Al Birr Foundation

The Al Birr Foundation is one of the organizations pinpointed by a team led by Mark Denbeaux that were used to justify the continued extrajudicial detention of captives held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.

Denbeaux is a Professor at Seton Hall University's School of law. He and his son, Joshua Denbeaux, serve as pro bono lawyers for two Guantanamo captives. They lead a team of Seton Hall law student who compiled a series of reports, based on the documents that the US Department of Defense has released.

The second report, entitled: "Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy" documents that most of the organization that Guantanamo intelligence analysts used to justify the continued detention of Guantanamo captives were not listed on the Department of Homeland Security's list of terrorist organizations.

The Al Birr Foundation is listed, by name, in an appendix entitled: "Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda (As Compiled From CRST Summaries)".

The continued detention of a Guantanamo captive named Saed Khatem Al Malki was justified, in part, by an alleged association with the Al Birr Foundation. One of the allegations Al Malki faced during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal was:

"The detainee has given conflicting statements as to the nature of his involvement with the Al Birr Foundation, his stated reason for travel to Afghanistan."

Al Malki denied that he had given conflicting statements. He confirmed that he had traveled to Afghanistan to conduct humanitarian work. He clarified that he had not worked for the Al Birr Foundation himself, but he had worked with another Arab he met in Afghanistan, who had worked for the foundation. He asserted he had left Afghanistan before the attacks of 9-11. He condemned the attacks of 9-11. He suggested that the confusion may have arisen because he kept being assigned new interrogators, who were unfamiliar with his file.