Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani (; sometimes transliterated as al-Kahtani; born November 19, 1975) is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.

After military commissions were authorized by Congress, in February 2008, Qahtani was charged on numerous counts. In May, the charges were dropped without prejudice. New charges were filed against him in November 2008 and dropped in January 2009, as evidence had been obtained through torture and was inadmissible in court. This was the first time an official of the Bush administration had admitted any torture of detainees at Guantanamo.

In a Washington Post interview in January 2009, Susan Crawford of the Department of Defense said "we tortured Qahtani", saying that the U.S. government had so abused Qahtani through isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and exposure to cold that he was in a "life-threatening condition".

On March 6, 2022, Qahtani was airlifted from Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military and flown back to Saudi Arabia to a mental health treatment facility after 20 years in American custody. His release was announced by the U.S. Department of Defense the next day.

Early life

Mohammed al-Qahtani was born on 19 November 1975 in Kharj, Saudi Arabia. He is a Saudi national from a large Sunni family. His father served as a police officer for 28 years. His mother remained at home to raise their twelve children. He has seven brothers and four sisters.

Denied entry by US immigration

On August 3, 2001, Qahtani at the age of 25 flew into Orlando, Florida, from Dubai. He was questioned by immigration agent José Meléndez-Pérez, who was dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he intended to become an illegal immigrant, as he was using a one-way ticket.

After ten months, U.S. Border and Immigration Authorities took a fingerprint sample and discovered that he was the same person who had tried to enter the United States just before the September 11 attacks. Seizing the airport's CCTV surveillance recordings, the FBI claimed they were able to identify the car of Mohamed Atta at the airport, believed to be there to pick up Qahtani.

At that time, the military invited FBI interrogators to interview Qahtani. By the fall of 2002, they were frustrated by his resistance. DOD interrogators talked of using different techniques, based on a class they attended. After details of Qahtani's status were leaked in 2004, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a press release stating that Qahtani had admitted:

  • He had been sent to the US by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the lead architect of the 9/11 attack;
  • He had met Osama bin Laden on several occasions;
  • He had terrorist training at two al-Qaeda camps;
  • He had been in contact with many senior al-Qaeda leaders. After complaints from military investigators, the list of approved techniques was reduced. Her statement was the first time any top official of the Bush administration had said there was torture of detainees at Guantanamo.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, a defense lawyer for al-Qahtani who works for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, has said she thought Qahtani's torture constituted a war crime.

Interrogation log

On March 3, 2006, Time magazine published the secret log of 49 days of the 20-hour-per-day interrogation of Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay detention camp from late November 2002 to early January 2003. This had been leaked to the press. The log described Qahtani being forcibly administered intravenous fluids, drugs, and enemas, in order to keep his body functioning well enough for the interrogations to continue. He had told his lawyer that he was forced to falsely confess and name names, in order to get his "enhanced interrogation" to end.

Qahtani and the other five were charged on February 11, 2008, with war crimes and murder, and faced the death penalty if convicted.

Suicide attempt

According to his lawyer, in early April 2008, al-Qahtani tried to kill himself after learning that he faced charges that could carry the death penalty. He cut himself at least three times, causing "profuse bleeding" that needed hospital treatment.

Charges dropped

On May 11, 2008, the government charges against al-Qahtani were dropped. Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that it was possible for the charges to be re-instated, at a later date, because they had been dropped "without prejudice".

New charges announced

On November 18, 2008, Chief Prosecutor Lawrence Morris announced that he was filing new charges against Qahtani. When announcing the new charges, Morris stated that the new charges were based on "independent and reliable evidence". He stated: "His conduct is significant enough that he falls into the category of people who ought to be held accountable by being brought to trial."

Crawford orders charges dropped

Susan Crawford, the senior official in charge of the Office of Military Commissions, had the final authority over whether charges were laid. On January 14, 2009, after a change in administrations, Crawford ruled that the prosecution would not proceed against Qahtani because he had been subjected to interrogation techniques in Guantanamo that rose to the level of torture. Bryan Whitman, a DOD spokesman, said that the techniques were legal at the time they were applied, according to Department of Justice legal opinions.

Qahtani's habeas case reinstated

Mohammed al-Qahtani's habeas corpus case was reinstated in July 2008 after the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush, stating that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus and the right to petition federal courts.

Joint Review Task Force

When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo.

He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system, convening a task force to review material on detainees that was made up of officials from six agencies, whereas the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. Reporting back a year later, the Joint Review Task Force recommended release and repatriation of 53 detainees. It classified other individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, although there was insufficient evidence to charge them with crimes. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request. Some 71 detainees were determined to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board assessment, similar to a parole board, to determine if they could be released.

Mohammed al Qahtani was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release.

Obama promised that those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board. Qahtani was recommended for transfer to Saudi Arabia on June 9, 2021.

Qahtani's 2014 federal appeals court order

On 2 September 2014, a judicial panel for the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York stated that pictures and videos of Qahtani, taken while in detention, should remain classified. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Mohammed al-Qahtani for this federal lawsuit, had sought to disclose these audiovisual materials under the Freedom of Information Act. The judges decided that the release of these pictures and videos "could logically and plausibly harm national security because these images are uniquely susceptible to use by anti-American extremists as propaganda to incite violence against United States interests domestically and abroad". On March 9, 2015, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in his case.

In a review of the drama film Zero Dark Thirty (2012) about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergen, a national security analyst, compared the character of Ammar and the issue of torture to the treatment of Qahtani in detention. In a controversial passage, Ammar is interrogated under torture in the film and gives up the name of a bin Laden courier. Bergen notes that although Qahtani gave a name under alleged torture, it took another eight years, with US analysts using every form of intelligence-gathering from high technology to 'people on the ground,' for the government to locate and kill Osama bin Laden. Other sources later suggested the character of Ammar was based on Ammar al-Baluchi.

In the television documentary series The Path to 9/11, al-Qahtani is portrayed by Elie Gemael, who portrayed 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta in Zero Hour.

See also

  • Shaker Aamer

References

  • The Final 9/11 Commission Report PDF, Government Printing Office, July 17, 2005
  • The Final 9/11 Commission Report HTML, GPO, July 17, 2005
  • "Search began with a stubborn detainee", USA Today, June 22, 2004
  • Guantanamo Provides Valuable Intelligence Information Department of Defense Press Release, June 12, 2005 – Description of Qahtani's interrogation at Guantanamo Bay
  • Interview with Adam Zagorin about Qathani's interrogation log , The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, June 13, 2005
  • Allegations of Abuse , The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, July 13, 2005 – interview with Senator John Warner, General Bantz Craddock and General Randall Schmidt.
  • "'Clean team' interrogated 9-11 suspects"
  • Human Rights First; "Tortured Justice: Using Coerced Evidence to Prosecute Terrorist Suspects" (2008)