Said Ali Al-Shihri - Combatant Status Review

Combatant Status Review

Initially the Bush administration asserted they could withhold the protections of the Geneva Conventions from captives in the War on Terror, while critics argued the Conventions obliged the United States to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals, to determine whether the captives met the new definition of an "enemy combatant".

Detainees do not have the right to a lawyer before the CSRTs or to access the evidence against them. The CSRTs are not bound by the rules of evidence that would apply in court, and the government’s evidence is presumed to be “genuine and accurate.” However, unclassified summaries of relevant evidence may be provided to the detainee and each detainee has an opportunity to present “reasonably available” evidence and witnesses.

From July 2004 through March 2005, a CSRT was convened to make a determination whether each captive had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Said Ali al-Shihri was among the one-third of prisoners for whom there was no indication they chose to participate in their tribunals.

In the landmark case Boumediene v. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court found that CSRTs are not an adequate substitute for the constitutional right to challenge one's detention in court, in part because they do not have the power to order detainees released. The Court also found that "there is considerable risk of error in the tribunal’s findings of fact."

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal, listing the alleged facts that led to his detainment. His memo accused him of the following:

• he traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, after 11 September 2001, with $1,900, that he planned to give to the Red Crescent charity;
• he was an "al Qaida travel facilitator", who funded other fighters, and guided them on how to cross the Iran-Afghan border;
• he was on a watch list because he was suspected of helping Saudis acquire false travel documents, for traveling to Afghanistan;
• he trained at the Libyan camp north of Kabul;
• he was instructed to assassinate someone, via a fatwa;
• his leg was wounded during the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan.