Abdul Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri (/ɑːbdulrɑːhim-ælnɑːˈʃiːriː/ ⓘ; Arabic: عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده النشري; born January 5, 1965) is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS Cole and other maritime attacks.

[5][6] Al-Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and held for four years in secret CIA prisons known as "black sites" in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania and Romania, before being transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

[17] In April 2019, a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated all orders issued by Air Force Colonel Vance Spath, the presiding military judge over al-Nashiri's case from November 2015,[18][19][20] on the grounds that Spath had failed to properly disclose his ongoing employment negotiations with the Department of Justice to al-Nashiri.

Born in Saudi Arabia, al-Nashiri travelled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s to participate in attacks against the Russians in the region, at a time when the United States supported the mujahideen in such actions.

[23] Before being transported to military custody at Guantanamo, al-Nashiri was held by the CIA at black sites in Thailand and Poland for an undisclosed amount of time.

"[24] The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007, that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".

[29][30] Through Freedom of Information Act requests, the American Civil Liberties Union was able to acquire less redacted versions of the transcripts from Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, and those of three other captives.

[34] In August 2018, cables from the secret detention site overseen by Haspel, dating from November 2002 and likely authorized by if not written by her, were released because of a Freedom of Information lawsuit, and they describe the torture of Nashiri in detail, including slamming him against a wall, confining him to a small box, waterboarding him, and depriving him of sleep and clothing, as well as threatening to turn him over to others who would kill him and calling him “a little girl,” “a spoiled little rich Saudi,” and a “sissy.”[35] During the course of his tribunal, he claimed to have made additional confessions under the duress of torture.

Shortly after, when a prisoner died in CIA custody in Iraq, the government agents decided against videotaping such interrogations, as this provided criminal "evidence" if things went wrong.

They said that Al-Nashiri was held and allegedly tortured in a secret CIA "black site" prison "north of Warsaw" (OSAW) from December 2002 to June 2003 with the collaboration or consent of the Polish government.

[44] In a letter in July 2011, al-Nashiri's legal team said: Through the infliction of physical and psychological abuse, the government has essentially already killed the man it seized almost 10 years ago.and By torturing Mr. Al-Nashiri and subjecting him to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, the United States has forfeited its right to try him and certainly to kill him,[45]On October 24, 2011, Lieutenant Commander Stephen Reyes filed a legal motion requesting that jurors in his case be informed that he may be detained in Guantanamo, even if he was acquitted of all charges.

[50] Chesney argued that it would be just to continue to detain al-Nashiri, even if he were acquitted, because conviction requires a higher standard of evidence than a habeas corpus petition.

Eligibility for military detention, according to a now-substantial body of habeas case law, turns on the preponderance of the evidence standard, as applied to a substantive test inquiring whether the person was a member of al Qaeda at the time of capture.

One can satisfy that standard consistent with a military commission acquittal.Presiding Officer James L. Pohl considered several motions during a pre-trial hearing on April 11, 2012.

Presiding Officer James Pohl ruled on February 7, 2013, that an independent panel of mental health experts should examine Al Nashiri, and report on how the documented torture he was subjected to would affect his ability to assist in his own defense.

The team is supposed to be given full access to al Nashiri's medical files, including the top secret records from his times in CIA custody.

[57] That judgment was affirmed by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judges M. Margaret McKeown, Arthur Alarcón, and Sandra Segal Ikuta in December 2013.

[63] Judge Roberts reasoned that the abstention doctrine announced in Schlesinger v. Councilman (1975), which required judicial review of an ongoing court-martial to wait until it is completed, also applied to al-Nashiri's military commission.

[64] On October 18, 2016, the new military judge, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath took a step that Stephen Vladeck, a law professor and national security expert described as "unprecedented".

[73] Soon after, United States District Judge Royce Lamberth granted Baker’s habeas corpus petition and vacated Spath’s finding of contempt.

[74] In October 2018, al-Nashiri petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, seeking a vacatur of all military commission orders issued by Colonel Spath.

[79] In writing for a unanimous court, Tatel wrote:[79] Although a principle so basic to our system of laws should go without saying, we nonetheless feel compelled to restate it plainly here: criminal justice is a shared responsibility.

Yet in this case, save for Al-Nashiri’s defense counsel, all elements of the military commission system—from the prosecution team to the Justice Department to the CMCR to the judge himself—failed to live up to that responsibility.On July 24, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it cooperated with the U.S. by allowing the CIA to hold and torture al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah on its territory in 2002–2003.

[80][81] Additionally, the ECHR ordered the Polish government to disclose details of the men's detention and to seek diplomatic assurances from the United States that al-Nashiri will not be executed.

(a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months from the date on which the judgment becomes final in accordance with Article 44 § 2 of the convention, EUR 100,000 (one hundred thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amount at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points; The court therefore found that Mr Al Nashiri had been within Romania's jurisdiction and that the country had been responsible for the violation of his rights under the convention.