Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi

Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi (born June 18, 1975), also known as Khalid Hassan, is a Kuwaiti charity worker who was unlawfully detained in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. He was ordered released in August 2009, when it was determined that the law required the American government to prove his guilt, rather than demand al Mutairi prove his innocence.[1] The ruling judge noted that al Mutairi had been "goaded" into making incriminating statements for interrogators, such as confessing alongside Osama bin Laden in 1991, while noting that some of his stories were contradictory.[1]

Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi
Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi
Born (1975-06-18) June 18, 1975 (age 49)
Kuwait City, Kuwait
Detained at Guantanamo
Other name(s) Khalid Abdullah Mishal Thamer al Mutayri
Khalid Bin Abdullah Mishal Thamer al Hameydani
Khaled al Mutairi
ISN213
Charge(s)No charge (unlawfully detained)
StatusRepatriated

Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi was captured near the Pakistan-Afghan border in November 2001 and he was transferred to Kuwait on October 13, 2009.[2]

Combatant Status Review

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A typo in an intelligence report led to al-Mutayri being accused of manning an anti-aircraft weapon in Afghanistan, after the military officer confused two ISNs.[1]

Al-Mutayri admitted leaving Kuwait only days after 9/11, with $15,000 in cash, and heading toward the Pakistan-Afghan border regions. His name later appeared on a list of captives detained in prison, which the United States used as evidence he was a member of al-Qaeda, a notion rejected by the judge.[1]

While in Guantanamo, one of his interrogation sheets noted "ISN 213 was uncooperative. He stated that he wished to be called Osama bin Laden...ISN 213 stated he was an enemy of America because Americans had told him so. Americans cursed his parents. Prior to the war, he’d had no problem with Americans. But due to the situation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and legal process being so useless, he might as well be Osama bin Laden, since he was never going to be freed from U.S. custody".[1]

Ruling by Justice Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

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US District Court Justice Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruling on al-Mutayri's habeas petition has been cited in academic papers for its assertions of the weaknesses of the CSR Tribunal process.[3]

Repatriation

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US District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kottely ordered the immediate repatriation of Khaled Al Mutairi on July 29, 2009.[4][5] She further required the relevant agencies to produce an unclassified version of her ruling within 48 hours.

Kollar-Kottely noted that the allegation he attended a terrorist training camp relied on "one reference, in a portion of one sentence, in one interrogation report".[1] She also ruled out placing any value on his presence on a published "list of captured mujahideen", because he was told that claiming to be a captured mujahideen would result in his name being published, so his family would know where he was.[5]

Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, reported that Khalid Mutairi was one of two men transferred from Guantanamo on October 9, 2009.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Lee, Chisun (4 August 2009). "New Gitmo Decision Offers Unusual Insight Into Weakness of Government Evidence". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-01-20.
  2. ^ "Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi - The Guantánamo Docket". The New York Times. 18 May 2021.
  3. ^ Benjamin Wittes. Robert Chesney, Rabea Benhalim (2010-01-22). "The Emerging Law of Detention: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking" (PDF). Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-03-05. Likewise, in Al Mutairi, Judge Kollar-Kotelly describes the petitioner's version of events as "implausible and, in some respects, directly contradicted by other evidence in the record." Nonetheless, she reads nothing into the fact that the detainee is, in her judgment, likely lying about his own conduct. She concludes, rather, that although his "described peregrinations within Afghanistan lack credibility, the Government has not filled in these blanks nor supplanted… [the petitioner's] version of his travels and activities with sufficiently credible and reliable evidence to meet its burden by a preponderance of the evidence."
  4. ^ Jaclyn Belczyk (2009-07-30). "Federal judge orders release of Kuwaiti Guantanamo detainee". The Jurist. Archived from the original on 2009-08-07. Retrieved 2009-07-31.
  5. ^ a b Avery Fellow (2009-08-05). "Judge Orders Release of Kuwaiti Gitmo Detainee". Courthouse News Service. Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2009-08-05.
  6. ^ Carol Rosenberg (2009-10-09). "Guantánamo detainees sent to Kuwait, Belgium". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2012-09-16. 'The new facility will provide detainees with access to education, medical care, group discussions and physical exercise to help them recover from their long ordeal in Guantánamo,' said a statement issued by a Kuwaiti support group that announced Mutairi's repatriation.
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