Abd al-Salam al-Hilah is a citizen of

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

, held in

extrajudicial detention Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Guantanamo Bay detainment camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

s, in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. The

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

lists his place of birth as

Sanaa Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Governo ...

, Yemen and his date of birth as January 30, 1968. As of today, Abd al-Salam al-Hilah has been confined at the Guantanamo camps for . He arrived there on September 20, 2004.

CIA detention

Al-Hilah was captured, in Cairo, on September 19, 2002, while on a business trip.Al-Hila: Another 'ghost prisoner' rendered
''

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

'' John Sifton, of

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, says that Al-Hilah disappeared, for eighteen months, before surfacing in

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

detention in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay,

.Cairo to Kabul to Guantanamo
, ''

'' According to medical records published on March 16, 2007, his "in process date" at Guantanamo was September 20, 2004. Since his arrival in Guantanamo Bay, he is one of the approximately 200 detainees who has had a writ of

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

filed on his behalf. In recently declassified discussions with his lawyer, al-Hilah says that after his capture he was sent to

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

for two months, and then spent 16 months in secret bases in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, including "

the dark prison The Salt Pit and Cobalt are the code names of an isolated clandestine CIA black site prison and interrogation center outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. It is located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the A ...

".U.S. Operated Secret 'Dark Prison' in Kabul
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

'', December 19, 2005

Official status reviews

Originally the

Bush Bush commonly refers to: * Shrub, a small or medium woody plant Bush, Bushes, or the bush may also refer to: People * Bush (surname), including any of several people with that name **Bush family, a prominent American family that includes: *** ...

Presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...

asserted that captives apprehended in the ''"

war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...

"'' were not covered by the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conven ...

, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004, the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled, in

Rasul v. Bush ''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corpus ...

, 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

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the

set up the

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants The Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants, established in 2004 by the Bush administration's Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, is a United States military body responsible for organising Combatant St ...

. Scholars at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...

, led by

Benjamin Wittes Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is an American legal journalist and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is the Research Director in Public Law, and Co-Director of the Harvard Law School–Brookings ...

, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations: * Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ... are members of Al Qaeda."'' * Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was listed as one of the captives who was an ''"al Qaeda operative"''.

Habeas corpus petition

Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman Al Hela v. George W. Bush had a writ of

filed on his behalf.

Joint Review Task Force

On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated,

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United State ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

issued three

Executive orders ''Executive Orders'' is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on July 1, 1996. It picks up immediately where the final events of ''Debt of Honor'' (1994) left off, and features now-U.S. President Jack Ryan as he tries to d ...

related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the

Joint Review Task Force The Guantanamo Review Task Force was created by Executive Order 13492 issued by President of the United States Barack Obama on January 22, 2009, his second full day in office. United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced Matthew G. Olsen a ...

classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

request. Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release. Obama said those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a

Periodic Review Board The Periodic Review Boards administrate a US ''"administrative procedure"'' for recommending whether certain individuals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba are safe to release or transfer, or whether they should continue to be held ...

Periodic Review Board

The first review was not convened until November 20, 2013. Hilah was approved for transfer on June 8, 2021.Unclassified final determination
/ref>

Hunger strike

Al-Hilah was reported to have participated in a

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

that led to a deterioration in his health.
mirror

Children's death

On April 23, 2009, Yemeni newspapers reported two of the four children of Guantanamo captive ''"Abdul Salam Al Hilam"'' were killed, in his home, by the explosion of a

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...

. The two boys were reported to be nine and eleven years old, and ten and eleven years old. They were reported to have died when playing with the grenade. In 2008, camp authorities started to allow compliant captives to make an annual phone call home. The ''

Yemen Post Yemen Postal Authority is the national postal authority of Yemen. It has the sole privilege of providing domestic and international postal services such as letter post, parcel post, money orders, savings bank, EMS, fax, philately etc. Ministry of ...

'' reports that Al Hila's sons died just two days after his call.

Assassination fears

On August 1, 2009, the ''

Saba News Saba may refer to: Places * Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea * Şaba (Romanian for Shabo), a town of the Odesa Oblast, Ukraine * Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras * Saba (river), L ...

'' reported that in a phone call after his son's death he told his family that he feared he would be assassinated in Guantanamo. He told his family not to believe accounts that he committed suicide if he should die in Guantanamo. On May 17, 2010, ''Saba News'' reported Al Hilah's family had recently received a letter where he wrote he believed camp authorities had a new plan to assassinate him.

References

External links

Anger in Yemen Over Halt to Release of Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners
Andy Worthington
UN Secret Detention Report (Part Two): CIA Prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq
Andy Worthington {{DEFAULTSORT:Hilal, Abdul Al Salam Detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp Yemeni extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Living people Bagram Theater Internment Facility detainees Guantanamo Bay captives appeals under the Detainee Treatment Act People subject to extraordinary rendition by the United States 1968 births