Ali al-Bahlul

Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul (born September 11, 1969) is a Yemeni citizen who has been held as an enemy combatant since 2002 in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

He boycotted the Guantanamo Military Commissions, arguing that there was no legal basis for the military tribunals to judge him.

He set up a satellite receiver for Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization, to listen to live radio coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

He was captured on 15 December 2001 near Parachinar while trying to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan and was transferred to US custody on 26 December 2001.

He faced charges before the first Guantanamo military commissions, before the United States Supreme Court ruled that they were unconstitutional under existing executive authority.

In 2004, he was held in solitary confinement.

Following the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Rasul v. Bush the Department of Defense was instructed to set up a system where Guantanamo captives would be informed as to why they were being held.

The DoD set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants (OARDEC).

OARDEC conducted annual reviews from 2004 to 2008.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still

Bahlul faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission prior to the United States Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) that the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to create military commissions that, without adequate justification, substantially deviated from the rules of procedure and evidence applicable at U.S. courts-martial.

He was indicted along with Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi.

Lieutenant Commander Philip Sundel, his first military defense attorney, described the difficulty in getting a security clearance for a translator to talk to his client.

Sundel told CBS News: "There's virtually no chance he can get a fair trial."

Bahlul asked Peter Brownback, the president of the commissions, if he could represent himself.

After the Supreme Court ruling, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to authorize military commissions at Guantanamo to hear and judge detainee cases.

Al Bahlul and the question of whether detainees should be able to represent themselves were featured in the October 2007 issue of the Yale Law Journal in an article by Matthew Bloom entitled: "I Did Not Come Here To Defend Myself: Responding to War on Terror Detainees' Attempts To Dismiss Counsel and Boycott the Trial".

His most recent military lawyer was Major Thomas Fleener.

He was convicted in November 2008 of performing media relations for Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, and sentenced to life imprisonment, after a jury of nine military officers deliberated for less than an hour.

held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain

common allegations:

Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul was listed as one of the captives who:

On February 9, 2008, Bahlul and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al Qosi were charged before military commissions.

Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, reported that Bahlul would be allowed to represent himself before the newly authorized military commissions, although he was not previously allowed to do so before the Presidentially authorized commissions.

David McFadden of the Associated Press reported that only three reporters covered Bahlul's trial, associated with the Miami Herald, the Associated Press, and Reuters.

The new law authorized detainees to represent themselves by choice.

In late October 2008, three of the men from the group known as the "Buffalo Six" testified at Bahlul's Guantanamo military commissions.

They testified on having been shown a two-hour video that Bahlul produced.

On November 3, 2008, Bahlul was convicted of conspiring with al-Qaeda, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism.

At his sentencing, he admitted he was a member of al-Qaeda, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Through a translator, Bahlul said, "We will fight government that governs America", the AP news agency quoted him as telling the military jurors through a translator.

"We are the only ones on Earth who stand against you."

Rosenberg has reported that, following his conviction, Al-Bahlul was separated from the other captives.

She said that the Department of Defense (DOD) justified the isolation because the "Geneva Conventions ... forbids convicts from being held with war prisoners."

The government insists that it can detain Bahlul indefinitely, although without a conviction he may be moved out of isolation.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned most of his convictions on January 25, 2013.

In October 2016, a divided D.C. Circuit affirmed Bahlul's final remaining conviction, which was for criminal conspiracy.

In October 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Bahlul's petition for a writ of certiorari.

Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts describe Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul as al Qaeda's public relations director.

He is alleged to have created propaganda videos glorifying attacks against the United States.