Ghassan Al-Sharbi - Background

Background

Ghassan was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia but attended high school in the United States, and went on to study electrical engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.

He was captured by Pakistani forces during a raid at Faisalabad, Pakistan in March 2002. He wasn't brought to Bahrain Airbase, as prisoner #237, for interrogation until June when he was chiefly interrogated by two soldiers romantically linked to each other.

Speaking fluent English, he appeared "dismissive and aloof", and said that he was glad to see the Taliban ruling Afghanistan, quoting statistics that showed a dramatic decrease in crime rates and new schools built under their government.

He asked the interrogations chief whether he had read anything by T. E. Lawrence, or From Beirut to Jerusalem, and later dismissed the interrogator's statement that he was a graduate of Fordham University by retorting that it was a "third-tier school". He offered the names, addresses and phone numbers of several American classmates, professors and landlords he said would vouch for him having done nothing wrong. The interrogator later remarked that al-Shirbi had a "seeming preoccupation with death".

When it was arranged to transfer al-Shirbi to Guantanamo, he calmly told his interrogators that "after a while, the truth would blur for him and that he would just say whatever we wanted to hear just to have the solitude that would come from the end of our questioning".

In testimony before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal in Guantanamo, he accepted the title "enemy combatant" as well as all 15 charges against him. Upon dismissal from the room, Ghassan chanted "May God help me fight the infidels or the unfaithful ones."

On November 7, 2005, the United States charged Ghassan and four other detainees They will face a trial before a military commission. Ghassan, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Sufyian Barhoumi face conspiracy to murder charges. Omar Khadr faces both murder and conspiracy to murder charges.

Al-Sharbi initially wanted to decline legal representation. His lawyer, Bob Rachlin, is trying to arrange for Al-Sharbi to talk, by phone, with his parents, hoping they will be able to convince him to accept Rachlin's legal assistance.

On April 27, 2006 al Sharbi acknowledged membership in al Qaeda, and told his military commission:

• "I came here to tell you I did what I did and I'm willing to pay the price"
• "Even if I spend hundreds of years in jail, that would be a matter of honor to me,"
• "I fought the United States, I'm going to make it short and easy for you guys: I'm proud of what I did."

On May 29, 2008 Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, Sufyian Barhoumi and Jabran al-Qathani were charged before the Congressionally authorized military commissions.

On 21 October 2008 Susan J. Crawford the official in charge of the Office of Military Commissions announced charges were dropped against Al Sharbi and four other captives, Jabran al Qahtani, Binyam Mohamed, Sufyian Barhoumi, and Noor Uthman Muhammed. Carol J. Williams, writing in the Los Angeles Times reported that all five men had been connected by Abu Zubaydah -- one of the three captives the CIA has acknowledged was interrogated using the controversial technique known as "waterboarding".

Williams quoted the men's attorneys, who anticipated the five men would be re-charged in thirty days. They told Williams that: "... prosecutors called the move procedural", and attributed it to the resignation of fellow Prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld, who resigned on ethical grounds. Williams reported that Clive Stafford Smith speculated that the Prosecution's dropping of the charges, and plans to subsequently re-file charges later was intended to counter and disarm the testimony Vandeveld was anticipated to offer, that the Prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence.