Qatar's Ex-Justice Minister Represents Guantanamo Captives

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Miami Herald - May 24, 2002
<http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/3325673.htm


Ex-Qatar official retained by detainees' families

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - (AP) -- The families of more than 70 Arabs
detained at Guantánamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba have retained
Qatar's former justice minister, who says he wants the men tried in
their homelands.

"The stipulations for the military commissions would prevent me from
representing the men," Najeeb Al-Nauimi said in a telephone interview
Thursday from Doha, Qatar. "This is why I am trying to have them
tried outside the U.S. jurisdiction."

Spokeswoman Susan Hansen of the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed
that only U.S. citizens could represent defendants before U.S.
military tribunals.

Al-Nauimi contends that many of the men captured in the war on
terrorism have no links to the al Qaeda international terrorist
network or the ousted Taliban regime that harbored them in
Afghanistan.

All 384 detainees from 34 nations being held at Guantánamo are
accused of such links.

Al-Nauimi, who was Qatar's defense minister from 1992 to 1995 and
justice minister from 1995 to 1997, said nearly 250 of the detainees
are Arabs. Most of those he is trying to help are from Saudi Arabia,
with others from Jordan, Syria and Yemen, he said.

One is a Saudi detainee who recently halted his hunger strike
voluntarily. Another detainee, who has refused regular meals since
March 1, is being forcefully fed.

Al-Nauimi said the Saudi wrote to his family to say he had ended his
hunger strike, but he would not say anything else about the man's
case.

"One-by-one the families of the detainees have approached me," he
said. "Their sons and husbands write to them asking for legal help
and they send the letters to me.

"They say they are scared and want to go home. It's frustrating
because there is only so much I can do."

He said he has seen dozens of letters from the men, relayed by the
International Committee of the Red Cross, which is the only
independent group allowed to visit the men at the sprawling Camp
Delta prison complex in Guantánamo.

"Some say they are OK, others say they are using the time to memorize
the Koran and others just say they just want to leave," Al-Nauimi
said.  "One man, a Saudi, said he was told he would get to go home
soon, but it's clear the men are scared to say very much."

Al-Nauimi said he has been told the U.S. government is reviewing his
request for permission to visit the men in Guantánamo.

So far, none of the detainees have been allowed visits from
attorneys.

 
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