Mohammed Mana Ahmed al-Qahtani (Arabic: ???? ???? ???? ?????????) (sometimes transliterated as al-Kahtani) (born November 19, 1979) is a Saudi citizen who has been detained as an al-Qaeda agent for 17 years (since June 2002) in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.
Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers.
He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate.
He was later captured in Afghanistan in the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
After military commissions were authorized by Congress, in February 2008, Qahtani was charged on numerous counts.
In May, the charges were dropped without prejudice.
New charges were filed against him in November 2008 and dropped in January 2009, as evidence had been obtained through torture and was inadmissible in court.
This was the first time an official of the Bush administration had admitted any torture of detainees at Guantanamo.
In a Washington Post interview in January 2009, Susan Crawford of the Department of Defense said "we tortured Qahtani", saying that the U.S.
government had so abused Qahtani through isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and exposure to cold that he was in a "life-threatening condition."