Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Who is Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri?

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole and other terrorist attacks. He is alleged to have headed al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf states prior to his capture in November 2002 by the CIA's Special Activities Division.

Al-Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and held for four years in secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco and Romania, before later being transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. While being interrogated, al-Nashiri has been waterboarded twice. In 2005 the CIA destroyed the tapes of Nashiri's waterboarding. In another incident he was naked and hooded and threatened with a gun and a power drill to scare him into talking. Al-Nashiri was granted victim status in 2010 and a Polish prosecutor began "investigating the possible abuse of power by Polish public officials with regard to a CIA black site" in 2008.

In December 2008, al-Nashiri was charged before a Guantanamo Military Commission. The charges were dropped in February 2009 and reinstated in 2011. Al-Nashiri is currently on trial before a military tribunal in Guantanamo on charges that carry the death penalty. As it is extremely unlikely he would be freed if found not guilty, his lawyers have called the proceeding a show trial.