Mustafa al-Hawsawi

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Mustafa al-Hawsawi
File:AQ00111.jpg Mustafa al-Hawsawi photo exhibit from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui
Born	August 5, 1968 (1968-08-05) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Detained at	CIA black sites, Salt Pit, Guantanamo
Internment Serial Number	10011
Charge(s)	Faces charges before a military commission, no conviction or appeal yet.

Mustafa al-Hawsawi (Arabic: مصطفى الهوساوي‎, Muṣṭafā al-Ḥawsāwī; born August 5, 1968) is a member of the militant Islamic organization al-Qaeda and allegedly an organizer and financer of the September 11, 2001 attacks. His alternate names and aliases include Mustafa Ahmed, Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, Ahmad Mustafa, Isam Mansour, Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hisawi, Mr. Ali, and Hani (Fawaz Trading).

Hawsawi was transferred from the Salt Pit to Guantanamo on Sept. 23, 2003 but the CIA moved him back to one of their black sites on March 27 2004 as they feared he could gain access to a lawyer in Guantanamo.

Hawsawi was transferred from custody in an American black site to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, on September 6, 2006. He is currently represented by Major Jon S. Jackson.[1] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 10011.

Pre-2001

Before the 9/11 attacks, al-Hawsawi had apparently worked in al-Qaeda's media committee in Kandahar. Then, along with al-Qaeda financer Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (or perhaps using that name), al-Hawsawi assisted the hijackers from the United Arab Emirates. He helped coordinate with Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the operation, to bring the "muscle hijackers" into the United States in 2001. He attempted to help bring the so-called "20th hijacker", Mohammed al Qahtani, into the United States, but al Qahtani was unable to enter the country.

Sharing a credit card account with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, al-Hawsawi also sent funds to the hijackers. In the Summer of 2000, he appears to have sent a total of $109,910 to some of the 9/11 hijackers in a series of wire transfers under a variety of names. The New York Times has suggested that "Mustafa Ahmed" sent a total of $325,000 to the hijackers, but the 9/11 Commission was only able to verify $15,000 of this.

Just before the attacks, al-Hawsawi travelled to Pakistan. He was captured by authorities there March 1, 2003, reported taken to U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, unconfirmed by U.S. officials. [2]

In the indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui he is said to have been born in Jeddah on August 5, 1968.

Alongside Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al-Hawsawi is one of three named and requested by Zacarias Moussaoui's defence team for questioning. However, although the U.S. Federal Government claims to be holding both men, it refused Moussaoui's request citing national security concerns.

Alleged to be "an al-Qaida financial manager"

The Summary of Evidence memos prepared for Abdullah Bin Omar's first and second annual Administrative Review Board hearings stated:

The detainee's name appeared on a spreadsheet account of stipend assistance provided to al Qaida operative families covering a six-month period of May to October 2002. The spreadsheet was found on a 20-gigabyte laptop computer hard drive associated with al Qaida financial operative Mustafa Ahmad Al-Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi, an al-Qaida financial manager, was known to provide funds for the September 11 hijackers.

Combatant Status Review

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The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007 that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants". Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "illegal enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.

Questions from Salim Ahmed Hamdan's defense attorney

On 23 April 2008 attorneys working on behalf of Salim Ahmed Hamdan requested permission to meet with Abdulmalik Mohammed and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Hamdan's attorneys had previously requested permission to get the "high-value detainees" to answer written questions, which would confirm that if Hamdan played a role in al Qaeda it had been a peripheral one. Abdul Malik and Mustafa al-Hawsawi declined to answer the questions, because they said they had no way to know that the questions purporting to be from Hamdan's attorneys was not a ruse. Andrea J. Prasow requested permission for Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer to meet in person with the two men to try to assure them that the questions were not a ruse, and would not be shared with their interrogators.

Military commission trial

In June 2008, al-Hawsawi and four other "high-value detainees" (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash) were charged in a military commission trial. The charges included 2,973 individual counts of murder, one for each person killed in the September 11 attacks, as well as conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism. The judge ordered al-Hawsawi and Binalshibh to undergo mental competency hearings. On December 8, 2008, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told the judge that he and the other four indictees wished to confess and plead guilty; however, the plea would be delayed until after the competency hearings for al-Hawsawi and Binalshibh so that all five men could make their plea together.

In May 2009 Al Arabiya reported that Montasser al-Zayyat had been invited to defend Hawsawi. Al Zayat described suspecting, at first, that he was the target of a hoax.

Transfer to the US

On August 31, 2009, Corrections One, a trade journal for the prison industry, speculated that "Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi" was one of ten captives they speculated might be moved to a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan.

External links

• Information on Hawsawi and 13 other detainees, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• The Final 9/11 Commission Report
• Alleged al Qaeda paymaster in custody - CNN
• Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui
• Pentagon charges 6 in 9-11 attacks
• 'Clean team interrogated 9-11 suspects