Abdulla Majid Al Naimi
Abdulla Majid Al Naimi | |
---|---|
Born | Manama, Bahrain | March 9, 1982
Arrested | November 2001 Pakistan Pakistani authorities |
Released | 5 November 2005 Bahrain |
Detained at | Guantanamo |
Other name(s) | Abdullah al Noaimi Abdullah Majed Sayyah Hasan Alnoaimi |
ISN | 159 |
Charge(s) | No charge (held in extrajudicial detention) |
Status | Repatriated, then arrested, and held without charge on a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008. |
Abdulla Majid Al Naimi (also transliterated as Abdullah al Noaimi) (born March 9, 1982 in Manama, Bahrain), is a Bahraini, formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[1]
Arrest
Al Naimi has stated that he was abducted by Pashtun tribesmen in Afghanistan in late 2001, and then handed over to the Pakistani authorities in return for a cash reward. After being moved around for a while he eventually arrived at a prison at Kohat. After several more weeks he was transferred to American custody and flown to Guantanamo Bay.[2]
Inconsistent identification
Abdulla Majid Al Naimi was identified inconsistently on official Department of Defense documents:
- He was identified as Abdullah al Noaimi on the official list of captives' names published on May 15, 2006.[1]
- He was identified as Abdullah Majed Sayyah Hasan Alnoaimi on the official list of captives whose habeas corpus petitions should be dismissed following their transfer from US custody.[3]
Press reports transliterate his name as "Abdullah Al Nuaimi".[4] Template:CSRT-No
a. The detainee is a Taliban fighter:
- The detainee is a Bahrain citizen who admitted he traveled from Bahrain through Meshad [sic], Iran to Afghanistan on September 13, 2001.
- Detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban and die in Jihad.
- Detainee knew he would be fighting the Northern Alliance and the United States.
- Upon arriving in Afghanistan detainee requested and received directions from a Taliban representative to an office/guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan.
- At the Taliban office, the detainee introduced himself and told the Taliban representative that he had come to fight.
- After November 2001 the detainee, along with four other Arabs and two Afghanis, were guided to the Pakistani border where he was arrested by Pakistan border guards, taken to jail, and later turned over to United States forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
— Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal[5]
Witness statements
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
The documents the Department of Defense released include two statements, both dated November 11, 2004.[6]
One statement was from Mohammed Salman Al-Khalifa, a cousin of Salman Al Khalifa, a member of the Bahrain royal family. It states since Abdullah Al Noaimi was a childhood friend of Salman Al Khalifa he was asked to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan to look for him, when he went missing, in August 2001.
The other statement is from Mohamad Suleiman Alkaleifa, a childhood friend who testified to his good character, and lack of interest in politics.
If his Board considered these witness statements then it was redacted from their recommendations.[citation needed]
Abdullah Al Noaimi v. George Walker Bush
A writ of habeas corpus was submitted on Abdullah Al Noaimi's behalf.[7] The Department of Defense released a dossier of 24 pages of documents arising from his CSR Tribunal on December 9, 2004.
Administrative Review Board
Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.[8]
Summary of Evidence memo
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Abdullah Al Noaimi's Administrative Review Board, on July 1, 2005.[9] The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.
There is no record that Al Noaimi participated in his Board hearing.
Board recommendations
In early September 2007, the Department of Defense released two heavily redacted memos, from his Board, to Gordon J. England, the Designated Civilian Official.[10][11] The Board's recommendation was unanimous. The Board's recommendation was redacted. England authorized his transfer on October 4, 2005.
Release
Represented by attorney Joshua Colangelo-Bryan,[12] Al-Naimi was one of three Bahraini detainees released and sent back to Bahrain in November 2005.[13]
Bahraini Member of Parliament Mohammed Khalid had called for the Bahrain government to provide financial compensation to the released men.[14]
Comments on the June 10, 2006 suicides
The deaths of three detainees were announced on June 10, 2006. Al Naimi knew the three men, and commented on their deaths on June 25, 2006.[15] Al Naimi said that Mani Al-Utaybi and Ali Abdullah Ahmed were captured while studying in Pakistan. He said that they were interrogated for only a brief time after their arrival in Guantanamo, and their interrogators had told them they were not regarded as a threat, and that they could expect to be released.
The interrogations dealt with them only during the first month of their detention. For more than a year before I left Guantanamo in November 2005, they were left alone. But they were still held in bad conditions in the camp by the guards.
Al Naimi also said that the third dead man, Yasser Talal Al Zahrani, was only 16 when he was captured, and should have been treated as a minor.[15]
He was 21 when he died, barely the legal age in most countries, and was merely 16 when he was picked up four and half years ago. His age shows that he is not even supposed to be taken to a police office; he should have been turned over to the underage [juvenile] authorities.
Saudi arrest
![A young boy holds up a sign that has a photograph of Abdulla Majed Al Noaimi raising another board in one of his Human Rights protests.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/%D8%B3%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86_%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%88_%D9%85%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%85%D8%A9.png/220px-%D8%B3%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86_%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%88_%D9%85%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%85%D8%A9.png)
The Gulf Daily News reported that Al Naimi had been arrested in Saudi Arabia in late October 2008.[16] Bahraini Member of Parliament Mohammed Khalid expressed dismay at the arrest of a third Bahraini citizen by Saudi authorities, and said that the Saudis had not offered a formal justification for his arrest.
In late November 2008, another Bahraini in extrajudicial detention in Saudi Arabia, Khalil Janahi, was reported to have been repatriated.[17][18] Mohammed Janahi described Khalid Janahi's repatriation as a hopeful development for Al Naimi, and two other Bahrainis in extrajudicial detention in Saudi Arabia - Abdulraheem Al Murbati, and Hassan Al Yabis. Al Naimi and the other men remained held by Saudi Arabia in April 2009.[19]
On August 2, 2010, Newsblaze reported on an incident where Bahraini police had been recorded beating a Saudi citizen.[4] Newsblaze speculated that Saudi officials had not complained about the incident because Saudi Arabia did not want to explain its detention of Naomi, Khalil Janahi, and Abdurrahim Al Murbati.
Al Noaimi was eventually released by the Saudis without charge and returned to Bahrain on April 21, 2016.[citation needed]
Pentagon claim he had "returned to the fight"
A 2009 article in the New York Times claimed that a Pentagon report "confirmed" that Al Noaimi had "returned to the fight" and had engaged in terrorist activity after his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2005.[20][21] They later critiqued their own handling of the information.[22]
References
- ^ a b OARDEC (May 15, 2006). "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 30, 2007. Retrieved September 29, 2007.
- ^ Griswold, Eliza (September 2006). "American Gulag: Prisoners' Tales from the War on Terror". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved September 4, 2019 – via Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas at UC Davis.
- ^ "Exhibit C: List of No Longer Enemy Combant Detainees With Pending Habeas Corpus Petitions Who Have Been Released From United States Custody" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. April 17, 2007. p. 64. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2009. Retrieved May 5, 2008.
- ^ a b
Brij Sharma (August 2, 2010). "TV Clip Creates No Clouds Over Bahrain-Saudi Ties". NewsBlaze. Archived from the original on September 17, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2010.
The Saudi silence may also have been prompted by several other reasons. For one, the incident could be termed as minor even if ugly considering that Bahraini Abdurrahim Al Murbati, brother of former Guantanamo prisoner Issa Al Murbati, has been held in Saudi Arabia since 2003 and lately even his family has not been allowed to see him. And Bahrainis Khalil Janahi and Abdullah Al Nuaimi, a former Guantanamo inmate, are also in Saudi jails for a number of years. Since repeated attempts by human rights campaigners and the Bahrain government have failed to elicit a satisfactory response from the Saudi authorities, the clip of the drunken Saudi getting a rap on his knuckles looks more like a blip.
- ^ OARDEC (September 2, 2004). "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- Al Noaimi, Abdullah" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. p. 61. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2007.
- ^ OARDEC (November 11, 2004). "Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings of ISN" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 172–174. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007.
- ^ OARDEC (9 December 2004). "Abdullah Al Noaimi v. George Walker Bush" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 1–24. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007.
- ^ "Annual Administrative Review Boards for Enemy Combatants Held at Guantanamo Attributable to Senior Defense Officials". U.S. Department of Defense. March 6, 2007. Archived from the original on February 28, 2010. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
- ^ OARDEC (July 1, 2005). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Al Noaimi, Abdullah" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 85–86. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007.
- ^ OARDEC (October 4, 2005). "Administrative Review Board assessment and recommendation ICO ISN 159" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. p. 38. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007.
- ^ OARDEC (July 26, 2005). "Classified Record of Proceedings and basis of Administrative Review Board recommendation for ISN 159" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 39–45. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007.
- ^ Klaasmeyer, Kelly (May 17, 2007). "Guantánamo: Pictures from Home. Questions of Justice". Houston Free Press. Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2010.
- ^ "Free at last!". Gulf Daily News. November 5, 2005. Archived from the original on October 28, 2007. Retrieved November 5, 2005.
- ^ Bew, Geoffrey (August 23, 2007). "Bay victims may get BD50,000". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved August 23, 2007.
- ^ a b Tourni, Habib (June 25, 2006). "Ex-detainee disputes triple suicide report". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on August 5, 2009.
- ^ Rasha Al Qahtani (October 31, 2008). "Freed Bay man held in Saudi". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved November 1, 2008.
- ^ Rasha Al Qahtani (November 27, 2008). "Bahraini may be freed soon". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved November 28, 2008.
- ^ Bew, Geoffrey (November 29, 2008). "Rights row over Saudi detainee". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
- ^ Rashid Al Qahtani (April 14, 2009). "Don't forget us say jailed four". Gulf Daily News. Archived from the original on April 19, 2009.
- ^ Bumiller, Elizabeth (May 20, 2009). "Later Terror Link Cited for 1 in 7 Freed Detainees". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 1, 2011.
- ^ "The Guantánamo Docket: Re-engaged". The New York Times. May 20, 2009. Archived from the original on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Hoyt, Clark (June 6, 2009). "What Happened to Skepticism?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
External links
- "'Help me' plea by Bay detainee". Gulf Daily News. September 5, 2005. Archived from the original on June 15, 2008. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
- "Major campaign to free Bay Bahrainis". Gulf Daily News. September 27, 2005.[dead link]
- "Three Bahrainis headed home after release from Guantanamo Bay". WFOR. November 4, 2005.[permanent dead link]
- "Three Bahraini Guantanamo detainees return home". WFOR. November 5, 2005.[permanent dead link]
- "'Nightmare' for freed Bay Three". Gulf Daily News. November 9, 2005. Archived from the original on June 15, 2008. Retrieved September 15, 2019.