Abdul Al Saleh

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Abdul Al Saleh is a citizen of Yemen held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 91. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1979, in Muqela, Yemen.

Contents

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal notice read to a Guantanamo captive.
Combatant Status Review Tribunal notice read to a Guantanamo captive.

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 -- 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.

[edit] Allegations

During the winter and spring of 2005 the Department of Defense complied with a Freedom of Information Act request, and released five files that contained 507 memoranda which each summarized the allegations against a single detainee. These memos, entitled "Summary of Evidence" were prepared for the detainee's Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's names and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of these memos, when they were first released in 2005. But some of them contain notations in pen. 169 of the memos bear a hand-written notation specifying the detainee's ID number. One of the memos had a notation specifying Abdul Al Saleh's detainee ID[2]

The allegations Al Saleh would have faced, during his Tribunal, were:

a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban:
  1. The detainee states that he answered a fatwah telling young men to go to Afghanistan and fight with the Taliban.
  2. The detainee traveled from Yemen to a Taliban office in Quetta, Pakistan and then to the School for the Jihad in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
b. The detainee participated in military operations against the United States or its coalition partners:
  1. The detainee traveled with other fighters from Kandahar to Konduz and then on to the front line at Khogajar, Afghanistan.
  2. The detainee fought on the front line at Khogajar against the Northern Alliance.
  3. The detainee was in northern Afghanistan, at Tejek, fighting with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance.
  4. The detainee stated that the men he fought with were issued Kalishnikov [sic] rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG's) [sic] PK machine guns and hand grenades.
  5. The detainee surrendered to the Northern Alliance near Mazir-E-Sharif [sic] .
  6. The detainee was present and wounded during the Qalai Janghi [sic] prison riot at Mazir-E-Sharif [sic] .
  7. The detainee was eventually arrested by United States forces at the Qalai Janghi Castle [sic] .

[edit] Transcript

There is no record that Al Saleh chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

[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.

The factors for and against continuing to detain Al Saleh were among the 121 that the Department of Defense released on March 3, 2006.[3]

[edit] The following primary factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment
  1. The detainee states that he answered a fatwa telling young men to go to Afghanistan and fight with the Taliban.
  2. The detainee traveled from Yemen to a Taliban office in Quetta, Pakistan and then to the School for the Jihad in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
  3. The detainee admitted that he was a fighter with the Taliban and not a guard as he initially stated.
  4. The detainee fought on the frontline at Khogajar against the Northern Alliance.
b. Training
  1. The detainee stated he did not receive any military training in Afghanistan, since he had received approximately six months weapons training while in the Yemeni military.
  2. According to the detainee, weapons training with the Yemeni National Police was limited to firing six rounds on a Kalishnikov [sic] .
  3. The detainee received training at a well known al Qaida training camp.
c. Connections
  1. One of the detainee's known aliases was on a list of captured documents recovered from suspected al Qaida safehouse raids.
  2. The detainee was assigned to unit that reported to Abdel Salaam Al Hadramy.
  3. Abd Al-Salaam Al-(Hadrami) was in charge of the Arab fighters who served on the defensive line and was the second in command for all Arab fighters who served in the defensive positions north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
  4. Abd Al-Salaam Al-(Hadrami) is a Yemeni al Qaida member.
d. Intent
  1. The detainee was in northern Afghanistan, at Tejek, fighting with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance.
  2. The detainee stated that the men he fought with were issued Kalishnikov [sic] rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG's), PK machine guns and hand grenades.
e. Other Relevant Data
  1. The detainee surrendered at Mazir-e-Sharif [sic] and was taken to Qalai Janghi [sic] Prison.
  2. The detainee was present and wounded during the Qalai Janghi prison riot at Mazir-e-Sharif [sic] .
  3. The detainee was eventually arrested by United States forces at the Qalai Janghi Castle [sic] .

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

a. The detainee denied knowing any al Qaida and said he never fought against any Americans.
b. The detainee feels that the Taliban cheated him because he was fighting the Northern Alliance which was not a cause that he believed in therefore, it was not really a jihad for him.
c. If released, the detainee plans to go back to Yemen and get married. He will disregard anyone who suggests that he fight jihad. He feels that it was a stupid idea to follow the fatwa.

[edit] References

  1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
  2. ^ Summary of Evidence memo (.pdf) prepared for Abdul Al Saleh's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - October 6, 2004 - page 224
  3. ^ Factors for and against the continued detention (.pdf) of Abdul Al Saleh Administrative Review Board - May 2, 2005 - pages 61-63