Abdul Al Salam Al Hilal

Al-Hila was captured, in Cairo, on September 19, 2002, while on a business trip.[6] John Sifton, of Human Rights Watch, says that Al-Hila disappeared, for eighteen months, before surfacing in American detention in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[7] According to medical records published on March 16, 2007, his "in process date" at Guantanamo was September 20, 2004.[8]

Since his arrival in Guantanamo Bay, he is one of the approximately 200 detainees who has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf. In recently declassified discussions with his lawyer Al-Hila says that after his capture he was sent to Baku Azerbaijan for two months, and then spent 16 months in secret bases in Afghanistan, including "the dark prison".[9]

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.[10] 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 3x5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[11][12]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[10][13]

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:[14]

• Abdul Al-Salam Al Hilal was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are members of Al Qaeda."[14]
• Abdul Al-Salam Al Hilal was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[14]

Al Hila is reported to be participating in a hunger strike that has led to a deterioration in his health.[24]

"His mother died, his father died, his two sons died, and now his uncle has died. Do they want us to all be dead before they bring him back home again?

— Hila's sister, April 2010.[25]

On April 23, 2009, Yemeni newspapers reported two of the four children of Guantanamo captive "Abdul-Salam al-Hilam" were killed, in his home, by the explosion of a hand grenade.[26][27][28] The two boys were reported to be nine and eleven years old, and ten and eleven years old. They were reported to have died when playing with the grenade.

In 2008, camp authorities started to allow compliant captives to make an annual phone call home. The Yemen Post reports that Al Hila's sons died just two days after his call.[28]

On August 1, 2009, the Saba News reported that in a phone call after his son's death he told his family that he fears he will be assassinated in Guantanamo.[29] He told his family not to believe accounts that he committed suicide if he should die in Guantanamo.

On May 17, 2010, Saba News reported Abdul's family had recently received a letter where he wrote he believed camp authorities had a new plan to assassinate him.[30]

• Black site
• Detainees in CIA custody
• List of Guantanamo Bay detainees

• Anger in Yemen Over Halt to Release of Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners Andy Worthington
• UN Secret Detention Report (Part Two): CIA Prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq Andy Worthington