DeSantis ‘is not a good guy,’ says former Guantánamo detainee

Mansoor Adayfi, a 40-year-old Yemeni national now living in Serbia, wrote, “I need to face this guy, face-to-face,”“I don’t think he is a person suitable to be the president of the United States,” Adayfi told Yahoo News in a series of interviews. “He’s not a good guy.”Although Adayfi’s accusations have recently found traction in publications such as The Washington Post, the claims may prove of little consequence for a DeSantis campaign…Guantánamo, Adayfi argues, is a stain on the nation’s record, and on the record of anyone who served there without objection. “The problem,” he says, “is that DeSantis does not respect American values.”

Attorneys like DeSantis were sent to Guantánamo Bay to offer reassurance that whatever was happening there had legal justification. Their presence became especially critical as detainees launched a hunger strike in 2005 to protest the conditions in which they were held.Adayfi emerged as an informal cell block spokesman during the hunger strike.He had been picked up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001. Now, he claims that he was there to conduct field research in tribal areas. But in a declassified transcript of a legal hearing that took place in November 2006, Adayfi painted an entirely different picture of himself. “I’m a Muslim jihadist and I’m defending my religion and my family,” he said.

Detainee is an admitted member of al-Qaida who possessed prior knowledge of the 11 September 2001 attacks as well as other planned attacks against US interests…Osama bin Laden tasked detainee and a small group to establish an al-Qaida base of operations in Yemen upon the event of al-Qaida’s extrication from Afghanistan (AF). Detainee is associated with senior al-Qaida leaders, and acknowledged receiving basic militant training at al-Qaida’s al-Faruq Training Camp, and specialized terrorist training including suicide operations. Detainee admitted staying in al-Qaida guesthouses, is listed on multiple al-Qaida affiliated documents…Detainee and his chosen group traveled to Kabul, AF where they received training to resist interrogation and torture.