Mohamed Saleban Bare (known to the Pentagon as Mohammed Sulaymon Barre) () is a Somali refugee who was 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 detention 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 ...

. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terror analysts report that he was born on December 27, 1964, in Burao,

Somaliland Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...

. According to the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' the allegations against Barre are internally inconsistent. He is accused of involvement with al Qaeda, when it was based in

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

, in 1994 and 1995, when

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

documents confirm he was living in a U.N. refugee camp in Pakistan.

Barre's refugee status

The

High Commission for Refugees wrote

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

, on December 20, 2006, seeking information on why Barre, and another man were being detained in Guantanamo. The UNHCR had not known until December 2006 that the Americans were holding internationally recognized refugees in Guantanamo. Barre was granted UN refugee status in Pakistan in 1994. Mammar Ameur was granted UN refugee status in Pakistan in 1996. A third captive, Fethi Boucetta, was one of the 38 captives who was determined not have been an "enemy combatant" after all.

Al Barakat removed from the USA's watchlist of organizations tied to terrorism

One of the justifications for Barre's continued detention was that American intelligence analysts suspected that

Dahabshiil Dahabshiil ( so, Dahabshiil, ar, دهب شيل) is an international funds transfer company, and is the largest money-transfer business in Africa. It's headquartered in Burao, Somaliland. Formed in the early 1970s, the firm operates from over 24 ...

, the Somalia-based hawala he worked for had ties to

Al Barakat Al-Barakat, or Al-Barakaat ( ar, البركات), which means "Blessings" in Arabic, is a group of companies established in 1987 in Somalia. The firm is involved in the modern form of '' hawala'', an informal value transfer system and remittance ...

, another Somalia-based hawala that had its assets frozen, and some of its agents arrested, because it was suspected of laundering money for terrorists. On August 28, 2006, the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

reported that Al Barakat had been removed from the US terrorist organization watchlist. The BBC's report stated that

made the watchlist because American intelligence analysts had suspected it had been used to finance the 9-11 hijackers, but that the

9/11 Commission The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...

had investigated this theory and found it baseless. Some al Barakat agents were also individually listed as suspected terrorist. The owner of

Ahmed Nur Ali Jimaale Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

, said that the company's agent in Sweden was the last to be cleared of suspicion.

Letter to President Obama from Mohammed's father

On June 26, 2009, the ''

'' published a letter to

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 ...

from Mohammed's father, Sulaymon Barre Ali.

New habeas corpus petition

On June 28, 2008, the ''

'' reported that the Supreme Court's ruling in

Boumediene v. Bush ''Boumediene v. Bush'', 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of ''habeas corpus'' submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by ...

would allow Mohammed Sulaymon Barre to file a

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 ...

petition. J. Wells Dixon will be representing him. On July 15, 2008, Emilou Maclean filed a ''"NOTICE OF FILING OF MOTION FOR ENTRY OF PROTECTIVE ORDER ON CONSENT"'' on behalf of Mohammed Sulaymon Barre (ISN 567) in Civil Action No. 08-cv-1153 (HHK). On December 30, 2008,

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

official Daniel M. Barish informed the court that the DoJ had filed "

factual return Factual returns are documents a government has to file in response to habeas corpus petitions. Habeas corpus is a legal tool in the English tradition of justice, dating back to ''Magna Carta'', prohibiting arbitrary arrest and detention. Captiv ...

s" in seven habeas cases, including Mohammed Sulaymon Barre's.

Repatriation

Carol Rosenberg Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist at ''The New York Times.'' Long a military-affairs reporter at the ''Miami Herald'', from January 2002 into 2019 she reported on the operation of the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, at its nav ...

, writing in the ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...

'' reported that Barre was one of twelve men transferred from Guantanamo on December 19, 2009. Rosenberg reported that Barre and another Somali ( Ismael Arale) had arrived in

, where they were promptly released and rejoined their families in Hargeisa (capital of the region). She reported that, according to local Somaliland newspapers, the two Somalis had been transferred to a third country, and had arrived in Somaliland on a plane provided by the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

. The other eleven men were: Ayman Batarfi, Jamal Alawi Mari,

Farouq Ali Ahmed The United States has held a total of 115 Yemeni citizens at Guantanamo Bay, forty-two of whom have since been transferred out of the facility. Only Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia had a greater number of their citizens held in the Guantanamo Bay dete ...

, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami, Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf,

Abdul Hafiz ʻAbd al-Ḥafīẓ (ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد الحفيظ) is a Muslim male given name, and in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-Ḥafīẓ'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which give ri ...

, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim, Mohammed Hashim and Ismael Arale. Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim were

Afghans Afghans ( ps, افغانان, translit=afghanan; Persian/ prs, افغان ها, translit=afghānhā; Persian: افغانستانی, romanized: ''Afghanistani'') or Afghan people are nationals or citizens of Afghanistan, or people with ancestry f ...

. Asmael Arale was the other Somali. The other six men were

Yemenis Yemenis or Yemenites ( ar, يمنيون) are the nationals of Yemen. Social hierarchy There is a system of social stratification in Yemen that was officially abolished at the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1962 but, in practice, this syst ...

. After his release Barre described Guantanamo as a "living hell", and noted: ''"Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed. I'm OK compared to them."''

References

External links

“Hell on Earth”: Released Somali Speaks about Guantánamo
Andy Worthington December 23, 2009
Guantanamo 'hell on Earth', says Somali detainee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barre, Mohammed Sulaymon Somalian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Living people 1964 births Guantanamo detainees known to have been released Ethnic Somali people Somalian refugees Somalian expatriates in Pakistan