1/For more than a year, an American ISIS suspect has been held after being captured in Syria. To the world, he was known as John Doe. Using the forms ISIS left behind, we figured out his real name: A Baton Rouge resident named Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/…
2/ The case against him fell apart as US officials worried that the evidence they had against him - including his ISIS application form - would not be acceptable in court. Next came months of negotiations on where to send him? They did not want him coming back to the US.
3/ Western countries including Canada & UK are struggling with what to do with their captured citizens who fought for ISIS, now languishing in Syrian & Iraqi jails. Conundrum is that it’s really hard to collect evidence that’s permissible in court in area once controlled by ISIS
4/ John Doe is a case in point: We found his ISIS application form from 2014. It listed the same phone number that he had on him at moment of his capture in 2017. In his possession when was caught was a USB stick full of ISIS documents. But he wasn’t properly Mirandized.
5/ A monthslong negotiation ensued. First the US suggested sending him to Saudi because he is a dual Saudi-American national. Via his lawyers at the ACLU, Alsheikh rejected that option. Then my colleague @charlie_savage learned that a transfer was being considered to Bahrain
6/ Bahrain is where his wife and daughter live and just this week, he was released in Bahrain. His name on the ISIS application was discovered by @KaramShoumali, and the story was reported with @charlie_savage and @EricSchmittNYT
7/ We are bound to see more of these third-country arrangements as Western countries grapple with what to do with their citizens imprisoned in Iraq & Syria. Having good reason to believe someone joined ISIS and being able to prove it in a free & fair trial are 2 different things
