Adel Ben Mabrouk
Adel Ben Mabrouk's Guantanamo detainee assessment
Born(1970-09-15)September 15, 1970
Tunis, Tunisia
Detained at Guantanamo
Other name(s) 
  • Adil Mabrouk Boughanmi Bin Hamida
  • Adel Ben Mabrouk Bin Hamida Boughanmi
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida
ISN148
Charge(s)No charge, extrajudicial detention
StatusTransferred to Italy

Adel Ben Mabrouk (born September 15, 1970) is a citizen of Tunisia who was held in extrajudicial detention at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba, from March 2002 to November 2009.[1][2][3] Mabrouk had outstanding warrants in Italy, and shortly after his arrival in November 2009, Italian prosecutors laid charges against him.

Although Mabrouk was convicted by a Milan court in February 2011, of criminal association with terrorist intent, the judge set him free, after sentencing him to time served, and denouncing detention in Guantanamo as "inhumane" and "not democratic".[4]

Allegation that Makbrouk "returned to terrorism"

On August 17, 2016, Libyan officials announced that, a few days earlier, they had captured an individual named Moez Ben Abdulgader Ben Ahmed Al Fezzani, who was reported as being a "top ISIS leader", and Tunisia's "most wanted terrorist".[5] On August 20, 2016, some American media, including Fox News, reported that the captured man was an individual formerly held in Guantanamo.[6]

Libyan officials said the captured man was born in Tunis—the same birthplace DoD officials listed for Mabrouk—but they said he was born in 1969, while Mabrouk was born in 1970.[1][5]

Official status reviews

Originally the Bush presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[7] In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3 × 5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[8][9]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[7][10]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[11]

  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who the Wittes team unable to identify as presently cleared for release or transfer.[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with Al Qaeda."[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the "34 [captives] admit to some lesser measure of affiliation—like staying in Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses or spending time at one of their training camps."[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who had "stayed at Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses".[11]
  • Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida was listed as one of the captives who had admitted "some form of associational conduct".[11]

Mabrouk attended his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, where he disputed

Mabrouk attended his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Habeas petition

Mabrouk filed a habeas corpus petition which was ruled moot by the US District Court in July 2008[12]

Transfer from Guantanamo

On November 30, 2009, Bin Hamida and fellow detainee, Riyad Bil Mohammed Tahir Nasseri, were transferred from Guantanamo into the custody of representatives of Italy. Both men face outstanding warrants in that country,[13][14][15][16] including new terrorism charges.[17]

Trial in Italy

Shortly after his arrival in Italy it emerged that his conviction would depend almost totally on the testimony of another Tunisian man, living in Italy, a criminal named Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil.[18][19][20][21][22][23] Italian prosecutor Elio Ramondini said it would be "impossible" to convict him without Tlil's testimony.[22] Tlil threatened to withhold his testimony. Italy had placed him in its witness protection program, but Tlil felt the terms of the program weren't generous enough.

Mabrouk was convicted in February 2011.[4] Armando Spataro set him free after sentencing him to time served. After his release he was deported to Tunisia.[24] Domenico Quirico, an Italian journalist who interviewed him, said that the notorious Zaharouni neighborhood of Tunis where he settled was "too dangerous to frequent at night".

Interview in Time

Time magazine published a translation of an interview first published in Italian in the Italian newspaper La Stampa.[4] Domenico Quirico's interview with Mabrouk took place on May 2, 2011—shortly after US Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden, and Quirico asked him for his assessment of bin Laden. Mabrouk called bin Laden a "man of honor", and asserted "even his enemies should recognize that he deserved respect."

During his interview he disputed the theory that he had been radicalized by devout Muslims while in Italian custody, prior to traveling to Afghanistan.[4] He acknowledged that devout Muslims he met in jail helped him renew his own faith. He said his new faith had helped him quit using drugs. He said that, after his release, he gave up drug-dealing, and started working as a barber, and then as a delivery driver. He said that he applied for a legitimate visa, so he could continue living and working in Italy legally.

Mabrouk said that the main reason he traveled to Afghanistan was that he feared if he continued trying to live in Italy he would be deported back to Tunis, where he would face further incarceration in brutal Tunisian prisons.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2006. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  2. ↑ "Measurements of Heights and Weights of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (ordered and consolidated version)" (PDF). Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, from DoD data. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 13, 2010. Retrieved December 21, 2009.
  3. ↑ Margot Williams (November 3, 2008). "Guantanamo Docket: Adel Ben Mabrouk". The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Domenico Quirico (May 9, 2011). "A Former Gitmo Inmate Remembers bin Laden". Time. Retrieved September 27, 2015. Last February, a Milan judge convicted this 40-year-old Tunisian of criminal association with terrorist intent but then freed him from jail, calling the time he'd spent incarcerated at Guantanamo "not democratic" and the conditions "inhumane." Mabrouk is a survivor of Afghanistan, where he was arrested at the end of 2001 for his alleged associations with al-Qaeda.
  5. 1 2 Ajnadin Mustafa (August 17, 2016). "Top Tunisian terrorist reported captured by Zintanis". Libya Herald. Tripoli. Fezzani, also known as Abu Nassim, was designated Tunisia's most wanted terrorist in February. In a communiqué at the time, it called on anyone with information about him to report it to the Tunisian police.
  6. ↑ "Former Gitmo Detainee Arrested, Charged With Being Top ISIS Recruiter". Fox News. August 20, 2016. Abu Nassim was arrested in Libya just days after the State Department claimed that very few Gitmo detainees ever return to terror.
  7. 1 2 "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. October 11, 2007. Archived from the original on October 23, 2007. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  8. ↑ "Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court". The New York Times. November 11, 2004. mirror Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian 'Justice' dispensed by KGB-style 'military tribunals'", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  10. ↑ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. January 21, 2002. Archived from the original on November 23, 2008. Retrieved November 24, 2008.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Benjamin Wittes, Zaathira Wyne (December 16, 2008). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2010.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  12. ↑ "Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation: Doc 212 -- Orders that all petitioners other than the following are DISMISSED without prejudice from Civil Action Number 05-2386" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. July 29, 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 22, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
  13. ↑ "Algerian transferred from Guantanamo to France: lawyer". Agence France-Presse. November 30, 2009. Archived from the original on December 14, 2009.
  14. ↑ "US transfers Guantanamo inmates". Agence France-Presse. November 30, 2009. Archived from the original on December 2, 2009.
  15. ↑ "Italy: 2 Guantánamo Detainees Arrive for Trial on Terror Charges". The New York Times. November 30, 2009. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
  16. ↑ Peter Finn, Julie Tate (December 1, 2009). "4 from Guantanamo are sent to Europe". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 1, 2011.
  17. ↑ Thomas Joscelyn (December 23, 2009). "The Real Gitmo". Yahoo News.
  18. ↑ "Tunisian May Hold Key to Guantanamo Trials". CBS News. November 13, 2009. Retrieved September 27, 2015. Tlil's Italian court-appointed lawyer says he has already provided important details to a team of U.S. investigators and identified from photos fellow Tunisian trainees in the Afghan camps. While the cases are confidential, authorities say he also has provided important information to the Italians about several detainees at Guantanamo who might be brought to Italy and tried in a criminal court.
  19. ↑ Victor L. Simpson, Colleen Barry (November 14, 2009). "Witness in Italy may hold key to Guantanamo trials". Associated Press. Archived from the original on November 16, 2009.
  20. ↑ Victor L. Simpson (December 1, 2009). "Italy may accept more Gitmo detainees". The Seattle Times. Retrieved October 15, 2016. Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil, a key prosecution witness, said Nasri, known by his alias Abou Doujana, was head of an organization of Tunisians at a camp in Afghanistan where recruits received both ideological and military training. It was at this camp, the witness said, that he and other recruits were taught that "to kill infidels was the duty of every Muslim" and were prepared to carry out suicide attacks.
  21. ↑ Victor L. Simpson (October 14, 2012). "Italy's secret anti-mob weapon: witness protection". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved October 15, 2016. Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil, a Tunisian who became an Islamic militant and was trained in Afghanistan to kill Americans, who entered the witness protection program after providing information to Italian investigators about several detainees at Guantanamo, his court-appointed lawyer, Davide Boschi, told The Associated Press.
  22. 1 2 "Testigo en Italia sería clave para juicios de Guantánamo" [Witness in Italy would be key to Guantanamo trials]. El Mexicano (in Spanish). November 13, 2009. Retrieved October 15, 2016. "Si me preguntan sobre su importancia como testigo, les diría que es importante para mí", dijo el fiscal Elio Ramondini recientemente a la Associated Press en una entrevista en su despacho en el palacio de justicia de Milán. Sin Tlil, el juicio a los sospechosos de Guantánamo en Italia "no es difícil, sino imposible", aseguró.
  23. ↑ Victor L. Simpson (December 1, 2009). "Italy's Gitmo detainees linked to al-Qaida base". Daily Breeze. Associated Press. Retrieved October 15, 2016. Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil, a key prosecution witness, said Nasri, known by his alias Abou Doujana, was head of an organization of Tunisians at a camp in Afghanistan where recruits received both ideological and military training. It was at this camp, the witness said, that he and other recruits were taught that "to kill infidels was the duty of every Muslim" and were prepared to carry out suicide attacks.
  24. ↑ Dan Taglioli (April 20, 2011). "Italy deports former Guantanamo detainee to home country of Tunisia". JURIST. Accompanied by Italian officials, Abdel Ben Mabrouk [NYT materials] was taken by plane to his native country under an agreement with Tunisian diplomats [AP report] brokered in Rome.
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