Qatar 'broke promise to US over Guantanamo detainee'

By David Blair

Jarallah al-Marri, who attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, visited Britain despite deal requiring him to remain in Qatar on release

Qatar broke an "explicit" promise by allowing a former Guantánamo detainee who had trained with al-Qaeda to leave the country and visit Britain, a new report has found.

Jarallah al-Marri, who attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks on September 11, was freed from Guantánamo in 2008.

Mr Marri was allowed to go home to Qatar in return for a formal promise from the government of the Gulf state that he would not be allowed to leave the country. But a report from the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies in Washington said this pledge was broken. Mr Marri was allowed to leave Qatar to visit Britain twice in 2009, where he spoke at events alongside Moazzem Begg, another former Guantánamo inmate. On his second visit, he was arrested by the British authorities and returned to Qatar.

A diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Qatar states that Mr Marri was allowed back to the Gulf state "with the explicit understanding (made via exchange of diplomatic notes) that he would be subject to a travel ban".

If Mr Marri tried to leave, the Qatari government promised to inform America. Nonetheless, he was still allowed to visit Britain. The US cable concludes that the Qatari authorities "deliberately withheld information on Jarallah al-Marri's travel outside of Qatar".

This case added to the impression that Qatar has a "historical legacy of negligence" in the struggle against Islamist extremism that "stretches back over two decades," says the report.

Marri was captured in Pakistan in December 2001 and transferred to US custody in Guantánamo in January 2002. He admitted attending an al-Qaeda camp and transferring money that could have been used by the movement, but there was no suggestion that he directly engaged in terrorism himself.