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 Ali Ahmad al-Razihi, 33, is suspected of having been part of what
U.S. intelligence officials called the "Dirty 30" security detail
around bin Laden, a founder of al Qaeda who was killed in 2011 by
U.S. forces in Pakistan.
Razihi's hearing before the Periodic Review Board was to re-examine
whether he should continue to be held without charge at Guantanamo
Bay, the U.S. military prison in Cuba, or be transferred, possibly
home to Yemen.
One of the two U.S. military representatives for Razihi read a
statement to the panel that said Razihi was focused on returning to
Yemen, getting married and helping with the family fruit and
vegetable business.
"He is eager to demonstrate to this board in the most
straightforward way that he is a peaceful man," the representative,
who was not identified, said via a closed-circuit television
transmission from Guantanamo Bay to a viewing site near the
Pentagon.
A detainee profile from the Defense Department said Razihi had been
a "low threat" to guards but had not provided information about al
Qaeda. He has been uncooperative and has avoided interviews since
2010, it said.
If sent back to Yemen, Razihi probably would return to his hometown
of Taiz, which has seen modest activity by al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, an al Qaeda offshoot, the profile said.
The grainy transmission showed the bearded Razihi, who had no legal
counsel, wearing a khaki-colored shirt, seated at a table with his
uniformed representatives and a translator.
The half-hour transmission ended after the profile and statement
were read. The panel was not shown.
Pakistani forces captured Razihi in December 2001 while he fled bin
Laden's hideout at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. He was put in U.S.
custody and sent to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.
The Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended in January 2010 that
Razihi remain in prison. The group had examined what to do with
detainees after President Barack Obama ordered the jail closed.
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The hearing is the third by the review board, designed to ease the
eventual closing of the prison. About 70 of the 154 prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay cannot be prosecuted for various reasons, but are
considered too dangerous to release.
The U.S. government could hold them indefinitely without charge
under the authorization of military force against al Qaeda and its
backers following the September 11, 2001, plane attacks in which
nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania.
The board, set up in October, includes the departments of State,
Justice and Defense, as well as the military Joint Chiefs of Staff
and the director of national intelligence.
The Periodic Review Board found after its first hearing that another
suspected bin Laden bodyguard, Mahmud Abd al Aziz al Mujahid, was
eligible for transfer back to Yemen, the Defense Department said in
January.
But the panel said this month that Abdel Malik al Rahabi, also a
suspected bin Laden bodyguard from Yemen, should remain in custody
at Guantanamo.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Scott Malone and Gunna
Dickson)
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