GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — An Alabama tea party leader on Sunday boarded a chartered Boeing 747 at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., bound for the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (GITMO).
Becky Gerritson, founder and president of the Wetumpka Tea Party, will spend the next several days observing hearings for Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, an alleged senior member of al-Qaeda.
“I am one of four non-governmental observers,” Gerritson explained. “All of these other people play some roll in the Hadi hearing that I’ll be monitoring.
“He is charged with denying quarter, attacking protected property, using treachery or perfidy, and attempted use of treachery or perfidy in a series of attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan between about 2003 and 2004, and conspiracy to commit law of war offenses.”
A U.S. State Department wanted poster from 2007 describes him as “one of Usama bin Laden’s top global deputies, personally chosen by bin Laden to monitor al Qaeda operations in Iraq. Al-Hadi was the former Internal Operations Chief for al Qaeda. He has been associated with numerous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and has been known to facilitate communication between al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda. Al-Hadi rose to the rank of Major in Saddam Hussein’s army before moving to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union. He has a reputation for being a skilled, intelligent, and experienced commander and is an extremely well respected al Qaeda leader. He has commanded numerous terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.”
Al-Hadi was captured by the CIA in late 2006 and detained at one of the agency’s “black sites.” He was later classified as an “enemy combatant” and transferred to GITMO along with 13 other individuals the Bush administration deemed “high-value detainees.”
Gerritson will be attending Al-Hadi’s hearings on behalf of Judicial Watch, which describes itself as “a conservative foundation, fights for accountability and integrity in law, politics and government.” The organization has been one of the harshest critics of the Obama administration’s attempts to shut down GITMO and to release many of the prisoners.
GITMO has long been home to some of the world’s most notorious terrorist, at various times housing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Hambali (Ridouan Isomuddin), the man behind the October 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people; al-Qaida operations chief Abu Faraj al-Libi, 9/11 coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh; senior al-Qaida operative Mohd Farik Bin Amin, and many others.
There are currently 78 detainees remaining at GITMO.
On Monday, Gerritson gave her Facebook followers a rare glimpse inside the camp by posting the images below along with the caption, “Here’s my life at GITMO.”
