Baluchi grew up in Kuwait but spent most of teenage years in Iranian Baluchistan.
He is a citizen of Pakistan.
Trained as a computer technician, he dressed in Western clothes and "introduced himself as a businessman", but had been "groomed ... since boyhood" by his cousins and uncles "to join their clandestine war," according to journalist Debra Scroggins.
1977
Ammar al-Baluchi or Amar al-Balochi (عمار البلوشي ; born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali on 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani citizen who has been in American custody at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp since 2006.
1980
He is a nephew of the Pakistani terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who served as a senior official of al-Qaeda between the late 1980s and early 2000s; and a cousin of the Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who played a key role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bombing, and the high-profile Bojinka plot.
American authorities have stated that Baluchi was a "key lieutenant" of Mohammed during al-Qaeda's preparation for the 9/11 attacks, and that he had told investigators that he had sought help in al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological weapons to use against enemy forces and other targets.
1993
Ammar al-Baluchi was born in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, and is the maternal nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (organizer of the 9/11 attacks) and cousin of Ramzi Yousef, the organizer of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The extended family of al-Baluchi is ethnically Baluchi and originally from Balochistan.
The family patriarch and his brother were lay Deobandi preachers.
According to a U.S. government biography, his "chief mentor" was his cousin and 1993 World Trade Center bombing orchestrator Ramzi Yousef, "who taught him in the early 1990s in Iran about the importance of war against the West."
1997
According to a U.S. government biography, Baluchi "volunteered his services" to his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in 1997.
According to U.S. officials, the majority of money that came to the Saudi hijackers for the September 11 attacks was transferred through Baluchi and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
The 9/11 Commission reported that he "helped them with plane tickets, traveler's checks, and hotel reservations", and "taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing clothes and ordering food".
In his defence, Baluchi claims that he often helped people in Dubai with such things to supplement his income, and he had no way of knowing whether any of them were criminals.
1998
He is fluent in English and worked at Mohammed's honey-processing company in Karachi for a while before being hired in 1998 as a computer technician for Modern Electronics Corporation in Dubai.
According to some evidence given at the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he was "very open-minded and western-oriented", while his ex-wife told investigators he was "a very strict Muslim" who opposed his wife's leaving the home.
On 10 October 1998, Baluchi used his passport to open a bank account with the Emirates Bank International, using the name "Ali" based on his nasab Ibn Abdulaziz Ali and listing his employer's address with PO box 16958, Jebel Ali, Dubai.
He was then introduced to Marwan al-Shehhi by his uncle, and Shehhi allegedly asked him to help transfer money from Shehhi's company in Dubai to his company in the United States, ostensibly to help avoid banking fees if he transferred the money himself.
2000
In January 2000, an order using Shehhi's credit card had a Boeing 747-400 flight simulator program, a Boeing 767 flight deck video, and some flight attendant literature and flight manuals shipped to Baluchi's work address.
Baluchi then shipped them to his uncle to pass onto Shehhi.
On 18 April, Baluchi sent a wire transfer of $5,000 to Adel Rafeea, the administrator of the Islamic Center of San Diego, from the Wall Street Exchange Centre in Dubai, using his PO Box, passport and listing his phone number as 0506745651.
Rafeaa later claimed that Nawaf al-Hazmi had asked him to accept the money on his behalf.
Tracing the calls made to Baluchi's phone number, authorities discovered that he had received 16 calls from 28 to 30 June from a pre-paid Voicestream mobile purchased in Manhattan on 4 June.
The phone was deactivated on 11 July, and authorities allege it belonged to Atta, while Baluchi insisted that he only ever spoke with Shehhi, who had hired him.
Around this time, Baluchi complained to Mohammed that he couldn't do all this additional work himself, and his uncle told him that Mustafa al-Hawsawi would co-ordinate with him to act as an assistant.
On 29 June, a man named "Isam Mansur" wired $5,000 to the Western Union at 1440 Broadway in New York, where Shehhi picked it up.
This is alleged to have been Baluchi, since two later direct payments into Shehhi's Sun Trust account from the Exchange Center, a $10,000 payment to Shehhi on 18 July from "Isam Mansur" and a $9,500 5 August payment from "Isam Mansour", gave Baluchi's PO Box number.
On 8 August, Baluchi opened a bank account at Dubai Islamic Bank, using his name, passport and phone number.
A $20,000 payment from Baluchi's bank account to Shehhi's Sun Trust account on 29 August gave a phone number one digit different from the one given by Isam Mansour on 5 August.
A $70,000 payment was made to Shehhi's account by "Hani (Fawaz Trading)" on 17 September from the same exchange centre.
Hani gave a telephone number one digit removed from the one Baluchi used on the transfer from his bank account on 29 August.
In September, Hani Hanjour went to Dubai, where Baluchi gave him $3,000 to open a new bank account, and later deposited $5,000 in the account which Hanjour later accessed from ATMs in the United States.
2003
He was arrested in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2003 before being transferred; the series of criminal charges against him include: "facilitating the 9/11 attackers, acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden and plotting to crash a plane packed with explosives into the U.S. consulate in Karachi."
2008
Baluchi's ex-wife Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani cognitive neuroscientist, was arrested by Afghan police in Ghazni Province in 2008 and subsequently transferred to American custody at FMC Carswell, where she remains incarcerated on terrorism charges.
Siddiqui's family has denied that she was ever married to Baluchi, but the marriage has been attested by Pakistani and American intelligence personnel, Mohammed, and Siddiqui herself.
After being arrested in Karachi, Baluch was transferred to Afghanistan and detained at the Salt Pit, a now-defunct CIA black site near Bagram Airfield.
It has been reported that he was tortured extensively, being used as a "training prop" to teach enhanced interrogation techniques to new agents; trainees took turns shoving his head into a wall in sessions that lasted for hours, inflicting considerable levels of brain damage.
He was also doused with icy water and kept in stress positions, though these techniques ultimately failed to contribute to the acquisition of any useful intelligence.
2018
In 2018, the United Nations released a public announcement stating that Baluchi's ongoing captivity "breaches human rights law" and called on American authorities to immediately end his arbitrary detention.
