In the end, the federal government had virtually nothing substantial on Guantánamo detainee Fouad al Rabiah, prompting U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to call the evidence against him “surprisingly bare” while ordering his release. “If there exists a basis for al Rabiah’s indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.

Prior to his arrest in Afghanistan in 2002, Al Rabiah, 50, worked as an aviation engineer for Kuwait Airlines for 20 years. His charitable work took him Bosnia, Kosovo, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, to which he traveled in October 2001 to help deliver aid to refugees. U.S. officials claimed al Rabiah’s charity was a front for terrorist activities and that he was really an al Qaeda operative who once personally delivered a suitcase of money to Osama bin Laden—an accusation that was later withdrawn by government lawyers.

Eventually, all the government had on al Rabiah were his confessions—which his attorneys said had been coerced out of him through relentless interrogations, causing the Kuwaiti to “parrot” back to his captors what he thought they wanted to hear.
                                                                                                                                                   -Noel Brinkerhoff

Judge Orders Gitmo Detainee's Release (by Avery Fellow, Courthouse News Service)
Fouad al Rabiah v. U.S. Government (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) (PDF)
Fouad al Rabiah v. U.S. Government Classified Memorandum Opinion (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) )PDF)
The Guantanamo Docket: Fouad Mahoud Hasan al Rabia (New York Times)