ISN# 245 – 19 pages – Detainee: S (Saudi)

Reasons for Detention:

Detainee is associated with Al Qaeda. He travelled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan via Quetta, Pakistan. He spent 9 months in Afghanistan, receiving training at the Al Qaeda Camp at Al Farouk. He participated in military operations against the Coalition, carrying a rifle.

Detainee’s position:

The detainee played games at length, demanding a new personal representative, complaining he had been mistranslated, but refusing to answer questions or identify specifically where he thought he had been inaccurately quoted. He did not apparently retract the statements:

I was trained at Al Farouq on the Kalashnikov rifle. I did carry a weapon, but not in battle. A lot of people went to the mountains. I was given a a weapon to protect myself and five others. Each person had to guard the group of people for one hour. We were in a burrow approximately the size of this room.

Although he refused to clarify his position on which earlier statements he desired to deny, he still apparently intended to try to distinquish carrying a rifle in the mountains from bearing arms on the battlefield. He simply declined to answer a direct question as to whether he participated in military operations at Tora Bora.

JDZ Conclusions:

He is obviously a jihadi, who travelled to Aghanistan to fight the Coalition. He was trained by Al Qaeda. One infers from his refusal to deny it that he was indeed at Tora Bora. At the time of this hearing, he was still arrogant and obviously held his captors in contempt. He made repeated cynical (and naive) efforts to exploit Western due process and respect for a defendant’s rights to try to frustrate the operation of the tribunal. I would not release him.