Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri
Al-Marri was a graduate student at Bradley University and a legal resident of the United States when arrested in December 2001 in Illinois by the federal government.
In a plea agreement, al-Marri pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization on April 30, 2009.
[3] After searching al-Marri's computer, federal agents found folders labeled "jihad arena" and "chem," which contained information on hydrogen cyanide.
[7] After the Bush administration classified al-Marri as an "enemy combatant" in 2003, it dropped those federal charges and transferred him to military custody at Naval Consolidated Brig, in Charleston, South Carolina.
Following the US Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Bush (2004), which said that detainees had the right to challenge their detention, Al-Marri was allowed access to legal counsel in October 2004.
[11][12][13] In October 2008, the military released 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston, which showed that they had been concerned for the sanity of Al-Marri and other detainees confined to solitary.
[14][15] The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the mental states of the detainees Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Yasser Hamdi and José Padilla due to their isolation and lack of stimuli.
[16][17][18] It said that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 removed federal court jurisdiction for habeas corpus or any other actions related to aliens determined by the US to be "enemy combatants.
"[18] After a long legal battle, the federal government released the previously classified justification for Al Marri's detention as an enemy combatant.
[19] On September 9, 2004, Jeffrey N. Rapp, Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism, had submitted a 16-page sworn statement containing many allegations against Al Marri, including: On June 11, 2007, in al-Marri v. Wright, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 cannot deny al-Marri his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers and reason for detention.
In its decision issued on July 15, 2008, the Court voted 5-4 that if the Government's allegations are true, al-Marri can be held in military detention indefinitely as an enemy combatant.
[24] On January 22, 2009, newly elected President Barack Obama issued a memorandum requiring that al-Marri's status be reviewed by his administration, in addition to those of detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
It criticized the George W. Bush administration's enemy combatant doctrine, and called on the Supreme Court justices to make clear that a president cannot trample on individual rights by imprisoning people indefinitely simply by asserting that they are tied to terrorism.
[33] On April 30, 2009, al-Marri entered a plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
The Qataris were reportedly angry that Washington had chosen to repatriate a different suspected terror financier to Sudan instead of al-Marri and denied the request.
They offered to facilitate the release of an American couple, Matthew and Grace Huang, who were imprisoned in Qatar over the death of their adopted daughter.
[38] His return was also praised by Specially Designated Global Terrorist, Abdulrahman al Nuaymi, who is currently living with legal impunity in Qatar.
[38][dubious – discuss] The U.S. has received some criticism for releasing him back to Qatar instead of Saudi Arabia, the country whose passport he originally used to travel to the United States.
Furthermore, Qatar has a borderline permissive attitude towards terrorism finance that led to concerns that al-Marri would again be involved in plotting violence against the United States.
[38] In its reporting, Al Jazeera quoted one of al-Marri's lawyer's assertions that he was subjected to the brutal and dangerous torture technique known as "dry-boarding".
