User:Geo Swan/gitmo/Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Awda

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'''Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Awda''', also transliterated as '''Fawzi al Odah''', is a [[Kuwait]]i citizen, currently detained in [[Camp Delta]] in [[Guantanamo Bay]]. Al Awda chose to participate in his [[Combatant Status Review Tribunal]]. He gave a detailed, point by point reply to the unclassified allegations against him. There were also some accusations his interrogators kept contronting him with, which were not included in the unclassified allegations, that he chose to address. :''a. Detainee is associated with Al-Qaida and the Taliban.'' :#''In August or early September 2001, Detainee admits traveling through Afghanistan with Taliban members.'' :#''Detainee admits firing an [[AK-47]] at a training camp near Kandahar.'' :#''Detainee admitted staying at a guesthouse with fighters armed with AK-47 rifles.'' :''b. Detainee engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition partners.'' :#''The detainee admits carrying and AK-47 through the Tora Bora mountains for ten to eleven days during the U.S. air campaign in that region.'' :#''Detainee was captured with five other men by Pakistani border guards.'' Al Awda said: #The reason for his trip was charity and religious education. His grandmother was dying of cancer. And she had asked him to seek out deserving people in need. His degree and his day job was Koran education He decided to go to Afghanistan to distribute his grandmother's gift. And he planned to pay visits to schools -- and training camps while there. He admitted having a Taliban escort -- necessary because the Taliban, as de-facto government, were run by the Taliban. He pointed out that representatives of the [[ICRC]] also required Taliban escorts. #He spent approximately six hours at a training camp, for 12 to 14 year old boys. He spent part of that time giving his lecture. He acknowledged being taken to the camp's rifle range, and firing a few rounds, which he argued fell short of any suggestion of military training. He said it was the only time he fired a rifle in his entire life. #He acknowledged being the guest of a hospitable resident of Jalalabad. His host did, intermittently, have two other guests. These guests carried rifles, just as all adult males carried rifles in this lawless country. He said he never talked with them and has no idea if they were members of the Taliban. #He acknowledged carrying a rifle as he tried to make his way to the Pakistan border. Travel was very unsafe. He was asked what he would have done if he had encountered American soldiers. He replied he would have immediately and gratefully surrendered. #He denied travelling with other men. He said he travelled alone, speaking as little as possible, as his accent would have betrayed that he was an Arab, not an Afghani. He denied being captured. He said he surrenedered himself when he got to the border, and reguested access to the Kuwaiti Consulate. *Al Awda said his interrogators kept accusing him of making ties to terrorist organizations during his trips to the United States. He acknowledged travelling to the United States many times, first, as a child, when his father, an officer in the Kuwaiti Air Force was serving as a liaison, and later as an adult. But he denied the accusation that those trips had anything to do with terrorism, or that he had ever had any association with terrorism. The Tribunal's determination was that Al Awda had correctly been classified as an "unlawful combatant". On September 28]], [[2005]], the [[Associated Press]] circulated a story about a visit to the Kuwaiti detainees, from two of their lawyers, [[Tom Wilner]] and [[Kristine Huskey]]. They report that al Awda, and four of his compatriots, were [[hunger strike]]rs, and had lost a dangerous amount of weight. They report that al Awda had been [[force-fed]], and could barely sit up. ==External links== *[http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-odah-case_x.htm Prisoner's father hopes courts find, fix 'big mistake'], [[USA Today]], April 19, 2004 *[http://www.cageprisoners.com/downloads/fouzialawda.pdf documents from] Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Awda's [[Combatant Status Review Tribunal]] *[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/21/AR2005092102402.html Lawyers Visit Detainees on Hunger Strike], [[Washington Post]], September 21, 2005 [[Category:U.S. detainees]]