Mohammed Ali Salem Al Zarnuki

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Mohammed Ali Salem Al Zarnuki is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] His detainee ID number is 691. The Department of Defense reports that Al Zarnuki was born in Husayneyah, Yemen. The Department of Defense provided a birthdate or an estimated year of birth for almost all the captives. Al Zarnuki was one of the few captives whose age was listed as unknown.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Administrative Review Board hearing
3 References

[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 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 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.

Al Zarnuki chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

Al Zarnuki was in the middle of a hunger strike when his Tribunal convened.

[edit] Allegations

Al Zarnuki's transcript does not record the allegations against him. But the allegations were referred to, by number, when followup questions were asked, or Al Zarnuki's Personal Representative offered his summary of Al Zarnuki's reply to them. Some of the allegations were paraphrased. There were at least 8 allegations of an assocations with terrorism, and at least 2 allegations of hostile activity.

The fourth allegation said he had met "a senior al Qaida lieutenant" in a safehouse in Afghanistan."

[edit] Testimony

At least one of the missing allegations concerned al Qaida and the Taliban. Al Zarnuki denied any association with al Qaida or the Taliban.
Al Zarnuki was arrested with 13 others in a house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Many of the occupants were students, or applying to be students, at Salafi University.
He had traveled to Pakistan as a pilgrimage led by the Pakistani missionary group Tablighi Jamaat. He had been billeted at various mosques with a small group of fellow pilgrims, for about four months. Then he fell ill, with a disease like chicken pox, and was billeted in the house where he was captured. He stayed there for about a month and half, without getting any better. He was suffiicently ill, such that he wasn't always able to join the other residents in prayers, or for meals.
Al Zarnuki made clear that traveling on a Tablighi Jamaat pilgrimage didn't make him a member of Tablighi Jamaat.
Al Zarnuke acknowledged that the Tablighi Jamaat helped him complete his visa application. He denied that his travel documents were forged. His passport had been in his bag, when he was captured. So, it remained in the guesthouse, when he was taken away. He knew, from his interrogators, that it was not in US custody, so he asked what made American intelligence analysts think it had been forged.
He was a farmer back in Yemen, growing a mixed set of grains and vegetables. Prior to his capture he had hoped to recover, and travel home, in time for planting season.
Al Zarnuki complained that he wasn't getting adequate medical care in Guantanamo. He stated that he had a painful growth on his head that hadn't been attended to. The transcript describes it as a visible bump the size of a quarter.

[edit] witnesses

Two witnesses were called to testify on Al Zarnuki's behalf. Ahmed Abdul Qader and Mohammed Mohammed Hassen are fellow Yemeni citizens, like Al Zarnuki. None of them knew why they were arrested. The two witnesses concurred that Al Zarnuki had been ill at the time of their capture. Qadar testified that Al Zarnuki had been too ill to go out, and sometimes too ill to join the communal prayers or meals.

[edit] Administrative Review Board hearing

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.

Al Zarnuki chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.^[3]