Lawfare

Detainees reinvented as the “Kuwaiti 12”

Michael Reagan, on his radio show Friday, interviewed Debra Burlingame, the author of Gitmo’s Guerrilla Lawyers, who described how the lawyers for the “Kuwaiti 12” created new profiles for their clients. In addition, she spoke of the media’s laziness in investigating the PR claims and how they often collaborated in the effort:

“They made millions of dollars, Sherman and Sterling, and tried to hide it by saying the families of these detainees hired them. In truth, the Kuwaiti government hired them. Another thing they said they were going to give all their fees to a 9/11 charity… the worst thing is they knew they could not sell letting these people go and sending them home if the American people knew these were the hardcore bomb builders, weapons trainers, financiers for al Qaeda, recruiters for al Qaeda. They knew that the American people wouldn’t go for that so they hired a PR firm to reinvent and create new profiles for them…

“Color the facts? Its lying and here is why it is lying…” Click here and listen to the entire interview.

While eight of the new and improved “Kuwaiti 12” have been released, four are still detained at Guantanamo. Let’s look at their reinventions and compare them to what their Combatant Status Review Tribunals discovered about them:

Odah

Excerpt from al Odah’s CSRT:

The Tribunal initially commensed on 28 August 2004. The unclassified evidence presented to the Tribunal by the Recorder in the form of the Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal (Exhibit R-1) indicated: The detainee is associated with Al Qaida and Taliban; in August or early September 2001, the detainee admitted to traveling through Afghanistan with Taliban members; the detainee admitted to firing an AK-47 at a training camp near Kandahar [Afghanistan]; the detainee admitted to staying at a guesthouse with fighters armed with AK-47 rifles; the detainee engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its coalition partners; the detainee admitted to carrying an AK-47 through the Tora Bora mountains for ten (10) to eleven (11) days during the U.S. air campaign in that region; and the detainee was captured with five (5) other men by Pakistani border guards.

Rabiah

Excerpt from Rabiah’s CSRT:

You may be concerned because I did happen to see Usama Bin Ladin (UBL) when I traveled to Kandhar in June 2001 to investigate the refugee problems in Afghanistan. I never saw UBL before or after that, I did not travel to see him, I did not expect to see him, and I never spoke with him. After I finished my meetings on the refugee problems, I accompanied the young scholar with whom I was traveling “Abu Almonther” who wanted to talk with Bin Ladin. You must remember that at the time UBL was not the famous terrorist that he is now. I had heard of him basically as a Saudi billionaire who lived as a monk. While there had been some rumors that he had been involved with bad actions, my understanding was that he had denied them. And that he was most famous for fighting the Russians. I accompanied Abu Almonther who went to dinner and to speak with Bin Ladin. The dinner invitation was in his house in the town Kandhar there were no guards or guns anywhere. The invitation lasted two hours. For the next 2 days we were also invited to lunches and dinners by many other people in town also invited many other people including UBL.

Khalid Abudullah Mishaal Al Mutairi

Excerpts from Khalid Abudullah Mishaal Al Mutairi’s CSRT:

Khalid Abudullah Mishaal Al Mutairi CSRT

Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari

Two excerpts from Al Kandari’s CSRT:

Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari CSRT page 20

Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari CSRT page 21

Gitmo terrorist becomes WaPo sob story

Today, the Washington Post does not mention how Tariq Shallah Hasan Al Alawi Al Harbi, from Medina, Saudi Arabia, born sometime in 1983, managed to become Guatanamo detainee #265. Instead, their Foreign Service reporter, Faiza Saleh Ambah, only refers to him as Mishal al-Harbi and relies heavily upon his family’s assertion that he was abused while a detainee in Guantanamo. While he admits going to Afghanistan, “for jihad, for the sake of God,” the Post leaves out al-Harbi’s March 2005 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (pdf format pages 65 through 67):

The following primary factors favor continued detention:

a. Commitment

Through the internet, the detainee read about a fatwa issued by Sheik Hamood al Okla. The fatwa stated every Muslim should go to Afghanistan (AF) to fight the Northern Alliance troops. The detainee decided to go to Afghanistan in order to obey the fatwa. Sheik Hamud al Uqqla is a Saudi Mufti who issued fatwas, including a fatwa calling for jihad in Afghanistan, and encouraged people to fight Jihad against Christians and Jews. Al Uqqla condoned the 11 Sep 01 attacks against the United States. In addition, he helped raise money for Usama Bin Laden until his death in Saudi Arabia in 2001. In June 2001, the detainee voluntarily traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan for the purpose of fighting the Northern Alliance.

b. Training

The detainee was captured with a Casio F91W watch. This model has been used in bombings that have been linked to al Qaida and radical Islamic terrorist improvised explosive devices. After arriving in Afghanistan, the detainee trained at the al Farouq training camp. At the al Farouq training camp, he received training on the Kalashnikov rifle and pistols.

c. Connections/Associations

Detainee name was on a list of names of captured Mujahidin found on a hard drive associated with a senior al Qaida member. The hard drive was seized on 1 March 2003 in Pakistan. Detainee’s name was found on a file recovered from a computer server hard drive seized in a suspected Al Qaida safehouse in Pakistan. His name was part of a list of Arabs incarcerated in Pakistan. The data was recorded sometime between 31 March 2001 and 22 January 2002. The detainee’s name was found on a document retrieved in Afghanistan in March 2002. The document listed the names of Al Qaida martyrs, those missing in action, those imprisoned, and those who had escaped to Pakistan. In Quetta, Pakistan, detainee met some Taliban on the street who led the detainee to a guesthouse in Qandahar, where he stayed for a week of questioning and was then sent to the “Faruk camp” for training.

d. Other Relevant Data

The detainee was apprehended by Pakistani Police when he attempted to cross the Pakistani border. He was then transferred to U.S. custody.

In other words, Mishal al-Harbi, aka Tariq Shallah Hasan Al Alawi Al Harbi: went to join the Jihad, before 9/11, against Christians and Jews; received weapons training at al Qaeda’s Al Farouq camp where four of the 9/11 hijackers, the Buffalo Six, and the “Australian Taliban” David Hicks all trained; and was captured when the US invaded, the Taliban he was fighting for were routed, and he attempted to escape into Pakistan.

That is how Mishal al-Harbi, aka Tariq Shallah Hasan Al Alawi Al Harbi, became Guantanamo’s detainee #265.

While there, he tried to hang himself and spent months in an American hospital. In July 2005, he was apparently assessed to no longer be a threat to the United States, was released to Saudi Arabia, and returned home to Medina nine months later. Al-Harbi retains his ‘unlawful combatant’ status.

Now his family wants compensation and the “truth” from the American government:

MEDINA, Saudi Arabia — Mishal al-Harbi’s brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes on the evening of Jan. 16, 2003, while he was in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As a result, he cannot stand, his speech is slurred, and he has a twitch that periodically causes his head to shake and his legs to jerk.

U.S. authorities say Mishal’s brain was damaged when he tried to hang himself at Guantanamo. But his brother Fahd says a beating by prison guards cut off the flow of oxygen, leaving Mishal unable to walk or talk properly. Fahd said his brother needs intensive physical therapy and costly medicine to control his seizures and hallucinations — side effects of the injury — and he wants the U.S. government to help pay for them.

Mishal’s family says it is seeking not only financial compensation but also concrete answers from the U.S. government — either an admission that Mishal was injured by guards or proof that he tried to kill himself. But given the intense secrecy surrounding the detainees at Guantanamo, finding out exactly what occurred that day in 2003 appears almost impossible.

“He was just like the rest of his brothers before he left,” said Mishal’s mother, Hamida Owayid, her head covered with a blue scarf and her feet decorated with henna. “What did the Americans do to him? ” (Washington Post story).

Mishal al-Harbi, aka Tariq Shallah Hasan Al Alawi Al Harbi, deserves no compensation for becoming a terrorist, getting captured, and then hanging himself. We will keep an eye on this story to see who becomes his American lawyer and PR firm and when they attempt to “rehab” al-Harbi in the eyes of the world and our legal system.

Update, 7:30 PM EDT: Mishal al-Harbi must have received some excellent treatment in that US military hospital as he looks pretty healthy to me.

Gitmo detainee number 265 Mishal al-Harbi back home in Medina

Our wounded are the ones who should get everything they need to recover.

America should not compensate our enemies. Instead, we should bill those Taliban, al Qaeda, and other terrorists for medical treatment when their injuries were self-inflicted for propaganda purposes.