Nadir Mohammed Abdullah bin Sa’adoun

Nadir Mohammed Abdullah bin Sa’adoun Al Sa'ary has been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He arrived at the facility just days after it opened, making him one of the longest-imprisoned men at Guantanamo. He has never been charged with a crime, nor had a trial. 

Nadir was born in Saudi Arabia in 1972. When he got older, he became a taxi driver, and was never a particularly devout Muslim. He smoked, chewed qat (a mild stimulant derived from a plant), played in a band with his cousin, and never went on a Haj pilgrimage. He didn’t even go to the same mosque regularly - when he heard the call to prayer, he would simply drive his taxi to nearest mosque to pray.

A friend began to encourage him to become more committed to religion. He said that the best way to do this would be to travel abroad to teach foreign children the Quran in Arabic.

Seeking more meaning to his life than he’d found driving taxis, Nadir decided to do just that. He was counselled that he could make the most difference somewhere like Afghanistan. So, in 1999, Nadir travelled there, where he began teaching children to read the Quran in its original Arabic, together with a friend. He stayed for eight months, eventually running out of money and returning to Yemen. He worked as a painter to raise more funds to return to his teaching in Afghanistan. In February 2001, he went back to Afghanistan, met up once more with his friend, and once again began team-teaching.

Seven months later, the September 11th attacks changed everything.

As the situation deteriorated, Nadir decided to leave the country. By now the US bombing was well under way, and he thought he would be safer in Pakistan than Afghanistan, where Arabs were being rounded up and often killed as suspected Al Qaida members. 

Nadir headed for the border, and made it across in early December. But his relief was to be short-lived. On December 15 2001, he was seized by Pakistani security forces and after eleven days in detention was transferred to US custody, in exchange for a large cash bounty for suspected terrorists. Nadir has always vehemently denied being involved in terrorism in any way, but that made no difference to his captors. 

Nadir has no sympathy for the jihadist cause. He does not think highly of Osama bin Laden, and says that the Taliban’s fight against the Northern Alliance prior to 9/11 was wrong because it pitted Muslim against Muslim. During his time in Afghanistan, no one ever tried to recruit him for jihad, or for any other violent act.

Almost eight years on, he is still being held without charge in Guantanamo Bay.