WASHINGTON (CN) — Guantanamo Bay's review board focused Thursday on a well-connected Yemeni whose advocates attribute his continued detention to CIA intelligence-gathering, more so than threat prevention.
Human Rights Watch has described Abd al-Salam al-Hilah as a "Yemeni intelligence colonel."
"His position meant that he had a close relationship with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, as well as with a broad array with Arab and Western intelligence services, and members of the militant groups themselves," the group says in a briefing paper.
Islamists who denied al-Hilah's involvement with al-Qaida or other terror groups confirmed that he facilitated exit from the country for thousands, the group notes.
That task "should have been recognized as aiding the West in its efforts to combat terrorism," a representative for the detainee told Guantanamo's periodic review board this morning.
But Human Rights Watch said that work pegged him as an intelligence asset.
"Those familiar with the Islamist scene in Yemen say his knowledge of the Islamists' exodus routes out of his country made him a valuable source of information for the CIA," the Human Rights briefing paper asserts.
Al-Hilah was on a short business trip to Cairo when Egypt's secret police Mukhabarat captured him in September 2002.
In an era of extraordinary rendition, Egyptian intelligence sent al-Hilah to a secret CIA "dark prison" in Afghanistan. Al-Hilah did not arrive at the prison camp in Cuba until September 2004. He has been there without charge or trial ever since.
At his hearing this morning before Guantanamo's periodic review board — streamed live to the Pentagon — al-Hilah wore a short-sleeved white shirt and sat mostly still through the public portion of the proceedings.
The 48-year-old's case is a tale of two starkly conflicting narratives.
An unclassified profile for YM-1463, as the detainee is known to the U.S., says "he entered into extremist circles at a young age and rose to be a prominent extremist facilitator who leveraged his position within the Yemeni Political Security Organization (PSO) to provide refuge and logistical support to extremist groups."
"He has expressed continued support for extremists and terrorist groups, including ISIL," according to the profile, which a female voice read aloud during his hearing, abbreviating the name of the group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
A previously classified profile says al-Hilah is a member of al-Qaida and had foreknowledge of terror attacks — including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. It claims he probably knew about the 9/11 attacks, too.
But al-Hilah's personal representative and his attorney, who has represented him for more than a decade, paint an entirely different picture - one of a well-respected businessman who rose to prominence at a young age and, as his representative said, "had a great deal of tribal, political and business influence" in his native Yemen.
"Abd al-Salam has never had any intentions to harm the United States, her allies or the people of the Western Democracies," his anonymous, male representative told the board in a publicly available statement.
Al-Hilah crossed his arms over his midsection as this representative read his statement to the review board.