Salman Ebrahim Mohamed Ali Al Khalifa

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Sheikh Salman Ebrahim Mohamed Ali Al Khalifa is a citizen of Bahrain, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.[1] Al Khalifa's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 246. The Department of Defense reports that Al Khalifa was born on July 24, 1979, in Rifah, Bahrain. He is a member of the Al Khalifa royal family of Bahrain, related to King Hamad.

Al Khalifa, like the other Bahrainis held in Guantanamo, has Joshua Colangelo-Bryan as his lawyer.

The Gulf Daily News announced on November 5, 2005, that Salman had been released, and was one of three Bahraini detainees on their way home.[1]

Contents

[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.
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 Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants—they were only empowered to make a recommendation as to whether a captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Al Khalifa chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[2]

[edit] Al Khalifa's statement

Most Tribunal transcripts recorded the allegations against the detainee, as they were read out. Most Tribunal transcripts recorded the questions posed to the detainee.

Al Khalifa’s transcript contains a statement Al Khalifa dictated. Although Al Khalifa attended his Tribunal his transcript does not record any questions posed to him, or the allegations against him.

Al Khalifa said, in his statement, that he was not part of the Taliban or al Qaida.

Al Khalifa acknowledged traveling to a series of countries. But he had legitimate travel documents for all of them.

Al Khalifa’s statement addressed an allegation that he was a protégé of someone named Abu Had Qualid. He acknowledged having a mentor, who encouraged him to extend a visit from Pakistan, to Afghanistan. But his name was not Abu Had Qualid.

Al Khalifa’s statement says he was captured in Pakistan, and that he had a legitimate student visa for Pakistan.

Al Khalifa’s statement acknowledged that he had given someone some money. Al Khalifa’s statement said it was a charitable donation, to help orphans and the poor.

Al Khalifa’s statement said he was captured in Pakistan, where he was living in a foreign student’s residence.

United States and Pakistani counter-terrorism forces conducted a raid on the foreign student’s residence at Salafi University on September 11, 2002, where they captured several dozen occupants. From his transcript it is cannot be determined whether Al Khalifa was captured in this raid.

[edit] Joshua Colangelo-Bryan's letter to the Administrative Review Board

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 if a detainee continued to pose a threat and should remain in the custody of the United States, or whether the detainee could safely be repatriated to the custody of their home country or set free.

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, Al Khalifa's lawyer, sent a letter to the legal advisor for the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants (OARDEC) on January 19, 2005.[3] This letter bears marginal notations, presumably from someone in the OARDEC, that indicate that Al Khalifa's Combatant Status Review Tribunal had been held on December 9, 2004.

Colangelo-Bryan's letter clarified when Al-Khalifa traveled to Afghanistan:

Therefore, even assuming, for argument’s sake, that the allegations in the unclassified summary are true, Mr. Al-Kalifa would have done little more than travel to Afghanistan to study with a scholar prior to the onset of hostilities between the United States and the Taliban.

Colangelo-Bryan's letter contained many redactions. One heavily redacted paragraph states:

With respect to intelligence value, the classified CSRT records contain nothing but the most rank speculation and vague innuendo. ###################### ############# ############ ############ ############### ############## ############ ####### ########### ########## ############## ############# ############# ############ ############ ############# ############# ############ ########### ############ ############ ############ ############### ############## ################ ################ ############# ############# ############ ############ ######### ############# Indeed, to find Mr. Al-Khalifa’s detention is warranted based on supposition of this sort would render meaningless the standards enunciated in the Memorandum, especially considering that Mr. Al-Khalifa has already been interrogated countless times.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  2. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Sheikh Salman Ebrahim Mohamed Ali Al Khalifa's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 1-2
  3. ^ Summarized transcript (.pdf), from Sheikh Salman Ebrahim Mohamed Ali Al Khalifa's Administrative Review Board hearing - page 80

[edit] External links

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