Najeeb Al Nuaimi ( ar, نجيب النعيمي) is a Qatari lawyer and human rights activist. He is a former cabinet minister of Qatar, having served as the Minister of Justice from 1995 to 1997. He previously taught public law at Qatar University. Al Nuaimi and his firm assembled a legal defense team to represent more than 70 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in 2002. He was a lead lawyer on Saddam Hussein's final legal defense team. He also served as the defense lawyer for imprisoned Qatari poet

Mohammed al-Ajami Mohammed al-Ajami (also known as "Mohammed Ibn al-Dheeb"; ar, محمد بن الذيب العجمي; born in Qatar), is a Qatari poet who was imprisoned between 2011 and 2016 on state security charges. Prior to his arrest, he was a literature stud ...

in 2013.

Personal life

In 2001, his cousin, a 22-year-old Bahraini citizen named

Abdulla Majid Al Naimi Abdulla Majid Al Naimi (also transliterated as Abdullah al Noaimi; born March 9, 1982, in Manama, Bahrain) is a Bahraini, formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Arrest Al Naimi has ...

, was detained in Pakistan and later sent to Guantanamo Bay. Al Nuaimi obtained degrees in law in Egypt and the United Kingdom.

Career

From 1995 to 1997, he served as Minister of Justice for Qatar. In 1997, he established his legal firm, ''Law Offices of Dr Najeeb Al Nauimi''. In 2002, he and his firm assembled a legal team to represent alleged

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

and Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay. He represented between 70 and 100 prisoners. He argued that the majority of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay were wrongly accused of being terrorists by the Pakistani police force and the Afghan Northern Alliance. He was one of the three foreign lawyers on Saddam Hussein's legal defense team. He took part in the Dujail and Anfal trials, arguing that the trials were held unlawfully because the U.S. invasion contravened international law. He claimed he was contacted by Saddam's family and colleagues to take up the job. He later described Saddam's trial as a "trial of ethnicity, not an international trial". Al Nuaimi did not request payment for his services. He represented Qatari poet

, who had been imprisoned by the Qatari government for reciting a poem which was deemed to be critical to the emir. Al-Ajami was handed down a life sentence in 2012, which Al Nuaimi appealed. In February 2013, the court reduced his sentence to 15-years. After the trial, Al Nuaimi announced that he would file another appeal, this time to Qatar's highest court, the Court of Cassation. Speaking on the second appeal, he said "we know at the end of the day he will be pardoned". In October, the Court of Cassation ruled against the poet, upholding the 15-year sentence. Al Nuaimi responded to the ruling by proclaiming “our judicial system cannot be trusted”. In 2012, Nuaimi claimed that he would defend Syrian president

Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...

and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir in court if it was requested of him. However, he declined an offer to represent former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in court.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nuaimi, Najeeb Living people Qatari lawyers Qatari writers Qatari activists Government ministers of Qatar Year of birth missing (living people)