.
2. The detainee was identified as having trained in mountain tactics at the al Qaida training facility in Al Farouq.
3. The detainee has given conflicting statements as to the nature of his involvement with the Al Birr Foundation, his stated reason for travel to Afghanistan.
4. The detainee has given conflicting statements on the basic details of his family life in Saudi Arabia.
5. The detainee was apprehended by Pakistani forces while attempting to cross the border from Afghanistan, without documentation.

[edit] Transcript

Al Malki chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[4][5]

[edit] Witnesses

Al Malki initially requested several witnesses. He requested the detainee who had falsely identified him as having attended the Al Farouq training camp. Al Malki thought he could clarify that this detainee was mistaken, or otherwise offered a false allegation to his interrogators. The Tribunal's President had ruled this detainee to be "not reasonably available" -- because Al Malki had not given his name. Al Malki responded he did not know his name, but his name should have been in his file.

The other witness he had requested was his mother, who could have confirmed that he had traveled to Afghanistan solely for humanitarian purposes. He had requested permission to talk to her by telephone, and have her statement taken from a transcript of the telephone call. This request was refused. He was told that Saudi authorities would take a written statement from her. Al Malki said that when he heard this he decided to withdraw his request, because his mother was elderly, and he was afraid that Saudi authorities would haul her down to the Police Station to interrogate her, and he was afraid they would frighten her and she would find the experience too stressful.

[edit] Al Malki's response to the allegations

As the unclassified allegations were read aloud Al Malki and his Personal Representative responded to each in turn:

• Al Malki acknowledged that he traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan prior to 11 September 2001.
• Al Malki denied attending the Al Farouq training camp.
• Al Malki asked for clarification on which of his statements were in conflict. He said that he had always answered his interrogators as fully and completely as he could. He suggested that this apparent conflicts may have been due to the number of interrogators he had. He suggested that one may have asked about his job, and learned about one aspect, while another may have learned about another aspect -- both aspects being true -- without realizing that there was no conflict.
• Al Malki clarified that he was not apprehended by Pakistani forces while attempting to cross the border. He voluntarily sought out the first police station he could, to ask for help, once he had crossed the border. He said, once he had been bound, a policeman relished the price he would fetch.

[edit] Al Malki's testimony on his own behalf

Al Malki retired from the Saudi Police with savings of 100,000 Saudi Riyals (approximately $2-300,000). He planned to go into the used car business. He found he had free time on his hands, so he decided to travel. A friend named Hassan suggested he travel to do charitable work. Two religious leaders, Sheik Abdul Aziz Al Sheik and Sheik Allehidan endorsed the suggestion of doing charitable work. When he traveled to Iran he met another man named Hassan, who was already doing the kind of charitable work he had in mind. The two of them worked together buying food and clothes in bulk, and then traveling to Afghanistan to distribute them to refugees in Afghanistan. When they heard of the terrorist attacks in America they decided to leave Afghanistan and work distributing aid to refugees who made it across the Afghan/Pakistani border. The two of them did this for several months. Then Al Malki's passport and money were stolen from a mosque where he had left them for safekeeping. So he sought out a Police station, where he thought he would be helped. Instead he was arrested, and transferred to American custody.

[edit] Al Malki's answers to the Tribunals officer's questions

In answer to the Tribunal officer's questions:

• Al Malki confirmed he had his passport authenticated and stamped every time he crossed a border.
• Al Malki clarified he never officially worked for the Al Birr Foundation. He thought Hassan worked for Al Birr.
• Al Malki confirmed that he never saw his traveling companion Hassan engage in anything other than charitable work.
• Al Malki confirmed he never visited Al Farouq, and didn't even know where it was.
• Al Malki and his companion Hassan left Afghanistan before the bombing started.

[edit] Al Malki's final statement

Al Malki reminded the Tribunal that he traveled to Afghanistan prior to the attacks of 9-11. His nation, Saudi Arabia, had full diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Travel to Afghanistan was completely legal at that time.

Al Malki told his Tribunal he did not support Islamic fundamentalism. He told the Tribunal that he had been a completely compliant detainee. He told them that there had been half a dozen occasions when he found nails, pens, and discarded pieces of metal, which could have been turned into improvised weapons. He told his Tribunal that he secured these objects and promptly turned them over to camp guards.

Al Malki expressed his concern that his dossier contained material that really belonged in another detainees file. He had been shown that his dossier contained pictures of currency, a watch, calculator, none of which had belonged to him. He described being tested with Computerized Voice Stress Analysis, where he was required to read for twenty minutes, to form a baseline. The technicians didn't have anything for him to read, so they had him read a letter from his dossier. When he started to read the letter he recognized that it didn't belong in his dossier. He told his interrogators, who gave him another document to read, but returned the letter to his dossier.

Al Malki wanted his Tribunal to know that he condemned the attacks of 9-11. He wanted them to know he understood that the USA had a responsibility to hunt and imprison the perpetrators, and those who had aided them.

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

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

1. The detainee worked as a security officer for a firm called the Hajj Mawsem where he earned 4,600 Saudi Riyals per month.
2. The detainee agreed to help distribute aid, (food, clothing, etc.) in Afghanistan at the request of Sheik Al-Shaykh ^[sic]. Sheik Al-Shaykh ^[sic] was the senior sheik of the Masjid Al Harem Mosque, which is a large mosque near Kaba, Saudi Arabia.
3. Sheik al Shaykh ^[sic] suggested that the detainee work for the Al Birr Foundation. A man named Hassan Al Nashiri, a fellow student with the detainee, asked him to help distribute goods to poor Muslims.
4. The purpose of the Al Birr organization was the help ^[sic] poor Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other countries.
5. The detainee left Saudi Arabia sometime around January 2001.
6. The detainee and Nashiri flew Saudi airlines from Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, to Damascus, Syria, then a Syrian airline to Mashhad, Iran, where they stayed for two months.
7. The detainee and Nashiri spent two months in Herat, Afghanistan, and in addiiton to food and clothing, they also bought books and tapes regarding Islam. Traveling through Afghanistan, the men stayed in various mosques, but provided no details on the mosques, sheiks, guides or names of villages.
8. The detainee and Nashiri also travled to Spin Buldak, Afghanisan, then on to Quetta, Pakistan. They said they traveled to Pakistan to obtain better quality of goods to distribute. Several trips were made between Spin Buldak and Quetta.
9. The detainee claims he traveled for approximately eight months distributing supplies with Al Nashiri, whom he referred to as the "money man".
10. The detainee was arrested in Pakistan around December 12-17, 2001, while on his way to reenter Afghanistan with aid supplies.

b. Training

1. The detainee attended a mountan tactics class.
2. The mountain tactics course was a seven-week course held at the Faruq ^[sic] training camp, which covered guerilla warfare in mountainous terrain.
3. The Al Faruq ^[sic] camp provided a general program that consisted of a fundamental or basic course lasting 40 days. The course provided trainees with fundamental military skills in light and heavy weaponry, field guns, warheads, topography and explosives.

c. Other relevant data

1. The detainee was unable to provide any names of individuals who were connected to the Al Birr Foundation. He stated there was no need for him to register with the foundation because he was not going to recieve a salary.
2. The detainee has always maintained that he was in possession of a letter for ^[sic] the Al Birr Foundation that explained the purpose of his work in Afghanistan. However, he was unable to explain how he obtained the letter from the foundation if he never registered there.
3. The detainee had his passport and other documents stolen. After hearing about the detainee's loss, an unknown guide gave him 1,000 Rupees and took him to a bus headed to Peshawar, Pakistan.
4. The detainee has provided four different versions of his personal history and how he came to be detained. During initial screening, he first stated the non-governmental organization was Yemeni based, and then later said it was Saudi based.
5. The detainee told agents he was divorced four or five years ago. However, he could not, or would not, explain how his divorce, five years previous seemed to contradict the ages of his children.
6. The detainee told agents, after his divorce, he got a job selling cars. He said he sold only one car for his uncle, but he did not know how much it sold for because his uncle set up the deal.
7. A passport from Iraq, with one of the detainee's aliases, Ahmad Muhammad Salih, was recovered from the master bedroom of a suspected al Qaida operative's house.
8. The detainee may have been involved in a November 1995 bomb attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad. He then escaped to the Shamshad and Deruntah camps in Afghanistan the day of the attack.
9. The Deruntah training camp has a poisons course that lasts approximately two weeks and teaches students how to poison food and drinks.

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

• The detainee claims he had no association with Taliban or al Qaida forces and he denies having any knowledge of the attacks in the United States prior to their execution on September 11th. Additionally, he denies any knowledge of any rumors or plans of future attacks on the United States or its interests.
• The detainee had no concern about the doings or whereabouts of al Qaida or the Taliban, and stated that he doesn't feel members of those organizations are Muslim at all due to their actions against others.
• The detainee stated that although he feels a great injustice has been done and is being to him by his detainment here at GTMI, he would still never take up arms against anyone, and would never want to leave Saudi Arabia to try and help other out of his country.

[edit] Response to the factors

[edit] Response to Board questions

[edit] Repatriation

Al Malki was repatriated to Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2006 with 14 other men.^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ ^{a b} Saudi detainees at Guantanamo returned to the Kingdom; names given. Royal Saudi Embassy, Washington (May 19, 2006). Retrieved on March 22, 2007.
3. ^ Summary of Evidence memo (.pdf) prepared for Saed Khatem Al Malki's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - September 27, 2004 - page 269
4. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Saed Khatem Al Malki's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 150-160
5. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Saed Khatem Al Malki's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 68-78 - for unknown reasons the DoD issued an updated versions of some of its files, and one new version contained a duplicate of Al Malki's transcript.
6. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Saed Khatem Al Malki's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 180