Saad Madi Saad al Azmi (born May 29, 1979) is a
Kuwait
Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...
i citizen.
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He was held in
extrajudicial
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...
detention in 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 ...
Guantánamo Bay detainment 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 ...
s, in
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 ...
, and later repatriated on November 4, 2005.
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
report that al-Azmi was born on May 29, 1979, in
Doha
Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...
, Kuwait.
Repatriation
Al-Azmi and four other men were repatriated on November 4, 2005.
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The five stood trial in a Kuwaiti court, and were acquitted.
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The ''
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
'' reported that the two main charges were that the detainees had helped fund
Al Wafa
Al Wafa is an Islamic charity listed in Executive Order 13224 as an entity that supports terrorism.
United States intelligence (information gathering), intelligence officials state that it was founded in Afghanistan by Adil Zamil Abdull Mohssin A ...
, an Afghan charity with ties to al-Qaeda, and that they had fought alongside the Taliban.
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Further, the prosecution argued that the detainees actions had endangered Kuwait's political standing and its relations with friendly nations.
The detainees'
defense had argued that testimony secured in Guantanamo could not be used in Kuwaiti courts, because the detainees and interrogators hadn't signed them.
[
Further, they had argued, the allegations the USA had directed at them weren't violations of Kuwaiti law.
]
McClatchy interview
On June 15, 2008, the McClatchy News Service
McClatchy Media Company, or simply McClatchy and MCC, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law. Originally based in Sacramento, California, United States, and known as The McClatchy Company, it b ...
published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Saad Madi al Azmi.[
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mirror
[ He told McClatchy reporters that he had never been to Afghanistan, and that he was captured in his hotel room in Pakistan by Pakistani police in August 2001. He said he was captured with Adel al Zamel, who the McClatchy reporters noted was captured in Peshawar in January 2002. He said he had traveled to Pakistan to import honey.
When he was arrested his visa had expired.][ He thought he would soon be released over what was a minor indiscretion, but a Pakistani police officer demanded a bribe first, which he declined, resulting in a longer detention, which, unfortunately, overlapped al Qaeda's attacks on ]September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, making it economically worthwhile for the Pakistani police to turn him over the Americans.
Al Azmi told reporters he was beaten in both Kandahar detention facility
Kandahar Central Jail, also known as Sarpuza Prison, is a minimum-security prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It is located next to the Kandahar-Herat Highway in the Sarpuza neighborhood, which is between the neighborhoods of Mirwais Mena and Shahr ...
and the Bagram Theater Internment Facility
The Parwan Detention Facility (also called Detention Facility in Parwan or Bagram prison) is Afghanistan's main military prison. Situated next to the Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, the prison was built by the U.S. during ...
.[
]
See also
* Abdul-Aziz al-Shimmiri
* Adel Zamel Abdul-Mohsen
* Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi
* Mohammed Fnaitil al-Dehani
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Azmi, Saad Madi Saad Al
Guantanamo detainees known to have been released
Kuwaiti extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
Living people
Bagram Theater Internment Facility detainees
1979 births