Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05087/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05087-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 17, 2010 Decided November 5, 2010 

No. 10-5087 

MOHAMMEDOU OULD SALAHI, DETAINEE, GUANTANAMO BAY 

NAVAL STATION AND YAHDIH OULD SALAHI, AS NEXT FRIEND 

OF MOHAMMEDOU OULD SALAHI, 

APPELLEES

v. 

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:05-cv-00569) 

August E. Flentje, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were 

Douglas N. Letter and Robert M. Loeb, Attorneys. 

Theresa M. Duncan argued the cause for appellees. With 

her on the brief were Nancy Hollander, Jonathan L. Hafetz, 

Melissa A. Goodman, Linda Moreno, and Arthur B. Spitzer. 

Emily Berman was on the brief for amicus curiae NonGovernmental Organizations Brennan Center for Justice and 

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Reprieve in support of appellees. Walter Dellinger entered an 

appearance. 

David R. Berz was on the brief for amicus curiae 

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in support 

of appellees. Blair G. Brown entered an appearance. 

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, TATEL and BROWN, 

Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

 TATEL, Circuit Judge: This case is more than merely the 

latest installment in a series of Guantanamo habeas appeals. 

The United States seeks to detain Mohammedou Ould Salahi 

on the grounds that he was “part of” al-Qaida not because he 

fought with al-Qaida or its allies against the United States, but 

rather because he swore an oath of allegiance to the 

organization, associated with its members, and helped it in 

various ways, including hosting its leaders and referring 

aspiring jihadists to a known al-Qaida operative. After an 

evidentiary hearing at which Salahi testified, the district court 

found that although Salahi “was an al-Qaida sympathizer” 

who “was in touch with al-Qaida members” and provided 

them with “sporadic support,” the government had failed to 

show that he was in fact “part of” al-Qaida at the time of his 

capture. The district court thus granted the writ and ordered 

Salahi released. Since then, however, this Court has issued 

three opinions—Al-Adahi v. Obama, 613 F.3d 1102 (D.C. Cir. 

2010); Bensayah v. Obama, 610 F.3d 718 (D.C. Cir. 2010); 

and Awad v. Obama, 608 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2010)—that cast 

serious doubt on the district court’s approach to determining 

whether an individual is “part of” al-Qaida. We agree with 

the government that we must therefore vacate the district 

court’s judgment, but because that court, lacking the benefit 

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of these recent cases, left unresolved key factual questions 

necessary for us to determine as a matter of law whether 

Salahi was “part of” al-Qaida when captured, we remand for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

 

I. 

Enacted just seven days after the September 11 terrorist 

attacks, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) 

empowers the President of the United States to “use all 

necessary and appropriate force against those nations, 

organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, 

committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on 

September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or 

persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international 

terrorism against the United States by such nations, 

organizations or persons.” Pub. L. No. 107-40, § 2(a), 115 

Stat. 224, 224 (2001) (reprinted at 50 U.S.C. § 1541 note). 

We have held that the “necessary and appropriate force” 

authorized by the AUMF includes the power to detain 

individuals who are “part of” al-Qaida, the organization that 

perpetrated the September 11 attacks. See Bensayah, 610 

F.3d at 724–25. Although the government previously claimed 

authority to detain Salahi on other grounds as well—because 

he allegedly aided the September 11 attacks and because he 

“purposefully and materially support[ed]” forces associated 

with al-Qaida “in hostilities against U.S. Coalition partners,” 

Al-Bihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 866, 872 (D.C. Cir. 2010)—it 

has since dropped those claims and now relies solely on the 

allegation that Salahi was “part of” al-Qaida at the time of his 

capture. 

 

 In the district court, the government relied heavily on 

statements Salahi made to interrogators. Salahi v. Obama, 

710 F. Supp. 2d 1, 4 (D.D.C. 2010). Conceding, however, 

that those interrogators had “mistreat[ed]” Salahi from midUSCA Case #10-5087 Document #1275767 Filed: 11/05/2010 Page 3 of 16
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June to September 2003, the government declined to rely on 

any statements Salahi made during that period. Appellants’ 

Opening Br. 52; see also Staff of S. Comm. on Armed 

Services, 110th Cong., Inquiry into the Treatment of 

Detainees in U.S. Custody xxii, 135–43 (Comm. Print 2008); 

A.T. Church, III, Review of Department of Defense Detention 

Operations and Detainee Interrogation Techniques 159–74 

(2005); U.S. Dep’t of Justice Office of the Inspector Gen., A 

Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of 

Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, 

and Iraq xxvii, 122–29, 190, 197–99, 295–302 (2008); Jess 

Bravin, The Conscience of the Colonel, Wall St. J., Mar. 31, 

2007, at A1. Although the district court formally received all 

evidence offered by the government, the taint of the 

“extensive and severe mistreatment” that Salahi suffered led 

the court to accord little weight to any of Salahi’s statements 

that lacked independent corroboration. Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 

2d at 6; see also Hr’g Tr. at 644:19–24 (Dec. 15, 2009). The 

government complains that the district court improperly failed 

to credit certain of Salahi’s statements, but because this issue 

is largely irrelevant to the legal questions we address in this 

opinion, we present the facts as found by the district court, 

supplementing with citations to the record only as necessary 

to provide context for the parties’ arguments. 

 

 Mohammedou Ould Salahi was born in 1970 in 

Mauritania. In December 1990, he traveled from Germany, 

where he was attending college, to Afghanistan “to support 

the mujahideen”—Islamic rebels seeking to overthrow 

Afghanistan’s Soviet-supported Communist government. 

Salahi Am. Decl. ¶ 5. While in Afghanistan, Salahi attended 

a training camp run by al-Qaida, which organized and funded 

efforts by foreign volunteers to assist the resistance 

movement. See John Rollins, Cong. Research Serv., R41070, 

Al Qaeda and Affiliates: Historical Perspective, Global 

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Presence, and Implications for U.S. Policy 3–4 (2010). 

Although the United States denies having supported al-Qaida 

directly, it acknowledges that it provided significant economic 

and military support to the Afghan mujahideen from 

approximately 1981 to 1991. Id. at 4. 

 In March 1991, shortly after finishing his training, Salahi 

swore bayat, an oath of loyalty, to al-Qaida. He left 

Afghanistan soon after taking this oath but returned in 

January 1992. Having “heard rumors that the mujahideen had 

invaded Kabul and started fighting among themselves,” Salahi 

decided to travel back to Germany in March 1992. Salahi 

Am. Decl. ¶ 11. At this point, he alleges, he “severed all ties 

with . . . al Qaida.” Id. ¶ 12. 

 According to the government, however, the record 

contains significant evidence that Salahi recruited for alQaida and provided it with other support after his alleged 

withdrawal in 1992. For example, the district court found that 

Salahi sent a fax to al-Qaida operative Christopher Paul in 

January 1997, asking for his help in finding “a true Group and 

Place” for “some Brothers” interested in fighting jihad. 

Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 11 (quoting Salahi’s fax to Paul). 

Salahi admitted to interrogators that he knew Paul to be a 

“man of great respect in Al-Qaida” and that he sent the fax to 

“facilitate getting the [aspiring jihadists] to fight.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

 As the district court recognized, “[t]he most damaging 

allegation against Salahi is that, in October 1999, he 

encouraged Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad 

Jarrah to join al-Qaida.” Id. at 10. Bin al-Shibh helped 

coordinate the September 11 attacks, and al-Shehhi and Jarrah 

were two of the September 11 pilots. Nat’l Comm’n on 

Terrorist Attacks Upon the U.S., The 9/11 Commission Report

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225, 434–35, 437 (2004) [hereinafter 9/11 Commission 

Report]. The government contends that while bin al-Shibh, 

al-Shehhi, and Jarrah had originally intended to travel to 

Chechnya to wage jihad against Russian forces, Salahi 

convinced them to travel instead to Afghanistan to receive 

military training. According to the government, the three men 

followed Salahi’s advice and with his assistance traveled to 

Afghanistan, where they were recruited by al-Qaida into the 

September 11 plot. But the district court, having discounted 

portions of the government’s evidence as unreliable and 

inconsistent, found only that “Salahi provided lodging for 

three men for one night at his home in Germany, that one of 

them was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and that there was discussion 

of jihad and Afghanistan.” Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 11. 

 

 In addition to Salahi’s connection to bin al-Shibh, the 

district court found that Salahi “had an ongoing and relatively 

close relationship” with Abu Hafs al-Mauritania, who “is 

believed to be one of [Usama] bin Laden’s spiritual advisors 

and a high-ranking leader of al-Qaida.” Id. at 12, 14. Abu 

Hafs is Salahi’s cousin and is married to the sister of Salahi’s 

ex-wife. Id. at 12–13. In August 1993, Salahi accompanied 

Abu Hafs to an al-Qaida safe house in Mauritania. Id. at 8. 

Several years later, Abu Hafs asked Salahi to meet with Abu 

Hajar al-Iraqi, allegedly al-Qaida’s telecommunications chief, 

when al-Iraqi visited Germany in late 1995 and early 1996 to 

explore purchasing telecommunications equipment for alQaida operations in Sudan. Id. at 8, 12. At the evidentiary 

hearing in the district court, Salahi testified that his 

involvement with al-Iraqi was limited to discussing the 

telecommunications equipment al-Iraqi planned to purchase 

and to driving him to various locations. Hr’g Tr. at 551:15–

22 (Dec. 15, 2009). 

 

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 The record contains evidence of additional contacts with 

Abu Hafs. For example, in December 1997, and then again in 

December 1998, Salahi transferred $4,000 to Mauritania for 

Abu Hafs, but the district court noted that “the government 

relie[d] on nothing but Salahi’s uncorroborated, coerced 

statements” to tie these money transfers to al-Qaida. Salahi, 

710 F. Supp. 2d at 14. Also, around November 1999, Abu 

Hafs encouraged Salahi to return to Afghanistan, sending him 

money and two passports. Id. at 13. Although Salahi 

declined his cousin’s invitation, he retained the passports for 

over a year. Salahi eventually gave one of the passports to his 

ex-wife, presumably to return to her sister, the passport’s 

owner. He gave the other passport directly to its purported 

owner, Ahmed Mazid, who was introduced to Salahi by Saleh 

al-Libi, an al-Qaida member from Libya. Id. at 13, 15; Hr’g 

Tr. at 570:13–16 (Dec. 15, 2009). Around the time Abu Hafs 

sent Salahi the passports, al-Qaida was allegedly seeking to 

improve Internet connections between Afghanistan and 

Pakistan. Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 12. The government 

argued that Salahi’s receipt of the two passports corroborated 

earlier statements he made to interrogators that he was asked 

to assist with this project, but the district court found only that 

Salahi’s receipt and retention of the passports raised 

“unanswered questions about the lawfulness of his activities 

and the nature of his relationship with Abu Hafs.” Id. at 13. 

 The government also alleges that Salahi interacted with 

members of an al-Qaida cell during a brief stay in Montreal, 

Canada, from November 1999 to January 2000. Although 

this Montreal al-Qaida cell has been linked to the 

unsuccessful Millennium Plot to bomb Los Angeles 

International Airport, the government does not allege that 

Salahi participated in that effort. Id. at 14. Much about 

Salahi’s connections to the Montreal cell remains hazy and 

disputed, and for its part, the district court concluded that the 

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government’s evidence of Salahi’s activities in Canada did 

not “add [anything] of significance to the proof that Salahi 

was ‘part of’ al-Qaida,” although the evidence might be 

sufficient “to support a criminal charge of providing material 

support” to the organization. Id. at 15; see also 18 U.S.C. § 

2339B. 

 

 After leaving Canada, Salahi returned to Mauritania, 

where according to the government he “performed computer 

activities with a goal of helping al-Qaida.” Appellants’ 

Opening Br. 43. For example, Salahi considered creating an 

Internet discussion group about fighting jihad but dropped the 

plan after a German al-Qaida operative, Christian Ganczarski, 

suggested that the discussion group would attract attention 

from authorities. Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 13. Salahi may 

also have subscribed to electronic mailing lists through which 

he received emails discussing cyber-attacks. Two such emails 

were found on a computer Salahi used at his workplace in 

Mauritania. Id. The computer also contained a third 

document with instructions on implementing cyber-attacks. 

Id. The district court concluded that although these three 

documents are “not evidence that Salahi engaged in . . . cyberattacks,” they nonetheless corroborate Salahi’s statements to 

interrogators that “he knew about and had some involvement 

in planning for denial of service computer attacks.” Id. 

 

 Salahi was captured in Mauritania in November 2001 and 

has been held at the United States Naval Station at 

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. In December 2004, 

Salahi appeared before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, 

which concluded that he was lawfully detained. See Parhat v. 

Gates, 532 F.3d 834, 837–41 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (describing the 

establishment of Combatant Status Review Tribunals and the 

procedures under which they operate). He then filed the 

habeas petition that is the subject of this appeal. 

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 In its opinion granting Salahi’s petition, the district court 

began by rejecting the government’s argument that because 

Salahi had once sworn bayat to al-Qaida, the burden should 

shift to him to prove that he later withdrew from the 

organization. Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 6. After reviewing 

all the evidence, the district court then concluded that Salahi 

“was an al-Qaida sympathizer” and “perhaps a ‘fellow 

traveler.’ ” Id. at 16. It also found that Salahi “was in touch 

with al-Qaida members” and provided them with “sporadic 

support.” Id. Nonetheless, the court concluded, Salahi was 

not “part of” al-Qaida at the time of his capture because the 

government had failed to prove that after leaving Afghanistan 

in 1992, he continued receiving and executing orders within 

al-Qaida’s “command structure.” Id. at 5, 15–16. 

 The government appeals. We review the district court’s 

factual findings for clear error. Barhoumi v. Obama, 609 F.3d 

416, 423 (D.C. Cir. 2010). Legal questions, including the 

ultimate determination of whether the facts found by the 

district court establish that Salahi was “part of” al-Qaida, are 

reviewed de novo. Id. 

II. 

 Before considering the government’s arguments, we 

think it important to emphasize the precise nature of the 

government’s case against Salahi. The government has not 

criminally indicted Salahi for providing material support to 

terrorists or the “foreign terrorist organization” al-Qaida. See 

18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A, 2339B; see also Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d 

at 16 (“The government’s problem is that its proof that Salahi 

gave material support to terrorists is so attenuated, or so 

tainted by coercion and mistreatment, or so classified, that it 

cannot support a successful criminal prosecution.”). Nor does 

the government seek to detain Salahi under the AUMF on the 

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grounds that he aided the September 11 attacks or 

“purposefully and materially support[ed]” forces associated 

with al-Qaida “in hostilities against U.S. Coalition partners.” 

Al-Bihani, 590 F.3d at 872. Instead, the government claims 

that Salahi is detainable under the AUMF because he was 

“part of” al-Qaida when captured. See Hr’g Tr. at 646:5–6 

(Dec. 15, 2009) (“[I]t’s the government’s position that at the 

time of capture, [the] detainee must be part of al-Qaeda.” 

(emphasis added)). 

 Reiterating the argument it made in the district court, the 

government contends that Salahi should bear the burden of 

proving that he disassociated from al-Qaida after swearing 

bayat to the organization in 1991. In support, the government 

cites the plurality’s statement in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that “once 

the Government puts forth credible evidence that [a] habeas 

petitioner meets the [AUMF’s detention] criteria, the onus 

[may] shift to the petitioner to rebut that evidence with more 

persuasive evidence that he falls outside the criteria.” 542 

U.S. 507, 534 (2004). 

 Here, as noted, the relevant inquiry is whether Salahi was 

“part of” al-Qaida when captured. Therefore, in order to shift 

the burden of proof to Salahi, we would have to presume that 

having once sworn bayat to al-Qaida, Salahi remained a 

member of the organization until seized in November 2001. 

Although such a presumption may be warranted in some 

cases, such as where an individual swore allegiance to alQaida on September 12, 2001, and was captured soon 

thereafter, the unique circumstances of Salahi’s case make the 

government’s proposed presumption inappropriate here. 

 When Salahi took his oath of allegiance in March 1991, 

al-Qaida and the United States shared a common objective: 

they both sought to topple Afghanistan’s Communist 

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government. See Rollins, supra, at 4. Not until later did alQaida begin publicly calling for attacks against the United 

States. See id. at 4–5; see also 9/11 Commission Report, 

supra, at 59. To be sure, the roots of the conflict between alQaida and the United States stretch back at least as far as 

Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, following which 

Saudi Arabian leaders allowed U.S. forces to deploy to their 

country. Rollins, supra, at 5. Usama bin Laden was 

immediately critical of this arrangement, “paint[ing] the U.S. 

forces as occupiers of sacred Islamic ground,” and after 

leaving Saudi Arabia in April 1991, he relocated to Sudan and 

began “buying property there which he used to host and train 

Al Qaeda militants . . . for use against the United States and 

its interests, as well as for jihad operations in the Balkans, 

Chechnya, Kashmir, and the Philippines.” Id.; see also 9/11 

Commission Report, supra, at 57. Bin Laden, however, did 

not issue his first fatwa against U.S. forces until 1992—the 

very year in which, according to Salahi’s sworn declaration, 

Salahi severed all ties with al-Qaida. See 9/11 Commission 

Report, supra, at 59; Salahi Am. Decl. ¶ 12. In light of all 

this, Salahi’s March 1991 oath of bayat is insufficiently 

probative of his relationship with al-Qaida at the time of his 

capture in November 2001 to justify shifting the burden to 

him to prove that he disassociated from the organization. In 

so concluding, we have no doubt about the relevance of 

Salahi’s oath to the ultimate question of whether he was “part 

of” al-Qaida at the time of his capture. We conclude only that 

given the facts of this particular case, Salahi’s oath does not 

warrant shifting the burden of proof. 

 

 The government next challenges the district court’s use 

of the “command structure” test—a standard that district 

judges in this circuit, operating without any meaningful 

guidance from Congress, developed to determine whether a 

Guantanamo habeas petitioner was “part of” al-Qaida. See 

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Hamlily v. Obama, 616 F. Supp. 2d 63, 75 (D.D.C. 2009); 

Gherebi v. Obama, 609 F. Supp. 2d 43, 68–69 (D.D.C. 2009). 

As applied by the district court in this case, the commandstructure test required the government to prove that Salahi 

“ ‘receive[d] and execute[d] orders or directions’ ” from alQaida operatives after 1992 when, according to Salahi, he 

severed ties with the organization. Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 

5 (quoting Hamlily, 616 F. Supp. 2d at 75). Having found no 

such evidence, the court concluded that Salahi was not “part 

of” al-Qaida at the time of his capture. Id. at 15–16. 

 As the government points out, the district court’s 

approach is inconsistent with our recent decisions in Awad

and Bensayah, which were issued after the district court 

granted Salahi’s habeas petition. These decisions make clear 

that the determination of whether an individual is “part of” alQaida “must be made on a case-by-case basis by using a 

functional rather than a formal approach and by focusing 

upon the actions of the individual in relation to the 

organization.” Bensayah, 610 F.3d at 725. Evidence that an 

individual operated within al-Qaida’s command structure is 

“sufficient but is not necessary to show he is ‘part of’ the 

organization.” Id.; see also Awad, 608 F.3d at 11. “[T]here 

may be other indicia that a particular individual [was] 

sufficiently involved with the organization to be deemed part 

of it.” Bensayah, 610 F.3d at 725. For example, since 

petitioner in Awad joined and was accepted by al-Qaida 

fighters who were engaged in hostilities against Afghan and 

allied forces, he could properly be considered “part of” alQaida even if he never formally received or executed any 

orders. See Awad, 608 F.3d at 3–4, 11. 

 As we explained in Bensayah, however, “the purely 

independent conduct of a freelancer is not enough” to 

establish that an individual is “part of” al-Qaida. 610 F.3d at 

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725. Thus, as government counsel conceded at oral argument, 

the government’s failure to prove that an individual was 

acting under orders from al-Qaida may be relevant to the 

question of whether the individual was “part of” the 

organization when captured. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 20:17–21:5. 

Consider this very case. Unlike petitioner in Awad, who 

affiliated with al-Qaida fighters engaged in active hostilities 

against U.S. allies in Afghanistan, Salahi is not accused of 

participating in military action against the United States. 

Instead, the government claims that Salahi was “part of” alQaida because he swore bayat and thereafter provided various 

services to the organization, including recruiting, hosting 

leaders, transferring money, etc. Under these circumstances, 

whether Salahi performed such services pursuant to al-Qaida 

orders may well be relevant to determining if he was “part of” 

al-Qaida or was instead engaged in the “purely independent 

conduct of a freelancer.” Bensayah, 610 F.3d at 725. The 

problem with the district court’s decision is that it treats the 

absence of evidence that Salahi received and executed orders 

as dispositive. See Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 5–6, 11–12, 15–

16. The decision therefore cannot survive Awad and 

Bensayah. 

 

 The government urges us to reverse and direct the district 

court to deny Salahi’s habeas petition. Although we agree 

that Awad and Bensayah require that we vacate the district 

court’s judgment, we think the better course is to remand for 

further proceedings consistent with those opinions. Because 

the district court, lacking the guidance of these later decisions, 

looked primarily for evidence that Salahi participated in alQaida’s command structure, it did not make definitive 

findings regarding certain key facts necessary for us to 

determine as a matter of law whether Salahi was in fact “part 

of” al-Qaida when captured. See Barhoumi, 609 F.3d at 423 

(noting that whether the facts found by the district court are 

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sufficient to establish that an individual was “part of” alQaida is a legal question that we review de novo). For 

example, does the government’s evidence support the 

inference that even if Salahi was not acting under express 

orders, he nonetheless had a tacit understanding with al-Qaida 

operatives that he would refer prospective jihadists to the 

organization? See Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 10–12. Has the 

government presented sufficient evidence for the court to 

make findings regarding what Salahi said to bin al-Shibh 

during their “discussion of jihad and Afghanistan”? Id. at 11. 

Did al-Qaida operatives ask Salahi to assist the organization 

with telecommunications projects in Sudan, Afghanistan, or 

Pakistan? See id. at 12–13. Did Salahi provide any assistance 

to al-Qaida in planning denial-of-service computer attacks, 

even if those attacks never came to fruition? See id. at 13. 

May the court infer from Salahi’s numerous ties to known alQaida operatives that he remained a trusted member of the 

organization? See id. at 16 (“Salahi . . . associated with at 

least a half-dozen known al-Qaida members and terrorists[] 

and somehow found and lived among or with al-Qaida cell 

members in Montreal.”); cf. Awad, 608 F.3d at 3 (noting that 

the al-Qaida fighters Awad joined “treated [him] as one of 

their own”). With answers to questions like these, which may 

require additional testimony, the district court will be able to 

determine in the first instance whether Salahi was or was not 

“sufficiently involved with [al-Qaida] to be deemed part of 

it.” Bensayah, 610 F.3d at 725. 

 A final note: since we are remanding for further factual 

findings, we think it appropriate to reiterate this Court’s 

admonition in Al-Adahi, also decided after the district court 

issued its decision in this case, that a court considering a 

Guantanamo detainee’s habeas petition must view the 

evidence collectively rather than in isolation. 613 F.3d at 

1105–06. Merely because a particular piece of evidence is 

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insufficient, standing alone, to prove a particular point does 

not mean that the evidence “may be tossed aside and the next 

[piece of evidence] may be evaluated as if the first did not 

exist.” Id. at 1105. The evidence must be considered in its 

entirety in determining whether the government has satisfied 

its burden of proof. 

 

 Although the district court generally followed this 

approach, its consideration of certain pieces of evidence may 

have been unduly atomized. For example, the court found 

that Salahi’s “limited relationships” with certain al-Qaida 

operatives were “too brief and shallow to serve as an 

independent basis for detention.” Salahi, 710 F. Supp. 2d at 

15 (emphasis added). Even if Salahi’s connections to these 

individuals fail independently to prove that he was “part of” 

al-Qaida, those connections make it more likely that Salahi 

was a member of the organization when captured and thus 

remain relevant to the question of whether he is detainable. 

Cf. Al-Adahi, 613 F.3d at 1107 (noting that petitioner’s “close 

association [with Usama bin Laden] made it far more likely 

that [he] was or became part of” al-Qaida). 

 

 The district court may also have evaluated Salahi’s oath 

of bayat in isolation. In its conclusion, the district court 

stated, “[T]he government wants to hold Salahi indefinitely, 

because of its concern that he might renew his oath to alQaida and become a terrorist upon his release.” Salahi, 710 

F. Supp. 2d at 16 (emphasis added). This suggests that the 

district court may have failed to consider the possibility that 

the “sporadic support” Salahi “undoubtedly . . . provide[d]” 

al-Qaida demonstrates that he remained a member of the 

organization, thus having no need to renew his oath because 

he continued to abide by his original vow of allegiance. Id. at 

15–16. 

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III. 

 The President seeks to detain Salahi on the grounds that 

he was “part of” al-Qaida at the time he was captured. 

Because additional fact-finding is required to resolve that 

issue under this circuit’s evolving case law, we vacate and 

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

 

So ordered. 

USCA Case #10-5087 Document #1275767 Filed: 11/05/2010 Page 16 of 16