Abdullah Ali Al Utaybi

Template:Infobox WoT detainees Abdullah Ali Al Utaybi was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Al Utaybi's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 243. American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Utaybi was born in 1972, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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 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 Tribunal. 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.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Abdullah Ali Al Utaybi was one of those 169 detainees.

The version of the memo published in March 2005 was heavily redacted. It was republished in September 2007 with the redacte portions in the clear.

Allegations

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida and the Taliban:

1. Originally from Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the detainee left in January 2001 for Afghanistan.
2. Detainee was the head of the al Wafa office in Herat, Afghanistan.
3. The Herat Office of al Wafa was a key location in al Qaida's support network and the detainee was the linchpin in al Wafa and al Qaida efforts to recruit, train, and infiltrate fighters into Afghanistan.
4. Detainee closed the Herat al Wafa and transferred to run the Kandahar al Wafa office after September 2001.
5. The nongovernmental organization 'al Wafa' reportedly is believed to possibly be a terrorist organization and may have had connections to Usama bin Ladin and Afghan Mujahedin.
6. The al Wafa organization has been identified as a terrorist organization.
7. One of the detainee's known aliases was on a list of captured al Qaida members that was discovered on a computer hard drive associated with a senior al Qaida member.
8. Detaine used the aliases Bendar al-Ataybi and Abu Faisal.
9. Detainee may have trained at the al Qaida Khaldan Camp [sic].

Witness request

A detainee known as Bessam Muhammed Saleh Al Dubaikey was arrested with a recent traveling companion suspected of being a director of al Wafa, and of being an al Qaida facilitator.

Al Dubaikey requested the testimony of detainee 243, Abdullah Ali Al Utaybi. Al Utaybi declined to testify on Al Dubaikey's behalf.

Administrative Review Board

Captives whose CSRT labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to judge whether the captive still posed a threat if repatriated to their home country.

Summary of Evidence memos were drafted for Al Utaybi's annual reviews in 2005 and 2006. The 2005 memo was two pages long and listed 18 factors favoring continued detention and 5 factors favoring release or transfer. The 2006 memo was three pages long. His name was listed as "Bendar Al Ataybi" on the memo. It listed 11 factors favoring continued detention and 6 factors favoring release or transfer.

Repatriation

The Department of Defense published the dates captives departed from Guantanamo on 26 November 2008. According to that list Abdullah Ali Al Utaybi was repatriated on December 28, 2007.

On January 9, 2009 the Department of Defense published the records for the third set of Administrative Review Board hearings, conducted in 2007 and early 2008. According to those records no review was scheduled for Al Utaybi in 2007. According to the records of the 2005 and 2006 Board hearings, those boards had not recommended his repatriation. Like the other nine men Al Utaybi was repatriated in spite of the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants recommending his continued detention in US custody.