Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi

Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi is a citizen of Yemen who was held in extrajudicial detention by the United States from December 2001 to June 22, 2016.[3][4] He was one of the first twenty captives transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba, on January 11, 2002, and was held there until he was transferred to Montenegro, which granted him political asylum.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi
BornAugust 1979[1][2]
Ibb, Yemen
ArrestedDecember 2001
Pakistan border crossing
Pakistani border guards
ReleasedJune 22, 2016
Montenegro
CitizenshipYemen
Detained at Guantanamo
Other name(s) 
  • Abd al Malik Abd al Wahab,
  • Abd al Malak Abd al-Wahab al-Rahabi,
  • Abu Muaz,
  • al-Battar al-Yemeni,
  • Abu Aysha,
  • Abu Aisha,
  • Abd al-Malik Al-bu Aisha
ISN37
Charge(s)no charge, extrajudicial detention
Statusgranted asylum

One of the allegations US intelligence analysts used to justify his detention was that he was captured with a group of thirty Osama bin Laden bodyguards. Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, has criticized this allegation as it required taking at face value the denunciations of captives who lacked credibility.

Al Rahabi was a married man when he was captured. His wife had just given birth to a daughter.[3][4] Al Rahabi was one of the camp's most determined hunger strikers.[15]

Official status reviews

Originally, the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[16] In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[17][18]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[16][19]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[20]

  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the captives who the military alleges were members of either al Qaeda or the Taliban and associated with the other group.[20]
  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... took military or terrorist training in Afghanistan."[20]
  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... served on Osama bin Laden's security detail."[20]
  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[20]
  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the "34 [captives] admit to some lesser measure of affiliation—like staying in Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses or spending time at one of their training camps."[20]
  • Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi was listed as one of the captives who had admitted "some form of associational conduct."[20]

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[21][22] His eleven-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on April 28, 2008.[23] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby. He recommended continued detention.

Asylum in Montenegro

The government of Montenegro accepted al Rahabi on June 22, 2016.[3][5][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] They explicitly went on record saying that he would be entitled to leave Montenegro and said that giving him asylum would not be a financial burden on Montenegro.[6]

Al Wahab initially found Montenegro a "beautiful country".[24] He was able to bring his wife and teenage daughter to join him in Montenegro. But they experienced culture shock. They found the language very difficult to learn. They missed being able to converse with neighbours in Arabic.

Al Wahab was able move to Sudan.[24] Al Wahab was cautious and asked Montenegro officials to confirm that his travel was okay with the USA.

Once in Sudan he and his family found other Yemeni expatriates, who couldn't return due to the civil war.[24]

Role in the controversial Guantanamo art program

During the Obama administration an art program was provided to enrich the lives of well behaved Guantanamo captives.[25] Art supplies were provided. Some of the paintings and models surprised critics by their quality. Many of the captives were not able to take their work with them. During the Trump administration military spokesperson Anna Leanos explained it was now the DoD's position that the captives did not own their own artwork, and the pieces would be destroyed. Gail Helt, formerly a CIA analyst, and currently a Professor, owns a painting sold by Al Rahabi.

References
  1. "Guantanamo Detainee Profile" (PDF). Department of Defense. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
  2. "Guantanamo Detainee Profile" (PDF). prs.mil. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
  3. Carol Rosenberg (June 22, 2016). "Guantánamo detainee since Day 1 is released to Montenegro after 14 years". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2016. Montenegro said Yemeni Abdel Malik al Rahabi applied for asylum and could some day choose to leave the Balkan nation
  4. Carol Rosenberg (June 22, 2016). "Another Yemeni 'forever prisoner' at Guantánamo is cleared for release". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on June 3, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2016. Now the government's Periodic Review Board has decided he can be released, if security conditions permit. The board earlier ruled in March that it was too risky to release him because of unrest in his hometown in Yemen and the fact that he has a brother-in-law with ties to extremists.
    But a board decision released Tuesday says he can be released if certain safeguards are imposed. It's not clear whether he will be returned to Yemen or resettled elsewhere.
  5. Ben Fox (June 22, 2016). "US starts expected series of releases from Guantanamo prison". Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. While in custody, al-Rahabi studied English, worked with military officials to help ease tensions in the detention center and worked with several fellow prisoners on an extensively detailed plan for a post-Guantanamo agricultural enterprise, the "Yemen Milk and Honey Farms Limited," according to his lawyer, David Remes.
  6. "Montenegro receives another person within humanitarian programme of re-socialisation of prisoners from Guantanamo". Government of Montenegro. June 22, 2016. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016.
  7. Alexander Smith, Emily Gaffney (June 23, 2016). "Alleged Bin Laden Bodyguard Transferred From Gitmo to Montenegro". NBC News. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. A Guantanamo detainee once accused of being Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and planning to hijack airliners on 9/11 has been released and transferred to Montenegro, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.
  8. Harry Cockburn (June 23, 2016). "Man accused of being Osama bin Laden's bodyguard released from Guantanamo Bay after 14 years". The Independent (UK). Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. Lee Wolosky, the special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the State Department, said the US government was grateful to Montenegro for accepting the former prisoner.
  9. "Detainee Transfer Announced". US Department of Defense. June 22, 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. The United States is grateful to the Government of Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Montenegro to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.
  10. "Pentagon Sends Yemeni Guantanamo Prisoner To Montenegro". Radio Free Europe. June 23, 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. U.S. officials cleared Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi for release in March 2014, but the Obama administration does not send Guantanamo prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war there. It took two years to find another government which would take in the former Al-Qaeda bodyguard.
  11. "Yemeni man accused of being Bin Laden bodyguard released from Guantanamo". al Bawaba. June 23, 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016.
  12. "Yemeni Gitmo inmate transferred to Montenegro". The Nation (Pakistan). June 24, 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. According to leaked files published by WikiLeaks and The New York Times, Rahabi is from Yemen, had been a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and was related by marriage to the former Al-Qaeda leader. Born in 1979, Rahabi was captured in December 2001 among a group of 31 other Al-Qaeda fighters referred to by US intelligence agents as the "Dirty 30," documents state. "The United States is grateful to the government of Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the Pentagon said.
  13. Curt Mills (June 23, 2016). "Detainee Released From Gitmo to Montenegro". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016. Al-Rahab is the second Guantanamo prisoner sent to Montenegro this year, and is expected to set off a new round of releases from the facility, the International Business Times reports.
  14. Seerat Chabba (June 23, 2016). "Guantanamo Detainee Transferred To Montenegro As Obama Pushes To Close Detention Center". International Business Times. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Al Rahabi is the second prisoner to be resettled in Montenegro this year as Obama tries to reduce the number of men held at Guantanamo, Cuba. This marked the start of what is expected to be a new round of releases from the U.S. base even as the Congress continues to prevent the closure of the detention center with a prohibition on transferring prisoners to the United States.
  15. Carol Rosenberg (July 17, 2013). "Twentyfour force-fed captives". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on October 3, 2015. Retrieved June 23, 2016. In March, according to his lawyer David Remes, Wahab, who last saw his daughter as an infant, vowed to fast until he got out of the prison "either dead or alive."
  16. "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. October 11, 2007. Archived from the original on October 23, 2007. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  17. Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court Archived September 26, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  18. Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals" Archived March 9, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  19. "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. January 21, 2002. Archived from the original on November 23, 2008. Retrieved November 24, 2008.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  20. Benjamin Wittes, Zaathira Wyne (December 16, 2008). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 1, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  21. Christopher Hope; Robert Winnett; Holly Watt; Heidi Blake (April 27, 2011). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved July 13, 2012. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
  22. "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). April 27, 2011. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015. Retrieved July 10, 2012.
  23. "Abd Al Malak Abd Al Wahab Al Rahbi: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Abd Al Malak Abd Al Wahab Al Rahbi, US9YM-000037DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). April 27, 2011. Archived from the original on September 20, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
  24. Carol Rosenberg (November 13, 2018). "Trump closed an office that tracked ex-Gitmo inmates. Now we don't know where some went". McClatchy News Service. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved September 25, 2019. Rahabi said the government of Montenegro notified the U.S. Embassy, which did not object, and then bought tickets for his family. They traveled to Khartoum via Istanbul in a journey that he described as both scary and thrilling. It was his first unshackled flight in nearly two decades, one where he could both look out a window and listen. 'I was afraid maybe in the airport they would refuse, tell me no. But they gave me a visa for me and my daughter and my wife.'
  25. Carol Rosenberg (December 21, 2018). "Did Pentagon ban on Guantánamo art create a market for it? See who owns prison art". McClatchy News Service. Retrieved October 11, 2019. 'I find it inspiring that people in the worst moments of their lives, the darkest days, could still remember the beauty in this world and depict it in some way,' said Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst who recently purchased a piece of art from freed Yemeni detainee Abdul Malik Wahab al Rahabi.
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