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  • 2016-05-03 (xsd:date)
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  • Obama Freed USS Cole Terrorist? (en)
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  • On 2 May 2016 the web site FrontPage Mag published an article reporting that President Obama freed a [USS] Cole cell terrorist, referencing the 12 October 2000 USS Cole attack during which 17 American servicemen died in Yemen: Al-Sabri was one of several Guantánamo Bay prisoners transferred to Saudi Arabia in a widely reported April 2016 negotiated deal with the country. A 16 April 2016 article did not specifically describe al-Sabri as linked to the USS Cole attack: Before his transfer in mid-April 2016, little was written about al-Sabri or the reasons for which he was detained in the controversial prison. A Google search restricted to on or before 1 February 2016 yielded just three hits -- all of which were misdated items concerning his transfer to Saudi Arabia. If al-Sabri was a major name linked with the USS Cole investigation, that was not reported between the October 2000 attack and his April 2016 transfer out of Guantanamo Bay. Other (and more credible) reporting did not link al-Sabri to the USS Cole bombing: Al-Sabri was not among the most notable or notorious prisoners transferred to Saudi Arabia in April 2016. Extensive information about him was available via a New York Times project called The Guantánamo Docket, which includes detailed files on each detainee. Al-Sabri's file contained some mentions of the USS Cole bombing, but primarily tangential ones: That file didn't definitively link al-Sabri to the USS Cole bombing, and noted that intelligence officials considered him an unreliable source: While closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp was an initial and ongoing aim of the Obama administration, President Obama was not directly involved with the details of prisoner transfers. That is the function of a specific parole board-like committee, detailed in other pages about controversial Gitmo transfers. The decision to transfer al-Sabri was explained in a 17 April 2015 Periodic Review Board document [PDF], detailing a determination made one year before the April 2016 transfers: The excerpt above described the prisoner as having a low level of training with respect to al-Qaeda activities, noted he [renounced] extremist ideology, and affirmed that he was neither a leader nor mastermind for either al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The New York Times mentioned al-Sabri in passing in April 2016 during a story about the mechanics of the Saudi transfer: Finally, a separate Guantánamo Bay prisoner was identified as the mastermind of the attack in a 2011 article. That prisoner remains in the detention facility: Al-Nashiri was charged with war crimes and has not been released from the site. It is possible that FrontPage Mag confused the newly-transferred al-Sabri with an individual with a similar name, but that person was not described as a current or former detainee. Unlike al-Sabri, al-Nashiri's file detailed strong links to the USS Cole attack. Al-Sabri was among nine prisoners transferred from Guantánamo Bay into Saudi Arabian custody in April 2016; al-Sabri's transfer was recommended by the PRB in April 2015. President Obama did not have any hand in the transfer of al-Sabri or any other specific prisoner, as that task remains the responsibility of the PRB. While al-Sabri's file mentioned a potential link to groups involved in the USS Cole attack, his own involvement was tenuous to nonexistent. Al-Sabri was not expressly freed, but released into custody in Saudi Arabia for further rehabilitation under a long-negotiated plan to empty the site of prisoners. (en)
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