Abdul Hadi al Iraqi

Early life

al-Iraqi was born in northern Mosul in 1961. He speaks Arabic, Urdu, the Waziri tribal dialect of Pashtu and a courtly form of Persian. He served in the Iraqi Army. Then he travelled to Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion.

Alleged terrorism activities

According to information about him provided by the Pentagon, Hadi was a key paramilitary commander in Afghanistan during the late 1990s, before taking charge of cross-border attacks against US and coalition troops from 2002 to 2004. He was accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, and of involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Following the American invasion in 2001, he clashed with Ahmed Khadr arguing that front line battle would prove more useful than guerilla tactics around Shagai, Pakistan.

Al Iraqi was alleged to have managed the Ashara guest house, in Kabul's diplomatic district, from where he was alleged to command al Qaeda's army, and to have served as al Qaeda's accountant.

He had been wanted in Iraq since at least February 2005. The most recent U.S. State Department wanted poster said

The Newsweek article claimed that al Iraqi brokered a 2005 reconciliation between Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. Newsweek asserted that bin Laden had failed to anticipate the strength of the Iraqi's anti-occupation resistance, and that he dispatched al Iraqi to take charge of establishing an al-Qaeda presence in the resistance. Newsweek asserted that Zarqawi had left a bad impression on his fellow veterans of the struggle to evict the Soviet invaders, and that bin Laden didn't trust him. However, al Iraqi recommended that al Qaeda would be better served by naming Zarqawi the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq than by trying to compete with him for volunteers and establish a parallel effort — explaining the reconciliation.

It was reported in January 2002 that someone with the same pseudonyms Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi and Abu Abdullah had been captured in Afghanistan. That person was also described as a training camp commander. But despite these coincidences, the two suspects are now known to be distinct people.

Despite the report that Abdul-Hadi spoke several regional languages, several of the charges against Abdul Zahir stem from him serving as a translator for Abdul-Hadi.

A captured letter dated 13 June 2002, and thought to be from Saif al-Adel, mentions an Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi who is quite senior in al-Qaeda and is at large (probably in Afghanistan) at the time of that writing. The US DoD statement says that Abdul-Hadi "during 2002-04, was in charge of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan" and that prior to his capture he "was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qai`da's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets".

Capture

On 27 April 2007 it was reported that Abdul Hadi Al-Iraqi was in custody in Guantanamo Bay. He was previously held by the CIA. The BBC reported that US sources told them Al-Iraqi was arrested "late last year".

On September 6, 2006 US President George W. Bush officially confirmed that the CIA maintained a secret network of offshore interrogation camps, when he announced that fourteen "high value detainees" had been transferred to Guantanamo.

Bush claimed that the transfer of these fourteen men had emptied the CIA's secret interrogation camps. Critics pointed out that Bush had not announced the closure of the camps. The date of Al-Iraqi's capture has not been made known. It is not clear whether Al-Iraqi entered the CIA's network of secret interrogation camps before or after Bush's announcement.

The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007 that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants". Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "illegal enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.

Habeas corpus petition

Al Iraqi has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.

Joint Review Task Force

On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated, United States President Barack Obama issued three Executive orders related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request. Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release. Obama said those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board.

Periodic Review Board

The first review wasn't convened until November 20, 2013. As of 15 April 2016 29 individuals had reviews, but Abdul Hadi al Iraqi wasn't one of them.

Charges

These common allegations set forth the manner and means by which the accused, Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi ("Abd al Hadi") (see Appendix A for a list of aliases), and his coconspirators participated in a common plan and agreement, and aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, and procured the commission of each of the offenses listed al Charges II though IV. Further, these common allegations set forth the manner and means by which the accused, by virtue of his position as a superior commander, knew, had reason to know, and should have known that a subordinate was about to commit such acts and had done so and the accused failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts and to punish the perpetrators thereof.

The accused, a person subject to trial by military commission as an alien unprivileged enemy belligerent, did, from in or about 1996 to in or about late 2006, at multiple locations, in the context of and associated with hostilities, knowingly conspire and agree with individuals, known and unknown, to commit substantive offenses triable by military commission for the purpose of, among other purposes, forcing the United States, its allies, and non-Muslims out of the Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan, and Iraq. To that end, the accused and his co-conspirators committed the following overt acts to accomplish the objectives and purposes of the conspiracy:

CHARGE I: VIOLATION OF 10 U.S.C. § 950t(6), DENYING QUARTER CHARGE II: VIOLATION OF 10 U.S.C. § 950t(4), ATTACKING PROTECTED PROPERTY CHARGE III: VIOLATION OF 10 U.S.C. § 950t(l7), USING TREACHERY OR PERFIDY CHARGE IV: VIOLATION OF 10 U.S.C. § 950t(28), ATTEl1PTED USE OF TREACHERY OR PERFIDY

Medical condition

Abdul Hadi al Iraqi suffers from a spinal condition. Camp authorities flew in a neuro-surgical team for an emergency operation, hours before Cuba was struct by Hurricane Irma. According to Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, his lawyers blamed the severity of his spinal condition on a decade of medical mistreatment. Military spokesmen, on the other hand, pointed to him as an example of the high quality of the treatment provided to captives.

According to his lawyers a CT scan performed in January 2017 pointed out the need for surgery. Camp authorities only scheduled his surgery after he lost all feeling in his legs, and became incontinent.

On September 15, 2017, his lawyers announced that he needed another operation on his spine, in her neck.