Hassan Muhammad Salih bin Attash () is a citizen of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

who was held by the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in the

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO ( ), GITMO ( ), or simply Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 by p ...

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

Joint Task Force Guantanamo Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) is a U.S. military joint task force based at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on the southeastern end of the base. JTF-GTMO falls under US Southern Command. Since January 2002 the command ...

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

analysts estimate that bin Attash was born in 1985, in

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

, Saudi Arabia. Hassan Muhammad Salih bin Attash was held at Guantanamo for 20 years. Attash was seventeen years old when he was captured.Kids of Guantanamo
, ''

cageprisoners.com Cage is a London-based advocacy organisation which aims to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror. Cage highlights and campaigns against state policies, developed as part of the War on Terror. The organisation was formed to raise a ...

, June 15, 2005 Hassan is the brother of Walid bin Attash, who has also been described as an

inmate A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a sentence in pr ...

in the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

's network of secret prisons.List of “Ghost Prisoners” Possibly in CIA Custody
''

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

'', December 1, 2005 Hassan, too, claims he spent time in the other prisons, including " the dark prison", prior to being detained in Guantanamo Bay,

.U.S. Operated Secret 'Dark Prison' in Kabul
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

'', December 19, 2005

Human Rights Concern

The circumstances of Hassan bin Attash have triggered the attention of several human rights organizations, including

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, Reprieve and

.Guantánamo: pain and distress for thousands of children
''

'' Reprieve uncovers evidence indicating German territory may have been used in rendition and abuse
, '' Reprieve'', October 10, 2006 According to their accounts Hassan bin Attash was captured on September 10, 2002, spent time in the dark prison, spent sixteen months in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, where he was hung upside down, and beaten on the soles of his feet, which were then immersed in salt water. They assert that he underwent this kind of questioning until he was willing to sign anything. They claim that he wasn't interrogated about anything he himself had done, but rather about the activity of his older brother. They assert that his 70-year-old father underwent similar questioning. Bin Attash was flown to Guantanamo in March 2003. The ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' quoted Guantanamo spokesmen Lieutenant commander

Chito Peppler Chito is a given name or nickname that may refer to: * Chito Calvo (1903–1977), Filipino basketball player, swimmer, and coach * Chito Garcia (1924–2015), Mexican baseball outfielder and manager * Chito Gascon, Filipino lawyer, civil organiz ...

, who insisted, ''"US policy requires all detainees to be treated humanely,"'' Peppler repeated the assertion that none of the captive's assertions of abuse were credible because al-Qaeda trained operatives to lie about abuse.

Transportation to Guantanamo Bay

Human Rights group Reprieve reports that flight records show two captives named

Al-Sharqawi Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj (born May 26, 1974 in Taiz, Yemen), also known as Riyadh the Facilitator, is a Yemeni alleged Al-Qaeda associate who was held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was accused of being a "seni ...

and Hassan bin Attash were flown from Kabul in September 2002. The two men were flown aboard

N379P This page describes several aircraft that are alleged in media reports to have been used in the practice of extraordinary rendition, the extralegal transfer of prisoners from one country to another. N313P N313P was a tailnumber assigned to a Bo ...

, a plane suspected to be part of the CIA's ghost fleet. Flight records showed that the plane originally departed from

Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago. It has been used as a joint UK–U.S. military base since the 1970s, following the expulsion of the Chagossians by the UK government. The Chagos Islands are set to become a former B ...

, stopped in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, then Kabul before landing in

Guantánamo Bay Guantánamo Bay (, ) is a bay in Guantánamo Province at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the largest harbor on the south side of the island and it is surrounded by steep hills which create an enclave that is cut off from its immediate hint ...

Official status reviews

Originally the Bush

Presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

asserted that captives apprehended in the ''" war on terror"'' were not covered by the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004 the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

ruled, in

Rasul v. Bush ''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corp ...

, 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

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants. Scholars at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

, led by

Benjamin Wittes Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is an American legal journalist. He is editor in chief of '' Lawfare'' and senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, where he is the research director in public law, and co-director ...

, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations: * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who ... * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ... traveled to Afghanistan for jihad."'' * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash 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."'' * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges ... took military or terrorist training in Afghanistan."'' * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who ''"The military alleges that the following detainees were captured under circumstances that strongly suggest belligerency."'' * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the captives who was an ''"al Qaeda operative"''. * Hassan Muhammad Salih Bin Attash was listed as one of the ''"82 detainees made no statement to CSRT or ARB tribunals or made statements that do not bear materially on the military's allegations against them."''

Habeas corpus

A writ of

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...

was filed on behalf of Bin Attash.

Joint Review Task Force

On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated,

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed For ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

issued three

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...

s related to the detention of individuals in

. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the

Guantanamo Review Task Force The Guantanamo Review Task Force was created by Executive Order 13492 issued by President of the United States Barack Obama on January 22, 2009, his second full day in office. United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced Matthew G. Olsen ...

classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was insufficient evidence to justify charging them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act (United States) of 1966 * F ...

request. Hassan bin Attash was one of the 71 individuals deemed unable to be charged due to insufficient evidence, but too dangerous to release. Obama said those deemed unable to be charged due to insufficient evidence, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a

Periodic Review Board The Periodic Review Boards administrate a US ''"administrative procedure"'' for recommending whether certain individuals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba are safe to release or transfer, or whether they should continue to be held ...

Periodic Review Board

The first review wasn't convened until November 20, 2013. , 29 individuals had reviews, but Hassan bin Attash wasn't one of them. Bin Attash was approved for transfer on April 13, 2022.

Release

Bin Attash and 10 other detainees were transferred to

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

on January 6, 2025.

References

External links

The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo
Andy Worthington
UN Secret Detention Report (Part Three): Proxy Detention, Other Countries’ Complicity, and Obama’s Record
Andy Worthington {{DEFAULTSORT:Attash, Hassan Mohammed Ali Bin People from Jeddah People subject to extraordinary rendition by the United States Juveniles held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp Saudi Arabian torture victims Living people 1985 births