1. Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.
17 Facts About Mohammed al-Qahtani
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Mohammed al-Qahtani was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani's release was announced by the US Department of Defense the next day.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani was born on 19 November 1975 in Kharj, Saudi Arabia.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani is a Saudi national from a large Sunni family.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani's father served as a police officer for 28 years.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani's mother remained at home to raise their twelve children.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani was questioned by immigration agent Jose Melendez-Perez, who was dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he intended to become an illegal immigrant, as he was using a one-way ticket.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani continued giving a false name, and insisted he had been in the area solely to pursue an interest in falconry.
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At Guantanamo, Mohammed al-Qahtani was subjected to a regime of 17 aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the "First Special Interrogation Plan", authorized in writing by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on December 2,2002, and implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani was charged again in November 2008, but on January 14,2009, Susan J Crawford, a senior Pentagon official of the Bush administration, stated that she would not proceed with his prosecution.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani's statement was the first time any top official of the Bush administration had said there was torture of detainees at Guantanamo.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani had told his lawyer that he was forced to falsely confess and name names, in order to get his "enhanced interrogation" to end.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani had accused 30 other detainees of being former bodyguards of Osama bin Laden.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani cut himself at least three times, causing "profuse bleeding" that needed hospital treatment.
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Mohammed al-Qahtani promised the use of torture would cease at the camp.