Ghassan al-Sharbi

Who is Ghassan al-Sharbi?

Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi is a Saudi currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 682. He graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona with a degree in electrical engineering. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born on December 28, 1974, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March 2002, al-Sharbi was transferred to Guantanamo Bay later that year. In 2006, al-Sharbi told a military commission that he was a member of al-Qaeda and proud of his actions against the United States. Serious war crimes charges were dropped against him in October 2008, as it had been found they were based on evidence gained through torture of Abu Zubaydah. They may be refiled. Al-Sharbi had a habeas corpus petition which his father had initiated on his behalf; when it reached the court in 2March 009, al-Sharbi requested that it be dismissed. He did not want to pursue it.

As of October 17, 2010, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi has been held at Guantanamo for eight years four months.