User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/transcripts/342

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Mohammed Mubarek Salah Al Qurbi

Response to the allegations

• Al Qurbi corrected his travel itinerary - the correct order was Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, then Pakistan, then Malaysia, then Syria.
• In response to the allegation that an al Qaida operative was known to have falsified passports using Malaysian visa stamps Al Qurbi pointed out that his passport was fine. The Saudi government had checked his passport, and it was fine.
• In response to the third allegation Al Qurbi asked what al-Nashri was. When it was explained to him that Al-Nashri was the name of someone suspected of involvement in the USS Cole bombing, and that he was suspected of being on this man's bodyguards, Al Qurbi said this was not true.
• In response to the allegation that he was seen aboard a Taliban airplane, in Afghanistan, he pointed out that he had never been to Afghanistan.
• In response to the allegation that he was identified as an al Qaida member by another captive he suggested someone had falsely identified him because he was subjected to pressure during his interrogation.

In response to the allegation that he managed a Kabul guest house he repeated that he had never been to Afghanistan.

Al Qurbi's statement

In addition to correcting the record on his travel itinerary, Al Qurbi corrected the pronunciation of his name. His real name was pronounced Mohammed Barak Salem Al Qurbi, not Mohammed Mobarck Salem Al Qurbi.

Response to Tribunal questions

Al Qurbi confirmed that he was from Saudi Arabia.

Al Qurbi had trouble understanding a question about the dates of his travel because he didn't understand the Julian calendar. So the question was rephrased. When he was asked if he undertook all that travel in a single year, he confirmed that he had.

The transcript records al Qurbi being asked the purpose of his travels, and responding by asking, in turn, "Are you interrogating me or are you asking me?"

Al Qurbi responded to the repetition of this question, and a further question, by informing his Tribunal: "You have all that information in my files."

The Tribunal's President then brought the unclassified session to an end.

Responses to the factors

• Al Qurbi tried, again, to bring the official version of his travel itinerary into line with his actual travel itinerary. He pointed out that the correct version was recorded on his passport.
• Al Qurbi denied attending a religious meeting in Lahore.
• Al Qurbi denied any knowledge of
  Jama'at al Tabligh
• Al Qurbi told his Board, as he had told his Tribunal, that he had never been to Afghanistan.
• In response to an allegation under the heading "training" Al Qurbi assured his Board that his passport was not forged, and contained no forged exit or entry stamps.
• In response to the allegations under the heading "connections" Al Qurbi assured his Board he had no connection to al Qaeda, or to a gentleman named "Al Nashiri".
• In response to the factors under the heading "other relevant data":
  • Al Qurbi corrected the dates of his capture. He was captured on the twenty-third of Ramadan, the date that was recorded on his factor's list, November 25, 2001, was actually the date the Pakistani authorities handed him over to the Americans.
  • Al Qurbi denied owning suspicious notebooks described in the factors.
  • Al Qurbi pointed out that he was handed over to the Americans along with many other suspects, and suggested that the records of which evidence was associated with which suspect got confused.

Statement

Al Qurbi noted that none of the corrections he had tried to make to the record during his last meeting, his Tribunal, had been taken into account when the factors favoring his continued detention were drafted.

They still had his name wrong, and they still had his itinerary wrong.

Response to Board questions

• Al Qurbi declined to answer a question about what he did during his five months in Malaysia. He said he preferred to confine his answers to the allegations in his summary of evidence.
• Al Qurbi denied that he had ever received any military training.
• Al Qurbi said he traveled to Pakistan to attend Tabligh meetings.
• Al Qurbi denied performing
  Da'wa
  work prior to his arrival in Pakistan.
• Al Qurbi repeated that he didn't know Al-Nashiri. The Board wanted clarification—did he know of him? Al Qurbi clarified that not only didn't he know Al-Nashiri, but he had never heard his name before his capture.
• Al Qurbi was asked why the Pakistanis arrested him. He told his Board he had no idea. They held him, without charge, for a month and a half, before they turned him over to the Americans, and they never gave him any clue as to why he was arrested.
• Al Qurbi was asked if he had asked for a transfer to Camp five.^[1]
• When Al Qurbi corrected the pronunciation of his name the Recorder recorded his correction as: "Ny name is 'Mohammed Mubarek Salim Al Qurbi' not Salah."