Yaser Esam Hamdi

Passions

American-born accused of terrorism, he was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 Hamdi's father was a petroleum engineer living in Louisiana at the time of Yaser's birth.The family moved back to Saudi Arabia when Yaser was a young child. In December 2001 he was captured by the US government forces in Afghanistan and was deemed to be fighting wit the Taliban against the US and the Afghan government. After the Bush administration named him an "illegal enemy combatant," he was detained for nearly three years without being formally charged or tried. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay where he was held until the US determined that he was a US citizen. Subsequently transferred to a Navy jail in Virginia, he was transferred in 2003 to a Charleston prison. Finally in October 2004, still proclaiming his innocence, he was releasd based upon a US Supreme Court ruling allowing neutral fact-finding. Hamdi was stripped of his US citizenship and forbidden to return to the US or to visit any of the world's hot spots such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank or Gaza. He is also forbidden to leave Saudi Arabia for 15 years without permission. Link to Wikipedia biography