Mohammed el Gharani

Saudi Chadian Guantanamo Bay detainee (born 1986)

Mohammed el Gharani is a citizen of Chad and native of Saudi Arabia born in 1986, in Medina. He was one of the juveniles held for seven years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp where they estimated his age to be 15–16, though Al Jazeera reports his age to have been 14 at the time of his arrest. Human Rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith identified el Gharani as one of a dozen teenage boys held in the adult portion of the prison. The Independent said el Gharani was accused of plotting with Abu Qatada, in London, in 1999 – when he was a 12 year old, living with his parents, in Saudi Arabia. He was detained for seven years in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps. On January 14, 2009, U. S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the release of el Gharani because the evidence that he was an enemy combatant was mostly limited to statements from two other detainees whose credibility had been called into question by US government staff. El Gharani's attorney Zachary Katznelson said after the ruling "Judge Leon did justice today. This is an innocent kid when he was seized illegally in Pakistan and should never have been in prison in the first place."

On January 14, 2009, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered el Gharani's released. Leon dismissed all the US allegations that el Gharani had been observed in Afghanistan, because there was no evidence to support them—other than denunciations from two other captives—captives whose credibility he questioned.

Muhammad el Gharani was allowed his first phone call on April 16, 2009. He phoned former captive, recently released Al Jazeera journalist Sami Al Hajj. He told Al Hajj that conditions had worsened after the election of United States President Barack Obama. El Gharani was returned to Chad less than two months after the call, on June 13, 2009.