Yasser Talal Al Zahrani

Yasser Talal al Zahrani (September 22, 1984 – June 10, 2006) was a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.

His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 93.

The Department of Defense (DoD) reported that he was born on September 22, 1984, in Saudi Arabia.

At the time of his capture, al-Zahrani was initially suspected of being "a front line fighter for the Taliban", though he was later considered "second line".

He was also suspected of arranging weapons purchases.

Abdulla Majid Al Naimi, a detainee from Bahrain, was released on November 8, 2005.

In 2006, while in detention, he wrote a letter to his father, Colonel Talal Al-Zahrani, a former Brigadier General in the Saudi police force, that suggested that two prisoners seemed to be on the verge of death, and that he suspected foul play.

Ten days later, the Department of Defense announced that he and the two prisoners had committed suicide.

The press, the Saudi government, the detainees' families, and human rights groups have raised serious questions about whether these deaths were suicides or manslaughter due to torture.

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal.

His memo accused him of the following:

Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings.

These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.

There is no record that Yasser Talal Al Zahrani chose to attend his hearing.

The Summary of Evidence memo prepared for his hearing listed 26 factors favoring his continued detention.

The factors stated:

On June 10, 2006, the DoD reported that three Guantanamo detainees: two Saudis and one Yemeni, had committed suicide.

DoD spokesmen refrained from releasing the dead men's identities.

On June 11, 2006, Saudi authorities released the names of the two Saudi men.

One was identified as al-Zahrani.

The other Saudi was identified as both Maniy bin Shaman al-Otaibi and Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi.

Neither of these names is on either of the two official lists of Guantanamo names the DoD has released.

On June 25, 2006, he made a public statement about the deaths, saying he had known the three men and disputed that they had committed suicide.

He said that al-Zahrani was only 16 when he was captured.

He thought the youth should have been treated as a minor.

He said,

"He was 21 when he died, barely the legal age in most countries, and was merely 16 when he was picked up four and half years ago. His age shows that he is not even supposed to be taken to a police office; he should have been turned over to the underage [juvenile] authorities."

The New York Times reported that al-Zahrani's father, Talal Abdallah al-Zahrani, had recently received a letter from his son in which he seemed to be in good spirits.

He said: "Nothing suggested that he would commit suicide, nothing."

Al Zahrani also disputed the US report that his son was non-compliant, saying his son had spent his time memorizing the Koran, and had been behaving.

Al Zahrani said that his son had been in Afghanistan working for Islamic charities.

The English language Arab newspaper Asharq Alawsat reported that a letter a detainee had " ... written ten days before the Pentagon announced three inmates had committed suicide on June 10 ... " appears to report that " ... Two detainees are on the verge of death… perhaps they are dying or have died poisoned. ... "

Asharq Alawsat asserts that the two detainees on the verge of death were two of the men the USA claimed committed suicide.

Asharq Alawsat reports that the letter was handed by the detainee, to his lawyer, who turned it over to Talal Al Zahrani's father's lawyer.

Asharq Alawsat reports that the detainee's name is being kept confidential, for his safety.

Guantanamo attorneys must all agree that they must turn over all their notes and other documents before they leave Guantanamo.

They have to report to a secure document center in Washington DC center in order to review their own notes.

If a detainee authored a letter suggesting Talal Al-Zahrani and the two other men didn't really commit suicide, keeping his identity confidential could not have prevented the DoD from learning his identity.

Guantanamo camp authorities conducted post mortems on the three dead men, before their bodies were shipped home.

Al Zahrani's father has called for a second post mortem by neutral, independent pathologists.