Abdul Rahman Shalabi

Abdul Rahman Shalabi is a citizen of Saudi Arabia currently held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 42.

As of October 10, 2010, Abdul Rahman Shalabi has been held at Guantanamo for eight years nine month.

Combatant Status Review
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal, listing the allegations that led to his detainment. His memo accused him of the following:

Abdul Rahman Shalabi v. George W. Bush
A writ of habeas corpus, Abdul Rahman Shalabi v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Abdul Rahman Shalabi's behalf. In response, on 19 May 2005, the Department of Defense released eighteen pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

On 5 November 2004 Tribunal panel 19 convened, and confirmed his "enemy combatant" status, based on classified "evidence".

Detainee election form
The Detainee election form prepared by his Personal Representative record they met, for fifteen minutes, for a pre-Tribunal interview, at 8:15 am on 4 November 2004, the day before the Tribunal convened. It records:

Recorder exhibit list
The documents released in response to the habeas corpus petition contained a Recorder exhibit list.

Military Commissions Act
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 mandated that Guantanamo captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding habeas corpus petitions were stayed.

Boumediene v. Bush
On June 12, 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated.

On July 18, 2008 Julia Tarver Mason filed a motion to renew Abdul Rahman Shalabi's habeas corpus petition. The petition states that five other Saudi citizens who had been part of the original 2005 petition had been repatriated to Saudi Arabia. Their names were listed as: Saleh Al-Oshan, Zaben Al Shammari, Abdullah Al Otaibi, Fahd Nasser Mohamed and Musa Al Wahab.

The petition stated that the files the Department of Defense provided to his attorney's were incomplete :
 * {| class="wikitable" border="1"


 * The factual return provided in May 2005, however, is incomplete and missing important substantive information about Shalabi and the evidence against him. Nor has the factual return been supplemented to include the record of further proceedings such as Administrative Review Board records. The complete classified and unredacted factual returns and the classified records of the Administrative Review Board will be necessary in pursuing the case.
 * The factual return provided in May 2005, however, is incomplete and missing important substantive information about Shalabi and the evidence against him. Nor has the factual return been supplemented to include the record of further proceedings such as Administrative Review Board records. The complete classified and unredacted factual returns and the classified records of the Administrative Review Board will be necessary in pursuing the case.


 * }

The petition states that Shalabi was the subject of a 30-day notice. The Department of Defense has transferred some captives who had habeas corpus petitions filed on their behalf to the custody of regimes where their lawyers felt their safety would be at risk. In response attorneys filed motions that the Department of Defense should advise them of plans to transfer captives' custody.

Hunger strike
In May 2008 the Gulf News reported that Abdul Rahman Shalabi and Ahmad Zaid Salem Zuhair are the two remaining captives who have been on the hunger strike that started in August 2005. No weights have been published for the first three months of the hunger strike—during which time he lost 26 pounds. From then on his weight was recorded every three or four days. His height was recorded as 68 inches, putting the healthy range for his height at between 118 and 160 pounds.

On September 26, 2009 Shalabi drafted a letter describing medical problems being made worse through medical decisions being countermanded by a new "officer in charge". On November 3, 2009 the Associated Press reported that a recent affidavit from David Wright the chief doctor at Guantanamo, stated Shalabi's weight had dropped to 49 kg. Julie Mason Tarver, one of his attorneys, claimed he was just a few pounds away from organ failure. Wright confirmed Shalabi's weight was recorded at 61 kg in May 2009. According to the Associated Press 29 other captives were participating in the hunger strike in late October 2009. An affidavit from Sondra Crosby, a Professor at Boston University's School of Medicine who examined Shalabi at the request of his attorneys, stated: "It is uncontested that Mr. Shalabi needs to be fed more calories, otherwise he will die." She said his weight loss could be due to other causes like hyperthyroidism, cancer or infection.

Shalabi's letter describes his force-feeding leaving him in great pain. He describes the most recent officier in charge countermanding the decision to provide screens for the lights that shine in his eyes, and leave him with excruciating headaches.