| Saed Khatem Al Malki | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1969 (age 42–43) Mecca, Saudi Arabia |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| Alternate name | Saed Farhan Ai Maliki |
| ISN | 157 |
| Charge(s) | No charge (extrajudicial detention) |
| Status | Repatriated |
Saed Khatem Al Malki (Arabic: سيد خاتم المالكي) is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 157. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate that Al Malki was born in 1969, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
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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.
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Saed Khatem Al Malki's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on 27 September 2004.[5] The memo listed the following allegations against him:
- a. The detainee is an al Qaida fighter:
- In the year 2000 the detainee reportedly traveled from Yemen to Afghanistan.
- The detaiene reportedly received training at the al-Farouq training camp.
- b. The detainee engaged in hostilities:
- In April 2001 the detainee reportedly returned to Afghanistan.
- The detainee reportedly went to the front lines in Kabul.
Al Malki chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[6]
Saed Farhan Al-Maliki had a writ of habeas corpus filed on its behalf, Saed Farhan Al-Maliki v. George W. Bush.[7] The United States Department of Defense published dossiers of the unclassified documents arising from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of 179 captives who had habeas petitions filed on their behalf.[8] But the Department withheld Al-Maliki's documents.
The Department has not explained why they withheld Al-Maliki's documents.
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.
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Saed Khatem Al Malki's Administrative Review Board, on 24 August 2005.[10] The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.
The following primary factors favor continued detention
- The detainee worked as a security officer for a firm called the Hajj Mawsem where he earned 4,600 Saudi Riyals per month.
- The detainee agreed to help distribute aid, (food, clothing, etc.) in Afghanistan at the request of Sheik Al-Shaykh. Sheik Al-Shaykh was the senior sheik of the Masjid Al Harem Mosque, which is a large mosque near Kaaba, Saudi Arabia.
- Sheik al Shaykh 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.
- The purpose of the Al Birr organization was the help poor Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other countries.
- The detainee left Saudi Arabia sometime around January 2001.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The detainee claims he traveled for approximately eight months distributing supplies with Al Nashiri, whom he referred to as the "money man".
- The detainee was arrested in Pakistan around December 12–17, 2001, while on his way to reenter Afghanistan with aid supplies.
- b. Training
- The detainee attended a mountain tactics class.
- The mountain tactics course was a seven-week course held at the Faruq training camp, which covered guerilla warfare in mountainous terrain.
- The Al Faruq 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
- 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 receive a salary.
- The detainee has always maintained that he was in possession of a letter for 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The Deruntah training camp has a poisons course that lasts approximately two weeks and teaches students how to poison food and drinks.
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.
Al Malki chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[11] In the spring of 2006, in response to a court order, the Department of Defense published a fifteen page summarized transcript of his Board hearing.
Al Malki was repatriated to Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2006 with 14 other men.[12][13]
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