| ...a common enough name in Arabia, in this case more fully Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, but in the Rantburg archives he appears as Mohammed al-Kahtani and Mohamed al-Kahtani ... |
American authorities have recommended releasing a mentally ill inmate from Guantanamo Bay and repatriating him to Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century..., according to a government document published Friday.
Suspected of being al-Qaeda’s intended 20th hijacker for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured by interrogators at the US military base in Cuba, where he has been detained for nearly two decades.
The government dropped its case against him in 2008 due to the abuse he experienced at the prison.
The detention of al-Qahtani is "no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States," the Periodic Review Board, a panel composed of several US national security agencies, said in a summary of its decision.
"He's crazy. I mean loony tunes-crazy"
In its final determination dated February 4, the board said al-Qahtani was "eligible for transfer" and recommended that he be repatriated to Saudi Arabia, where he could receive comprehensive mental health care and be enrolled in a rehabilitation center for holy warriors.
| Because the Saudi rehab program has worked so well thus far? |
| The same family from which he launched into Al Qaeda? Another winning choice. We’ll see if the Saudi Arabia of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is up to the challenge. |
Al-Qahtani was one of the first prisoners sent to Guantanamo in January 2002.
He had flown to Orlando, Florida on August 4, 2001, but was denied entry to the country and sent back to Dubai.
He was eventually captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.
His torture at the prison was widely documented and spurred on international human rights
...not to be confused with
individual rights,mind you...
groups’ calls for the site to be shut down. He was subjected to prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and other abuses.
"We tortured Qahtani," Susan Crawford, a top judicial official in the Bush administration said in 2009, according to a Washington Post article.
In January, the United States approved the release of five of the remaining 39 men still at Guantanamo.
Ten others, including the alleged criminal mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as "KSM," are awaiting trial by a military commission.
The detention center, run by the US Navy, was created after the 2001 attacks to house detainees in the US "war on terror" and has been called a site of "unparalleled notoriety" by UN rights experts.
Related:
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2014-04-12 2 Saudi guards killed in Yemen border attack
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2014-04-11 Two Saudi guards killed in Yemen border attack
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2013-09-06 Saudi beheads two murderers
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2014-04-12 2 Saudi guards killed in Yemen border attack
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2014-04-11 Two Saudi guards killed in Yemen border attack
Mohammed al-Qahtani: 2013-09-06 Saudi beheads two murderers