Yasser Talal Al Zahrani

Saudi Arabian Guantanamo detainee

Yasser Talal al Zahrani (September 22, 1984 – June 10, 2006) was a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 93. The Department of Defense (DoD) reported that he was born on September 22, 1984, in Saudi Arabia. At the time of his capture, al Zahrani was initially suspected of being "a front line fighter for the Taliban", though he was later considered "second line". He was also suspected of arranging weapons purchases. In 2006, while in detention, he wrote a letter to his father, Colonel Talal al Zahrani, a former Brigadier General in the Saudi police force, that suggested that two prisoners seemed to be on the verge of death, and that he suspected foul play. Ten days later, the Department of Defense announced that he and the two prisoners had committed suicide. The press, the Saudi government, the detainees' families, and human rights groups have raised serious questions about whether these deaths were suicides or manslaughter due to torture.

Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee might pose if released or transferred, and whether there were other factors that warranted his continued detention.

On June 10, 2006, the DoD reported that three Guantanamo detainees: two Saudis and one Yemeni, had committed suicide. DoD spokesmen refrained from releasing the dead men's identities. On June 11, 2006, Saudi authorities released the names of the two Saudi men. One was identified as al Zahrani. The other Saudi was identified as both Maniy bin Shaman al Otaibi and Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi. Neither of these names is on either of the two official lists of Guantanamo names the DoD has released.

The New York Times reported that al Zahrani's father, Talal Abdallah al Zahrani, had recently received a letter from his son in which he seemed to be in good spirits. He said: "Nothing suggested that he would commit suicide, nothing." Al Zahrani said that his son had been in Afghanistan working for Islamic charities.

The English language Arab newspaper Asharq Alawsat reported that a letter a detainee had " written ten days before the Pentagon announced three inmates had committed suicide on June 10 " appears to report that " Two detainees are on the verge of death perhaps they are dying or have died poisoned. " Asharq Alawsat asserts that the two detainees on the verge of death were two of the men the USA claimed committed suicide. Asharq Alawsat reports that the letter was handed by the detainee, to his lawyer, who turned it over to Talal Al Zahrani's father's lawyer. Al Zahrani's father has called for a second post mortem by neutral, independent pathologists. Al Zahrani's father claimed that after his own examination of his son's corpse he was convinced he bore the marks of a beating. Patrice Mangin, a widely published forensic pathologist, headed the team that volunteered to provide neutral, independent second autopsies for the three dead men. After their examination of Ahmed's body, he said that it was routine for pathologists to remove some organs that decay rapidly. However, they had also found that the DoD had retained Ahmed's throat, which his team would need to examine before they offered a definitive conclusion as to how he died. Mangin asked the DoD to supply his team with Ahmed's throat, and with the bed sheets they claimed had been used to hang the three men.

The Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of California (Davis) published the official record of Al Zahrani's weigh in reports.

Death in Camp Delta was directed by the Norwegian filmmaker, Erling Borgen .]