Adil Uqla Hassan Al Nusayri

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Adil Uqla Hassan Al Nusayri is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Al Nusayri's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 308. American intelligence analysts estimate Al Nusayri was born in 1874, in Sakakah, Saudi Arabia.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 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 their 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 Nusayri chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

[edit] allegations

The allegations Al Nusayri faced during his Tribunal were:

a. Associations

The detainee, a Saudi Arabian citizen, traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan, in July 2001 to fight the jihad.
The detainee admitted traveling to Afghanistan to join the Taliban.
The detainee stayed in a Taliban bean farm in Kabul.

[edit] testimony in response to the allegations

Al Nusayri acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan. But he said he traveled there for sightseeing, not for jihad. He had traveled to Pakistan, the neighboring country, for medical treatment.

Al Nusayri said the Taliban suspected he was a spy, because he was a police officer back in Saudi Arabia, and put him in prison.

Al Nusayri admitted to being on the bean farm. The Taliban had taken him there, involuntarily, from prison,

[edit] testimony in response to Tribunal officer's questions

Al Nusayri's said his medical problems arose from a car accident he had been in. He said he had 27 fractures in his head, and his vision was affected. "I heard that the medicine in Pakistan, especially for the eyes, was the best in the world."

Al Nusayri said he was in the Taliban prison for approximately two and a half months. Then the Taliban kept him, and a number of other prisoners on the farm for about 15 days. Then the Taliban told them they were going to aid them to cross into Pakistan where they could return to their family. Parts of their trip to Pakistan was on foot. Other parts were by truck. Once they arrived at a village in Pakistan there was a feast, and then he and the other prisoners were woken in the middle of the night and handed over to Pakistani soldiers.

Al Nuaayri confirmed that he never carried a weapon during his travels. He was still a prisoner during his passage through the mountains.

Al Nusayri was a prisoner in a bus transporting prisoners from one prison to another, that was fired at, and crashed:

"While I was in prison. They were moving us from one prison to another prisoa I was on the bus sleeping. I heard people firing at the bus and I got hit with a bullet in my arm and broke my arm. The bus turned over, and they just kept moving us. From that point, they took me to Pakistan and took me to the hospital there."

Main article: al Qaeda bus hijacking in Pakistan

Al Nusayri said he had no idea why he was being detained for a very long time.

Q:	How long was it before somebody explained why you were there?
A:	I don't recall. I was taken by plane to a prison that belongs to the States and from there they brought me to Cuba. I explained my situation and my story to them. The interrogator in Afghanistan told me not to worry and not to fear anything because I was going back to my family and my home. I was put on a plane and I thought I was going back to my family. Instead, they brought me here. They started interrogating me again, and I kept telling them the same story.
Q:	The interrogations were, that you went to help the Taliban?
A:	Not to help the Taliban. They asked me if I knew the Taliban, and I said I didn't know the Taliban. 1 explained the situation the way I explained it here.

Al Nusayri confirmed he had some weapons training when he was a police officer in Saudi Arabia. He had worked as a police officer for five or six years, where his duties consisted of staffing an office in a hospital, and taking statements from people who were injured. He also moonlighted as a taxi driver.

Q:	As a police officer, you had a responsibility to maintain proficiency on weapons?
A:	All they did was give us information on pistols and how to use them. Every six or seven months they would let us fire off 20 rounds or so. That's all we would do.