JEDDAH, 29 May 2006 — Relatives of the youngest detainee held at Guantanamo Bay have stepped up their efforts to ensure his speedy release after it transpired that his name was not included in a list of Saudi detainees recently released by the US authorities.
Abdul Salam Ghaythan was aged 16 when he was initially detained at the US naval base in Cuba. His relatives are alarmed at how a young teenager could be imprisoned with detainees much older in age, no matter how serious the charges against him may be.
“I have no idea which crime I have committed and why I should be kept in a miserable place such as this,” said the Saudi youth in a recent letter sent home through the International Red Cross. In the letter, Ghaythan outlined the loneliness and sorrow he feels at Guantanamo.
According to the boy’s uncle, Ghaythan was working at a vegetable market in Riyadh. “There wasn’t anything suspicious or unusual in his behavior and dealings with other people. He was a fun-loving kid with plenty of friends and always attracted to voluntary charity work. How he was arrested and sent to Guantanamo is a mystery even to his relatives.”
The uncle said that some seven months before war broke out in Afghanistan, Ghaythan left home saying he was traveling to Makkah to perform Umrah. “After not returning for 17 days since leaving Riyadh his parents became worried. A month later they received a telephone call saying he had gone to Afghanistan and that he was fine and hoped to return in a short while,” his uncle said.
The relatives were, nevertheless, shocked by the teenager’s journey to war-torn Afghanistan and had difficulties understanding how an ordinary peace-loving youth could be lured to a bloody war.
Ghaythan’s family explained that as war erupted in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, the youth made a final telephone call to his parents telling them that he had difficulties leaving the country as all exit points had been severely bombed.
After losing all contact with their son, the Ghaythan family did not know if the Saudi youth was alive or dead. Later it was reported that he was killed and the family began to mourn his death.
As Gitmo detainee names were disclosed by the US authorities, the family were elated to find their son’s name included in the list of Saudi captives. Later it also transpired that Abdul Salam was mistaken for a cousin who was killed in Afghanistan.
