Sulayman Abu Ghayth
| Sulaiman Abu Ghaith | |
|---|---|
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith sitting with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, from an al Qaeda propaganda tape
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|
| Born |
14 December 1965 Kuwait |
| Arrested | 28 February 2013 Amman, Jordan |
| Citizenship | Stateless |
| Detained at | ADX Florence |
| Alternate name | Arabic: سليمان بوغيث |
| Charge(s) | conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists |
| Penalty | life in prison |
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (Arabic: سليمان بوغيث) (born 14 December 1965) is a stateless Arab regarded as one of Al-Qaeda's spokesmen. He is married to one of Osama bin Laden's daughters.
Abu Ghaith first gained attention during the 1990–1991 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait. His sermons denouncing the occupation and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gained him some degree of popularity amongst the Kuwaiti people. The Kuwaiti government subsequently removed him from the mosque and banned him from giving sermons, and he became a high school teacher of religion.
In June 2000, he left Kuwait for Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden and joined his Al-Qaeda organization. His affinity for public speaking and comparative youth put him at the head of Al-Qaeda's attempt to widen its appeal from ultra-conservative and mostly elderly clerics to the general population and especially the youth of majority-Muslim countries; in this capacity, he quickly became the organization's spokesman.
According to documents in the unclassified dossier from Adil Zamil Abdull Mohssin Al Zamil's Combatant Status Review Tribunal Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was also a founder of Al Wafa al Igatha al Islamia, a charity that the USA asserts provided a plausible front for al Qaeda's fund-raising efforts. One of the allegations against Al Zamil, who was also accused of being a founder of al Wafa, was that he helped Abu Ghaith's family leave Afghanistan around the time of the attacks of 9–11.
He rose to worldwide attention following the 11 September 2001, attacks. On 10 October 2001, he appeared on two widely circulated videos (first broadcast on al Jazeera television) to defend the attacks and threaten reprisals for the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, saying, "Americans should know, the storm of the planes will not stop... There are thousands of the Islamic nation's youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live." These statements caused the Kuwaiti government to strip him of his citizenship.
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