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Lotfi Bin Ali (1965 – 9 March 2021), also known as Abdullah Bin Ali al-Lutfi, was a Tunisian whom the United States held in extrajudicial detention for over thirteen years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was one of five men transferred to Kazakhstan in 2014. He was extensively quoted following the death, purportedly from lack of medical care, of one of the other captives transferred to Kazakhstan. In a September 2016 profile in The Guardian, he described exile in Kazakhstan as being very isolating, and, in some ways, almost as bad as Guantanamo.

Health

A 2004 medical summary stated he had chronic heart disease that had required the placement of a mechanical heart valve; that he had kidney stones; latent tuberculosis, depression and high blood pressure. It stated he needed to have his blood tested, twice a month, to ensure he was receiving the right dose of anti-coagulants.

Vice magazine, who visited him in October 2015, ten and a half months after his transfer to Semey, Kazakhstan, said his local doctors didn't speak Arabic, and no translators were available. According to his Guantanamo weight records he was 76.5 inches (194 cm) tall, and weighed 225 pounds (102 kg) upon his arrival. His weight showed a sudden drop in late fall of 2005 and he weighed 218 pounds (99 kg) on November 27, 2005. On 10 December 2005, his weight had dropped to 192.5 pounds (87.3 kg). On both 12 & 13 December, his weight was recorded as exactly 173.4 pounds (78.7 kg). On 16 December, his weight was recorded as exactly 163.9 pounds (74.3 kg). By 29 December, his records showed he had gained 29 pounds (13 kg). By 27 January 2006, his weight had risen to 201.4 pounds (91.4 kg), and his weight oscillated around that weight for the rest of 2006. Lotfi Bin Ali died on 9 March 2021 from heart disease complications and inability to afford required surgery.

Official status reviews

Originally, the George W. Bush administration asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:

• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of the captives whom the Wittes team were unable to identify as presently cleared for release or transfer.
• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban."
• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."
• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... took military or terrorist training in Afghanistan."
• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of the captives who was a member of the "al Qaeda leadership cadre".
• Lotfi Bin Ali was listed as one of "two alleged Al Qaeda leaders who have been cleared for release or transfer."

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On 25 April 2011, the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts. His two-page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on June 27, 2004. It was signed by camp commandant Jay W. Hood. He recommended release due to Lotfi's serious health problems, but noted the Criminal Investigative Task Force regarded him as a high risk.

Cleared for release by the Guantanamo Joint Task Force

President Barack Obama enacted three Executive Orders pertaining to Guantanamo on the day he took office. Executive Order 13492 established a new review process for the remaining captive, one where those reviewing their status were senior officials representing several cabinet departments, including the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Lotfi was cleared, yet again, by his review.

Transfer to Kazakhstan

On 30 December 2014, Lotfi Bin Ali and four other men were transferred to Kazakhstan, where they were kept under onerous security conditions. Fox News said that Lotfi and the four other men were the first to be transferred to Kazakhstan. Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, noted that Lotfi Bin Ali arrived in Guantanamo with serious heart disease, and his transfer had first been recommended in 2004, because his heart disease made him a low risk. Three Yemenis (Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna and Sabri Mohammad al Qurashi) and a fellow Tunisian (Adel Al-Hakeemy), were also transferred. Reuters said that the 2009 reviews by the Joint Review Task Force had reclassified all five men as "low risk".

National Public Radio reported that all the agencies with representatives on the Joint Review Task Force had unanimously agreed to release the five men. Lotfi Bin Ali and fellow Tunisian Al Hakeemy were relocated to Semey, while the Yemenis were relocated to Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan.

Vice News described the men transferred to Kazakhstan as only nominally being free. Vice News interviewed

Lotfi Bin Ali shortly after 7 May 2015, death of his friend Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, who was transferred to Kazakhstan at the same time he was. Lotfi Bin Ali had been in regular contact with him via Skype, and had last spoken to him just three days before his death. He told Vice News that Kazakhstan security officials regularly inspected the former captives' living quarters, initially doing so almost every day:

The police used to come almost every day to the apartment. They would open the door and enter and check the place for a minute or two, then they would leave... It's as if it's Guantanamo 2, to be honest.

Lotfi Bin Ali contradicted Guantanamo spokesmen, who claimed al Khalaqi would not have been transferred if his health was compromised—saying that al-Khalaqi regularly fell into comas at Guantanamo, needing prompt medical care. Al-Lofti said al Khalaqi had been hospitalized multiple times, in Kazakhstan, prior to his death. Vice News reported that "In cooperation with the Kazakh government, the local chapter of the ICRC is charged with the care of the former detainees, and provides healthcare, food stipends, language classes, and transport." Kazakhstan security officials routinely enter the men's homes without a warrant.

Vice magazine profiled Lotfi Bin Ali in October 2015. It reported Kazakh authorities still hadn't issued him with identity documents, meaning he had to rely the Red Crescent Society to manage his affairs.

Vice was able to accompany Lotfi Bin Ali to a meeting with Alfiya Meshina, head of the Semey office of the Red Crescent Society. She interrupted Lofti when he was talking about his health, reportedly saying:

I don't want to listen to this bullshit about his health problems. Since he arrived here on the 31st of December last year and until today, all we have been doing is taking care of his health... We have so many poor and elderly people, so many large families that live much worse than he does. What is he, a national hero of Kazakhstan? Why should he enjoy special treatment and privileges?

UNESCO reported in 2019 that Lotfi Bin Ali said he would prefer to live in actual detention in Guantanamo rather than in Kazakhstan.

References

1. OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through 15 May 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Retrieved 15 May 2006.
2. Margot Williams (3 November 2008). "Guantanamo Docket: Lotfi Bin Ali". New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
3. Shaun Walker (30 September 2016). "'Here I have nobody': life in a strange country may be worse than Guantánamo". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 October 2016. Lonely and isolated in the Kazakh steppe, the 51-year-old Tunisian has found life since his release from Guantánamo no easier than life inside.
4. ^ "Abdullah Bin Ali Al Lutfi: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Abdullah Bin Ali Al Lutfi, US9TS-000894DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 27 April 2011. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
5. Diana Cariboni; Raya Jalabi; Jonathan Watts (22 May 2015). "Former Guantánamo detainee dies in Kazakhstan six months after release". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 October 2016. The most seriously ill of the group sent to Kazakhstan is Tunisian Abdullah Bin Ali al-Lutfi, who has a mechanical heart valve and suffers from chronic heart rhythm, kidney stones and high blood pressure. He is 49 years old.
6. ^ Andy Worthington (25 October 2012). "Who Are the 55 Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners on the List Released by the Obama Administration?". Retrieved 6 October 2016. Noticeably, one of these men, Mohammed Abdul Rahman (also known as Lotfi bin Ali), who was first cleared in 2004, is also ill, as I explained in the report on the 40 cleared prisoners in June...
7. ^ Simon Ostrovsky (15 October 2015). "After Being Imprisoned at Guantanamo, Two Men Find Themselves Trapped in Kazakhstan". Vice magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2019. Bin Ali entered US custody with a pre-existing heart condition for which he'd been fitted with an artificial heart valve in the late 1990s. His poor health is part of the reason he was deemed by the Defense Department to be "low risk," and recommended for release or transfer to another country in 2004. He then languished in Guantanamo for 10 more years while the Defense Department debated what to do with him.
8. "The DoD published captives' weights in 2007 -- ISN 839-ISN 1011" (PDF). JTF-GTMO. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
9. "The death of a former Guantanamo prisoner exposes how the US controls the life and death of its captives". Business Insider.
10. "Meet Mansoor Adayfi: I Was Kidnapped as a Teen, Sold to the CIA & Jailed at Guantánamo for 14 Years". YouTube.
11. ^ "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 11 October 2007. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
12. Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
13. Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, 11 December 2004.
14. "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 21 January 2002. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
15. ^ Benjamin Wittes, Zaathira Wyne (16 December 2008). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
16. Christopher Hope; Robert Winnett; Holly Watt; Heidi Blake (27 April 2011). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2012. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
17. "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 27 April 2011. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
18. Missy Ryan, Adam Goldman (31 December 2014). "Pentagon, moving to close Guantanamo, sends five prisoners to Kazakhstan". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 October 2016. A U.S. defense official said the prisoners will be "resettled" in Kazakhstan, a term the Pentagon uses when detainees are set free in a new country but remain subject to some level of monitoring by the host government. Typically, the released detainees are prohibited from leaving the host country for one or two years.
19. ^ Claire Ward (21 May 2015). "Former Guantanamo Detainee Dies in Kazakhstan". Vice News. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Al-Khalaqi, 47, was found unconscious in his apartment in Kyzylorda on May 7 and was brought to the hospital with suspected food poisoning. The autopsy later revealed that he died of kidney failure and showed he had a severe lung infection.
20. Andy Worthington (4 January 2015). "Who Are the Five Guantánamo Prisoners Given New Homes in Kazakhstan?". Retrieved 6 October 2016. I discussed the case of al-Lufti (aka Abdul Rahman) in my article, "Guantánamo Scandal: The 40 Prisoners Still Held But Cleared for Release At Least Five Years Ago," published in June 2012, in which I described his illnesses, and also explained that, disturbingly, he was first cleared for release nearly ten years ago...
21. "US releases 5 more Guantanamo Bay prisoners, sends them to Kazakhstan". Fox News. 31 December 2014. Archived from the original on 1 April 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
22. Carol Rosenberg (30 December 2014). "U.S. sends 5 detainees to Kazakhstan — a day late after aborted journey". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 14 April 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015. One of them, Tunisian Abdullah Bin Ali al Lufti, 48, got to Guantánamo in February 2003 with heart problems and other health issues. By June 2004, according to leaked U.S. military documents, the prison deemed him "low risk, due to his medical condition" and recommended his release or transfer to detention in another country.
23. Matt Spetalnick (31 December 2014). "U.S. sends five Guantanamo prisoners to Kazakhstan for resettlement". Reuters. Archived from the original on 25 March 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2015. One of the Yemenis, Khalaqi, 46, had been implicated by John Walker Lindh, an American captured in late 2001 working with the Taliban, as having fought with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, according to the documents. But Khalaqi denied any involvement.
24. Eyder Peralta (31 December 2014). "U.S. Transfers 5 Guantanamo Detainees To Kazakhstan". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2015. In a statement, the Pentagon said the interagency task force charged with reviewing detainee releases had approved the transfer of these five men "unanimously."
25. Catherine Putz (16 October 2015). "Former Guantanamo Detainees Exiled to Kazakhstan". The Diplomat. Retrieved 28 September 2019. But more serious than his cultural and social isolation is the simple fact that al-Lutfi, who has a serious heart condition likely worsened by 12 years in prison, cannot communicate with his doctors–none of them speak Arabic–and must rely on the local Red Crescent to obtain medicine. The local Red Crescent head told Vice, 'I don't want to listen to this bullshit about his health problems.'
26. Lucine Beylerian (May 2019). "Out of Sight Out of Mind: The Detrimental Effects of Guantanamo Bay's Philosophy". USC-UNESCO Journal for Global Humanities, Science & Ethical Inquiry. pp. 105, 106, 107, 108, 109. Retrieved 28 September 2019.

External links

• Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo? Part Seven: Captured in Pakistan (3 of 3), AndyWorthington.co.uk. 13 October 2010.

• Detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp
• Tunisian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
• People from Tunis
• 1965 births
• 2021 deaths