Yasser Talal Al Zahrani was born in the western city of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia in 1984, the third of nine children. His father is a 52-year-old retired police colonel and the family live in Madinah.  He was the second of three boys, and he spent a lot of time with his mother and sisters and enjoyed amusing them. "He used to sing children's songs to make us laugh," recalled his mother, Umm-Muhammed, 43.

In the summer of 2001, he had just finished 11th grade at the age of 17, and he got permission from his father to go to the United Arab Emirates to take English-language and computer courses.He then travelled to Afghanistan where he worked with Islamic charities. Border tribes detained him before being sold to the US military. At the time of his transfer to Guantanamo, he was still a juvenile.

During his time in Guantanamo, Yasser completed the memorisation of the Quran. He wrote to his father in letters saying that he had been behaving well. Other released Saudi detainees recall that Yasser was quiet and strong willed. He used to give the US MPs guarding him lessons about Islam.

Yasser was consistently on hunger strike, and force fed, from the end of June 2005, to his death, with the exception of two weeks at the end of July. In unclassified evidence, Yasser was documented by British resident Omar Deghayes as being among the 21 men being force fed on hunger strike in the hospital as of September 28, 2005.

On November 2, 2005, according to unclassified material from Al Jazeera journalist Sami al Hajj, Yasser was still in hospital being force fed. (identified as Yasser al Zahrani, from Saudi Arabia) The materials were annotated with a reference to the fact that Yasser and the other 20 men were committed to the protest for fair treatment: “Will continue until they die.”

As of January 5, 2006, according to unclassified evidence from British resident Shaker Aamer, Yasser was held in Camp Echo with 15 other hunger strikers. (identified as Yasser Azzerani) At the time, one of the prison guards said to Shaker: “They have lost hope in life. They have no hope in their eyes. They are ghosts, and they want to die. No food will keep them alive now. Even with four feeds a day, these men get diarrhea from any protein which goes right through them.”

He ended up doing a lot of time in isolation simply due to the fact that he would never allow for an injustice to take place before him without being defiant for the sake of our rights. I am sure that as more time passes and more people are released and asked about this situation, the truth will avail, and the world will understand that he was a nice guy and that he could never have committed suicide.

According to Tarek Dergoul, a former Guantanamo detainee, Yasser Al Zahrani was about 5’8”, with long hair (before the military shaved it all off) and a beautiful face. "He was softly spoken and had a very nice voice. He used to sing nasheeds for us (Islamic songs) and all the brothers loved him as he was always optimistic. He would sing morale boosting nasheeds for the other detainees nearby to him. He was very well known to everyone in the camp...He had memorized the entire Qur’an and was able to recite it in the most beautiful manner. He was always there to stand up for his brothers when he saw injustices being carried out, in any way he could. He was defiant in a sense that he would not give the guards everything they wanted lying down. For this he did a lot of isolation time and endured a lot of inevitable backlash from the guards. Yet this didn’t stop him from boosting the morale of other prisoners in the nearby cells and we all looked forward to this in the evening.”

Tarek is adamant that he could not have committed suicide: "He was a person who had memorised the entire Qur’an. He had participated in all the hunger strikes and non-cooperation strikes; he had so much determination, will-power and morale that it is ridiculous to think he could have taken his own life." Tarek also explains that they were always held on "level 4", consisting of a mat and a blanket only. "We did not have toilet paper; let alone a pen and paper to write a suicide note!"

Shafiq Rasul, another British citizen released from Guantánamo without charge, remembers meeting Yasser at Camp X-Ray, soon after their arrival at the prison. Yasser was confused about why they were there and what was happening to them.

Shortly before Azmi's release last November, Yasser was still being interrogated, he said. "Word went around the prison blocks to pray for Yassar, among a group of others who were being pushed hard, because he was being interrogated through the night," Azmi said.

Azmi reflects, "His body was a bit frail, he was young. It wasn't just a short period of torture, it was years of torture."
Azmi and others who knew him there said that despite his youth he was always trying to cheer the others up, saying that it was God who was putting them through this ordeal and that He would end it soon. Because of the location of his cell, and his extensive knowledge of the Quran, he also often led them in prayers.

He spoke constantly about his mother, how much she must be missing him, and boasted often that his father treated him like a man despite his age, taking him out with him to adult gatherings and relying on him to drive his mother around in the pickup truck he'd bought him when he turned 16.

One former detainee recalls that Yasser returned his Quran to the facility's imam because he was disturbed that soldiers had searched or moved it, in his mind a desecration, while he was out during prison walks or in interrogation. When guards tried to return it, he refused to take the book back. Finally, half a dozen guards in riot gear entered his cell, shackled him and returned the Quran by force, the detainee recalled.

As Yasser was a juvenile at the time, the allegation that he was in charge of munitions purchases for the Taliban seems one of the more outlandish claims made by the U.S. military. Even under the U.S. military’s version of events, though, for him to have taken part as a frontline Taliban fighter, this would have had to have been before the Taliban’s collapse in November 2001. Thus, Yasser would have been only two months past his seventeenth birthday, at the outside. Under the rules that govern the U.S. military, he would not have been old enough to have been sent into action.

The US Military alleges that the three deceased were hostile toward camp guards, defied camp rules and took part in protracted hunger strikes. They also claim that they refused to accept legal representation, according to prison authorities, or to attend the occasional military reviews.

On Saturday 10th June, 2006, the US Commander of Guantanamo disclosed that three prisoners had died in apparent suicides. The US alleges that the three men made crude nooses from clothes and bed sheets and were found hanging in their cells in Camp 1, the highest security part of the camp.

Poignantly only weeks before Yasser's death, when fifteen Saudis were repatriated from Guantanamo, his father had expressed hopes that he would return shortly. “We are extremely happy about the release of the men, whom I also consider my sons," he said. "I am very optimistic and have faith in God that my son and the rest will be released.” 

Yasser's mother recalls the day that they learnt of her son's death. She was seated on the floor, praying, in one of her daughter's room when her husband returned unexpectedly from a trip to Makkah. "I told my daughter, 'Go see your father -- he's home. I hope that soon Yassar will walk in on us, just like that, unexpectedly.' "


Yasser's family refuse to accept that he committed suicide, noting his strong faith and the Islamic prohibition of suicide. His father, Talal Abdallah al-Zahrani, 50, said that when he heard from his son in a recent letter, he sounded in good spirits and appeared to be more optimistic than before about being released soon. "Nothing suggested that he would commit suicide, nothing," Mr. Zahrani said. He regards the US version of events to be a "lie" and "100 % concocted". He is considering taking the US administration to court. "When we expose their crime to the world, then the price for my son's life will have been the freedom of the other prisoners," he said. "I want Yassar to be the last person to die in Guantanamo."

Zahrani's brother, Ahmed, also said it was unthinkable that Yasser would kill himself. "It's impossible for Yasser to commit suicide," he told al-Watan newspaper. "He was killed," said another brother, Abdulla. His sister, Sohayla, also shared their disbelief: "He had memorized the Koran by heart. He was a strong believer. How could he take his own life and spend eternity in hell?"

But her husband walked into the room, knelt down beside her and hugged her. "He kept saying, 'Be patient, let your faith in God be strong, be patient, let your faith in God be strong.' Then he told me that Yassar had been killed by the Americans in Guantanamo during a brawl over the Koran."

She laments, "Why didn't the Americans just see what he had to say and release him? Why didn't they at least let her hear his voice on the phone or visit him? Now all I want is his body back so I can hug him and say goodbye."

Hundreds of people attended a wake for Yasser on Sunday night after his father had received word of his death from Saudi authorities.