Abdulla Majid Al Naimi

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Abdulla Majid Al Naimi (also transliterated as Abdullah al Noaimi) is a Bahraini, formerly held in the American prison for security detainees at the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay.^[1] Al Naimi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 159. The Department of Defense reports he was born on March 9, 1982, in Banama, Bahrain.

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

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 a competent tribunal 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] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Abdullah Al Noaimi was one of those 169 detainees.^[2]

[edit] Allegations

a. The detainee is a Taliban fighter:

1. The detainee is a Bahrain citizen who admitted he traveled from Bahrain through Meshad ^[sic], Iran to Afghanistan on September 13, 2001.
2. Detainee traveled to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban and die in Jihad.
3. Detainee knew he would be fighting the Northern Alliance and the United States.
4. Upon arriving in Afghanistan detainee requested and received directions from a Taliban representative that he had come to fight.
5. At the Taliban office, the detainee introduced himself and told the Taliban representative that he had come to fight.
6. 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.

Al Naimi chose not to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Al Naimi, like the other Bahrainis held in Guantanamo had Joshua Colangelo-Bryan as his lawyer.

[edit] Release

The Gulf Daily News announced on November 5, 2005 that Abdulla had been released, and was one of three Bahraini detainees on their way home. ^[3]

[edit] Comments on the June 10, 2006 suicides

The deaths of three detainees were announced on June 10, 2006.

Main article: Guantanamo suicide attempts

Al Naimi knew the three men, and commented on their deaths on June 25, 2006. ^[4] 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 said that the third dead man, Yasser Talal Al Zahrani, was only 16 when he was captured.^[4] According to Al Naimi Al Zahrani should have been treated as a minor.

"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."

[edit] See also

• Juma Mohammed Al Dossary
• Essa Al Murbati
• Salah Abdul Rasool Al Blooshi
• Adel Kamel Hajee
• Shaikh Salman Ebrahim Mohamed Ali Al Khalifa

[edit] References

1. ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
2. ^ Summary of Evidence memo (.pdf) prepared for Abdulla Majid Al Naimi's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - September 2, 2004 - page 215
3. ^ Free at last!, Gulf Daily News, November 5, 2005
4. ^ ^{a b} Ex-detainee disputes triple suicide report, Gulf Daily News, June 25, 2006

[edit] External links

• 'Help me' plea by Bay detainee, Gulf Daily News, September 5, 2005
• Three Bahrainis headed home after release from Guantanamo Bay, WFOR, November 4, 2005
• Free, at last! , Gulf Daily News, November 5, 2005
• Three Bahraini Guantanamo detainees return home, WFOR, November 5, 2005
• Major campaign to free Bay Bahrainis, Gulf Daily News, September 27, 2005
• 'Nightmare' for freed Bay Three, Gulf Daily News, November 9, 2005