Interviewer: Okay, so.
Woman: Sorry, do you want the overhead lights on?
Interviewer: No.
One thing, we might have to stop
because of lighting, you know, the light.
If the sunlight comes out or something,
if something changes.
-: Okay.
Man: No, you're good there.
It's coming straight through. -: Okay, good, okay, good.
Okay.
Good afternoon.
-: Good afternoon.
Interviewer: We are very grateful to you
for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo project.
We invite you to speak of your experiences
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
We are hoping to provide you with the opportunity
to tell your story in your own words.
We are creating an archive of stories
so that people in America and around the world
will have a better understanding
of what you and others have endured.
Future generations must know what happened,
and by telling your story, you're contributing to history.
We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.
If any time during the interview
you'd like to take a break, just let us know.
And if anything you say you would like to retract,
just let us know and we can remove it.
And we'd like to begin with some basic information
such as your name and where you were born
and where you're living now and your age.
So you could start with that.
-: Okay, my name is Feroz Abbasi.
I was born in Entebbe, Uganda.
I'm 30 years old.
And the last, okay. -: And you're-
-: Where I'm currently living, in London, UK.
Interviewer: And languages,
what languages do you speak?
-: I speak, English is my mother tongue,
and a little bit of Arabic, but I'm not very good at Arabic.
Interviewer: And your religion?
-: I'm Muslim, so Islam is my religion.
Interviewer: And your education?
-: Education, I was educated,
I came to this country when I was eight years old.
So partly primary school in Uganda,
and then primary school here, secondary,
English college, I know it's different to the American one.
And then I was sent to Guantanamo, et cetera.
And when I came back, hamdullah, I went to university.
Interviewer: Hmm.
And could you tell us the dates
when you went to Guantanamo and when you left?
-: Okay, Guantanamo, I was amongst the first
to the group of people sent to Guantanamo.
So I think it was the 11th of January, 2002.
And we were released, I think we left
the 24th of January, 2005,
but we landed here 25th, I think, so it's a time difference.
Interviewer: So I would like to begin by,
if you could describe how it was
when you were first apprehended
and all that happened between that moment
to the moment when you went on a plane to go to Guantanamo,
and then we'll take that next.
-: Okay.
Okay, when I was first apprehended,
so an Afghan family very generously were helping me,
because they realized, they knew the predicament
of any foreigners in Afghanistan.
They told me that there was a bounty on my head.
And if I remember the figure, it was 30,000.
Most, I learned later,
of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay
were sold for 5,000.
So that's a big figure.
And I don't know what the Afghans
told the Americans that wanted me.
I don't know what story they spun
that brought the price up on my head, but that's the price.
So the Afghan family's helping me.
But the issue was that, you know, as can be seen,
I'm black, and I don't pass for an Afghan.
But they tried their best to dress me up as an Afghan
to get me across, trying to get me to Pakistan.
It didn't last long, 'cause we didn't go far,
and then a van of, I think they're called anti-Taliban.
I don't know what they were called,
but anti-Taliban came over and obviously they spotted me.
And they decided, you know, we're gonna,
you know, this guy, we're gonna take him.
Initially, because they saw I was Muslim,
and they could, and you know,
I was relating to them as a Muslim,
and the Afghan that was helping me, 'cause he was older,
I could see he was giving them harsh words.
And you know, like I didn't understand the language,
but he was giving them harsh words.
So I think he got them to take me to Spin Boldak,
which is on the border with Pakistan.
It's Afghanistan, Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
So they took me there, telling me
that they were gonna take me to Pakistan.
So initially they were gonna help me.
We watched the border, the Pakistani soldiers
were walking back and forth and so forth.
And they said, "We're not gonna be able
to take you to Pakistan.
We're gonna take you to Herat,
which is over the other side of Afghanistan,
we'll take it to Iran and Iran will let you through."
So we're driving back,
and obviously we're driving through Kandahar,
and it was night.
I don't know what happened,
whether they changed their mind or whatever,
or you know, they started talking to each other, et cetera.
And you know, saying that it's, you know,
this guy is not gonna work out,
we're not gonna be able to help him,
and we can get some money for him, and the bounty.
And as I said, I don't know what happened,
because they seemed to be talking.
They became a bit malicious, you know,
just because it seemed like new people came into the car,
if I remember rightly, and they became malicious.
So you heard a Kalashnikov, you know,
you heard it cocking behind your head.
The guys over there didn't actually,
they searched me a number of times,
you know, which was kind of disconcerting.
'Cause before they were being friendly.
Now they're being, there was animosity,
but I obviously had to go with them.
Because first, I'm in fear of my life.
These are people actually, you know,
looking to to grab any foreigners in Afghanistan,
and they could kill you or whatever.
And secondly, you know,
maybe they would help me in that regard.
So we end up in Kandahar and it's late night.
And an Afghan comes over to the car.
And he could speak some English, but he seemed,
he spoke English, but he had an American accent.
He was an Afghan, but you could see
that English was not his first language.
And he said to me, he said,
"We're gonna hand you over to the British guys.
The British guys do not want you,
but we're gonna hand you over to the British guys."
Then he turns, like you know, angry and walks away.
So I don't know what's going on.
I'm just sitting in the car,
there's people with Kalashnikovs around me,
and you know, I, it's just,
it's not, you can't process it.
You know, your whole life has gone upside down.
The everyday rules of everyday life
that you thought were kind of universal and determined,
they've just kind of been ripped apart.
You don't even know how to, what to make of it.
Like, so you can't, I'm having trouble
processing what's going on.
So obviously I'm just sitting there.
I don't know what to do.
It's not like I've been in that situation before. (laughs)
There's no experience, nothing.
So, and I'm young at the time as well.
So I don't know what to do.
So they tell me to get out of the car,
obviously now, and then to walk.
And this is in the center of Afghanistan now, the city.
And then I had to walk into a building.
And then, you know, I walk into the building,
and then the building is just,
it's crawling, crawling with people with weapons.
I mean, just I don't know what, every weapon.
Just, they're all over the place they've got these weapons.
And then, you know, they, you know, they grab me.
I had a turban on with, this was the attempt
at the old Afghan trying to help me, put me here,
I had a turban on my head.
They took my turban off my head, tied my hands,
and you know, and when that happened, it,
I guess there was, you know,
with hope, you're hoping.
You know, you're hoping that the situation
is not as bad as it is.
So even though you have the clues of them
cocking their Kalashnikovs behind your head,
and blah, blah, blah, searching you so many times
and so forth, you know, not being so friendly anymore,
new people coming in, and you know,
the stares that they give you and so forth.
You still hope that they're still gonna help you.
You're still holding onto that glimmer
that they're gonna, they're gonna take me to Herat,
and Herat is gonna go to Iran,
in Iran it's gonna be okay, 'cause I'm gonna call home
and then I'm gonna get help,
and I'm gonna fly out and go home.
You know, this nightmare is gonna end.
But once they tied my own hands in my own turban,
then that's it.
I don't know, I felt something that I've never felt,
I don't think I've ever felt in my life.
And it was like the energy in my body just drained,
drained, and I just became limp.
Like, you know, I was about to faint.
You just can't describe it.
It's a feeling that I've never felt before.
I could not remember in my how many years
I've been living since then feeling like that.
So then they take me into this building and so forth,
and, you know, into a small room.
And the usual Afghan type housing,
and that small room was filled with people with weapons.
And I'm just standing there.
And one Afghan comes over, slaps me in my face.
I don't know why he did that, just come slaps in my face,
and I don't know what's going on.
And then, lo and behold, for the first time,
I guess, you know, anyway,
for the first time during that whole situation,
two American Marines walk in.
Blonde hair, blue eyes.
And I was like, I was surprised, you know.
That's not something you see in Afghanistan.
So they walk in with their uniforms
and their M16s on their necks and et cetera.
I'm there as the prime specimen,
the deer that has been caught.
And the Afghans are sitting around,
and you know, like they're presenting me to them.
They're looking at me and et cetera.
They had words to say, like you know,
blah, blah, blah, why are you here,
this and that and the other, et cetera.
You know, they checked me out.
It wasn't serious.
And then like, they went off
and they told the Afghans to put me in the Afghan prison.
So I'm transferred to the Afghan prison.
And transferring was really disconcerting.
It was like, they for some reason, I don't know,
anyway the Afghans, they brought a black wooly hat
and then they put it over my eyes.
So that was the kind of black bag over the head type,
but they did it with a black wooly hat.
And then they put me in the back of a four by four,
and then I'm lying on the floor.
And I don't know, I think they covered me with something
because I couldn't breathe.
I found a difficulty breathing.
You know, it's amazing that there's a lot
about the treatment that we suffer that's very mundane,
and someone won't understand
until they're put in that situation.
It's very small things that really bother you.
But when you're there, and that's happening to you,
it's a big thing to you.
And not being able to breathe
because there's something over you,
they put a cover over me.
And I think they put a cover over me because,
and I was surrounded by like, you know,
Afghans with weapons again,
in the back of this four by four.
You know, because they were hiding me.
They were hiding me.
They were driving through the streets,
and you know, it looked like they were taking some cargo,
which was me, and a human cargo,
in the back of this four by four with their weapons.
They take me to the Afghan prison.
And I'm in the Afghan prison for I think three days,
I think three, I think it was three days
I was in the Afghan prison,
and they got the Afghans to shackle,
they shackled me, and they had their own shackles.
Rudimentary shackles, the lock kept on opening,
'cause it was that bad, but they kept me in the shackles.
And, but I was amongst the population of the Afghans
and I had my own room, like a cell and that kind of thing.
And they were pretty okay.
They didn't really, they didn't hit me
or anything like that, or treat me in a bad way.
I was just amongst the others, except for the shackles.
That's how I had to spend my time.
So obviously I'm thinking now, you know,
well, what has happened has happened,
and this is not so bad.
You know, like, you know, I guess prison is prison.
And Afghan prison is like, well, you know,
I could just kind of like, you know,
you're looking for some continuity.
So I was thinking to myself, well an Afghan prison,
I guess I could, you know, be okay with this.
You know, it's not freedom, but you know,
like you know, you're just trying to make sense of it,
trying to find something that, you know,
the thing about our treatment is that it keeps on changing.
So you're trying to find something that just stays stable,
and then you can deal with it.
'Cause if it stays stable,
if it keeps on changing, there's the unknown.
If there's unknown, then a human being
can't deal with the unknown.
You can't, it's just,
you just can't deal with it in that respect.
So after the three days, the it seemed like senior type,
the Afghans that came to look me over, three of them,
they seemed to be like, you know, like respected,
a bit older, and the way they held themselves,
you know, that you could distinguish them
from the Afghan guard in the prison.
And then they looked me over,
and they sat with me in the cell and they looked me over.
And then they take out the black wooly hat again
and they put it on my head (laughs)
and then that's it, I'm taken out.
So I'm taken out of the Afghan prison,
and then the Afghans are the ones taking me
and they take me to a house.
And I know they took me to a house.
I don't know where it was
because I was blindfolded the whole time.
They took me to the house and they took the blindfold off.
So I look around and it's kind of like an empty house,
that doesn't look like it's being used.
And then they put the blindfold on again,
'cause I think they weren't supposed to do that.
And then I hear American voices,
and there's the change over.
I don't know, I can't recall hearing the rustle of money.
(laughs) I don't recall any of that.
I just remember that, you know,
first I'm in the Afghan hands,
and then I hear American voices,
and it's the Americans that are taking me.
And obviously they take the shackles off,
and then they put their own,
I don't know what they call them,
the plastic ties, that's what they were using.
And then they put their own hood on my head,
I think if I remember rightly, 'cause I couldn't see.
But I don't think they used,
I don't think they used the Afghan one.
Or they just put it over the Afghan one, et cetera.
I think I've kept the wooly hat.
And then they put me into the back of their vehicle,
and then we were just driving along.
It was first bumpy, then all of a sudden it becomes smooth.
In Afghanistan, when it becomes smooth,
it can only be one road.
And that was the road I think, you know,
it goes by the airport, Kandahar airport.
And that's where I was taken.
I was taken out of the van.
And they were kind of being friendly,
but you know, like the situation,
you can't make sense of it.
So you don't, you don't make sense of it.
You don't know what's happening.
So you don't anticipate,
because you don't know what you're anticipating.
You just go along with it.
And you know, you're in a daze.
So I'm in a daze.
So they take me out, and I'm walking on gravel.
And then all of a sudden they trip me over,
and then you know, I'm thrown to the ground
and then like one knee's in my back.
And then they start searching, searching, searching,
and then you know, on one side,
the other guy does the other side, and et cetera.
Then picked up, your shoes have been taken off, et cetera,
you know like, 'cause they check between the toes as well.
I don't understand.
I don't understand the mentality, check between the toes.
Picked up, and then now you're just being pushed.
You know, it's only your toes touching the ground
and you're being rushed.
I'm rushed through.
Because I'm blindfolded, you know,
everything's done by hearing.
You know, you don't see anything,
just by hearing, by feeling, you know, that kind of thing.
I'm rushed through, like sometimes in warehouses
you have these plastic, like it acts like a doorway.
It's slit like that, so I'm rushed through one of those.
And then, you know, the process is kind of vague right now,
but I'll try to remember it as best as I can.
You know, they, well, I think the first thing is,
you know, they take scissors and you know,
you're blind folded right now.
You're handcuffed.
People are shouting around you.
The situation has changed.
All of a sudden you're hearing F word this, F word that,
just swearing, and you're being called names and et cetera.
And then there's the scissors,
and you feel these scissors,
this cold metal, just going all over your body.
It's like ants over your body,
just cutting your clothes off.
And then the next thing you know, you're naked.
Huh, you're naked but blindfolded.
For me, it's something
that, you know, in that situation,
for anyone, it would be very upsetting.
For an Arab, it would very upsetting.
Because I was raised in this country.
In our physical education, you know,
you have showers with the guys, and you know,
it's not something that Islamically is right,
but you know, in school, that's what, you know,
you have showers and everyone's naked.
So, you know, you kind of have,
you're kind of desensitized to it.
For an Arab, that's very,
it's a big humiliation in that regard.
So I really feel for the Arabs, and you know,
the others who are kind of traditionally Muslim
and that are raised in that kind of tradition
that, you know, that would have been a big humiliation.
So there I am, naked.
There's a blindfold on my head.
I'm moved on, like from one set of hands to another,
with the same set of hands either side, you know,
the same guards that had took me out of the van
and tripped me up are the same ones on the side,
but they're moving me to other sets of hands.
And then there's this whole thing.
Sometimes I would pull off the,
whatever's on my head, the sack, et cetera.
And then, so I'll get to see,
but there's so many bright lights that you know,
your eyes are squinting
and you can hardly see what's going on
and there's too many things happening
and you can't process it.
It's too many things.
And then like, there's the lights of what you can see.
And then beyond, there's just these shadows, moving.
And you know it's people and et cetera,
and you're in a big tent, et cetera.
So you remove that.
And then there's these hands feeling your body,
checking for scars, et cetera,
this, that, and the other, and you're naked.
And there's everyone around you.
And it's not only men, there's women around as well.
And then they're looking at you,
and you know, you're just there, naked.
And I mean naked, like that.
And then the scars, and then there's a guy there,
speaking to you, asking you and he asks you,
"Are you Al Qaeda or Taliban?"
That's the question, right?
Where's, kind of, (laughs) what are the options?
There's no other options, there's two options here.
And then that's all he asks, "Are you Al Qaeda or Taliban?"
Okay, like that.
And then, you know, scars, they're checking, et cetera.
Then the thing goes back on your head,
and you get rushed, running through,
and then through the plastic thing again.
And then I was taken to another place,
and then they took the thing off my head.
I think it was a sack, I can't remember exactly.
Bright lights now, these are bright lights,
and there's a guy with a camera in front of me,
and he takes pictures of me naked.
And I know that they're fully naked pictures.
They weren't facial, et cetera.
I know because later on, many years later,
a detainee tells me that his military lawyer,
a military lawyer,
'cause he was off for the military commissions.
He had them, these pictures, on his laptop.
So these are pornographic pictures, fully naked.
They're not, they didn't take pictures,
we weren't naked and they took pictures
of our upper body or face.
These were fully naked pictures, 'cause he told me,
on his laptop, and he was showing the detainee,
and he showed the detainee my picture.
So, you know, there is this pornographic picture
on a military lawyer's laptop,
being shown to another detainee,
and that detainee came to tell me.
So they take these pictures.
Now I could see, like beyond the light,
you have to squint, and I could see,
you know, like it's just, you know,
the soldiers are looking,
and you know where they're looking,
'cause you can see where their eyes are.
They're not looking at your face.
So, and there's female soldiers is there as well.
And what can you do in that situation?
You know, you're butt-naked, and I mean naked.
And then there's this group of people just looking.
So the thing goes back on my head.
I'm taken into, you know,
it seems like there's workmen cabins,
you know, like the work sites,
when they're doing some construction or something,
they have a cabin, I was taken into one of those.
I'm naked, and then they take the thing off my head
and this was the interrogation.
So there's the interrogator in front of me,
sitting at a table and chair.
I think I was on on the floor.
And I was naked.
And then the first time I got clothes,
they throw me some Afghan clothes.
So, okay, so I get some clothes.
But the thing about Afghan clothes is,
I don't know, I don't understand
whether they did this on purpose,
or they probably did it on purpose.
You have to buy the belt separately.
And it's just like a piece of soft rope
that goes through your trousers.
Otherwise the trousers are too big.
They're made too big.
So I put on the trousers, like you know,
as best as I can, and I put on the top.
And I'm sitting on the floor, and then I'm asked
all sorts of questions, et cetera.
I don't remember the questions.
Just, they were all military related,
'cause they, 'cause it was the military
that was interrogating me.
So obviously they just wanted to know something about,
I don't know, where the fighters are,
or where the explosives are, some stupid,
and I was like, "I don't know."
you know, like I'm gonna answer those questions,
but that's all they were interested in.
You know, 'cause obviously in that situation,
I guess that's what military intelligence does.
And then, you know,
those are the questions that they started off with.
Obviously they asked me about my background,
what I was doing, et cetera.
Then the guy went away,
and I think I was left there.
Now the interrogation, I remember,
there was two people behind me, and I knew they had guns
'cause when they brought you in, you know,
they're there and they're obviously looking menacing.
And then there's, you know,
there's at least five people in the room.
And obviously I thought to myself, you know,
I'm gonna get kicked in here.
You know, these people, I'm on the floor,
and you know, these people looking menacing
and they've got guns and one guy's got a knife,
you know, in his boot. (laughs)
You know, what has he go that for?
Like, you know, that kind of thing.
So I'm afraid.
I'm really afraid, and I don't know
how to process the whole thing.
You know, just going from one situation to another,
and you know, there's no moment,
there's no quiet time where you can sit back
and start making sense of it.
It just keeps on changing and changing
and changing and changing,
and your mind is not keeping up with it.
And you know, it's very discomfiting.
So they go back, and they come back and they say I'm lying.
So, okay, so I'm lying.
So I have to go through the process again,
and you know, like blah, blah, blah.
And then they start questioning me, et cetera.
And the military intelligence guy, I think he was a Marine.
He said he was a Marine, 'cause I remember even him saying,
"Do you know what the Marines are?
It means you don't eff with us. (laughs)
That's what a Marine means."
Okay, that's fine.
So he said, he asked me what year it was.
I remember this clearly, he asked me what year it was.
And I couldn't tell him, I actually couldn't tell him.
And really, I thought very hard.
I thought very hard.
And I think the first thing I said was 2003.
This was 2001.
And I didn't, I could not tell him the year like that.
And he asked me again, and I said 2002.
He said, no, it's 2001.
That's, but I was thinking, I was really thinking hard.
And he said, you know, like most people,
when they answer the question,
they answer it in 0.7 seconds.
Why does it take you four seconds to answer a question?
I didn't, I didn't know.
But the situation was like that, that's the way.
So they take me out of there, and then
they put me in, you know, like what they called the barn.
So, you know, it's just basically,
in Kandahar there was a old hangar,
and they'd converted it into an isolation kind of situation.
So it had three meter highly razor wire,
and I was separated from everyone else.
And you know, there was a guard above my head with an M16.
And I think he had instructions to shoot to kill
if you tried to escape or something, he told me. (laughs)
You know, they tell you these things.
So I was putting the barn, but I was blindfolded,
and I was still like in the plastic cuffs.
And then I was made, and they took me into the barn
and into my little kind of razor wire cell.
And then they had me there for,
you know, near the razor wire, so I could feel it.
And then they said, "Do not move."
And then I just lay there, and you know,
like I don't know how long I laid there,
but that was maybe the first night,
whatever, how many hours.
It wouldn't have been a long, a few hours.
It wouldn't have been eight hours or something.
And I could feel the razor wire near me.
So I, you know, obviously I hadn't been in the actual cell,
so I don't know whether it's just, it's all around me.
I'm not gonna squirm around to get caught up in it.
And it is razor wire.
It is, you know, it's very dangerous.
So I just lay still.
And the thing is, it was that night
when, you know, I told myself,
you know, like I couldn't sleep.
'Cause the situation, you have to,
like right now, you know, you're in a survival situation.
So you have to stay awake, you don't know what's happening.
It's better to be awake than to be sleeping
and get caught off of guard.
And, you know, I said, you have to sleep.
You have to keep your strength up.
'Cause, you know, you can't be weak
in a situation like, so I tried to sleep.
But I couldn't get a full night's sleep.
Normally before that, you know, I would sleep pretty well.
I wake up refreshed, you know, I deep sleep.
I'm a deep sleeper, and I'd been like that for years.
But I think that was the first night
where I didn't sleep properly, you know,
slept but didn't sleep properly.
And that was the first night,
and every night until I was released from Guantanamo Bay.
Because there is a sense that, you know,
you have to be ready, you have to be ready.
And you know, there's, you have to prepare
'cause you don't know what's happening.
And at least, you know, you can soften the blow
by knowing it's coming
rather than just being taken unawares of it.
So they take me out.
And then I think, I can't remember how many interrogations,
they interrogated me so many times.
The first time I ate, I don't know why,
they took me into a van and they were all staring at me.
And then they threw an MRE at me.
And, you know, really, Kandahar,
there's not much to say about that situation.
The soldiers were starving me, because I came,
they called me Santa Claus because I came,
the time when I was brought there
was kind of near Christmas time.
And then they would take presents from my MRE,
which meant that, you know,
basically I wasn't getting that much food.
To the point where they had this habit,
I don't know why, a group of 10 soldiers would come.
It happened maybe three times or something like that.
They would come into the barn, you know, looking menacing.
And one of them in front would say, "Stand up."
And I think I was 016.
"Stand up and turn around, what's your name,
blah, blah, blah, where are you from?"
And then you have to go all the way down to my town.
Then they'll say, then the guard would say
to the rest of the soldiers, this is badass.
This is SAS, SAS guy.
So I was supposed to be special air forces.
I was supposed to be British secret services,
you know, not secret services,
British special forces, the elite of the British army.
I'm supposed to be British SAS.
This is the accusation.
This is the first accusation, yeah.
Badass, British SAS.
And you know, I don't even know where that came from.
And when they were doing this,
I had to stand up the whole time.
And the thing is, like it maybe would take 10 minutes,
but I couldn't stand for five minutes.
I couldn't, my legs were hurting,
were in pain so much I couldn't stand.
Because you know, like
you weren't supposed to lean on the wall
'cause they would tell you to turn around,
and then they would say you're a badass, SAS,
and this, that, and et cetera.
So, you know, like it was that bad.
I would drink water, 'cause you got water regularly,
just to keep my stomach from shrinking, you know.
And you didn't get that much food,
and there wasn't much reading material
or something like that.
So my reading material was the actual packets in the MRE.
I would read the calories, add them up. (laughs)
I don't know, just I would do whatever with the packet.
That that was my reading material
Hamdullah, you know.
Am I going into too much detail?
Interviewer: No, it's wonderful.
-: Yeah?
Okay.
Interviewer: Can I ask you some questions?
-: Yeah, sure, go on, go on.
Interviewer: Did you see other prisoners
while you were there?
-: Okay.
Because for some reason they isolated me straight away.
During the whole processing,
if you want to call it processing,
with them taking my clothes off and et cetera,
they isolated me straight away.
So I did see, in the barn, they held certain people.
The first people I saw was a group
of Pakistanis and Afghanis I think.
I could tell, but they were distant
and they were grouped together.
But they were kept away from me.
And then they took me out of the barn,
and then they put up a screen
so I couldn't actually see them.
But opposite me, there was an Afghan
who was kind of, I don't know what they called him,
but he was acting a bit crazy.
So, you know, he was just kind of leaping about
and doing whatever, like, you know,
I think he was a bit crazy.
I can't remember his name, but he was a bit crazy.
And if, like on the other side of me, you know,
I think it was a group of Afghans.
But no one, I couldn't actually speak to anyone,
because I was isolated.
I was supposed to be the SAS guy in that regard.
At night, I would hear them,
you know, bringing people in.
And you know, it was horrible, really.
It was horrible.
You would hear the shackles, you would hear them
being smashed into the metal doorway
and the soldiers were laughing.
You'd hear the detainees screaming.
You'd hear the soldiers commenting
that they've defecated themselves, the detainees.
You'd hear, 'cause the guy in the guard tower, you know,
he was, he gave running commentary of what's going on.
You know, and I'm just lying there, hearing this, yeah,
and you know, I can't see it, but you know, it was horrible.
One of the detainees over there,
you know, he needed something to drink.
And then the, you know, the guard in the guard tower,
you know, said to drink from the urine bucket, which he did.
He didn't really, I don't think he knew it was urine,
you know, like that, so 'cause they started laughing.
The guards in the guard tower would comment
on how small the genitals are of detainees,
which means that they were naked when this was happening.
And you would hear the detainees
being smashed into the metal,
because you know, it would reverberate.
This is a hanger, so you would hear,
(imitates metal reverberating)
And then, you know, they would laugh,
and you know, et cetera.
And then the detainees would be screaming.
And then, they had shackles on their legs,
and they'd been, you can, you know,
by the speed of the shackles you could,
you knew it was painful,
'cause they were moving them too fast.
And that must be painful.
It was just, it was really horrible.
But in terms of actually speaking to someone,
they kept them away.
Interviewer: And you were kept isolated
the whole time you were there?
-: Yeah, I was kept as isolated the whole time.
But hamdullah, it wasn't long that I was in Kandahar.
You know, some people suffered for a very long time
in that kind of situation, like Kandahar and Bagram.
But I think it was three weeks for me.
Interviewer: Three what?
-: Three weeks.
Interviewer: And the interrogators
would always ask you the same questions,
that was always the American interrogator?
-: Yeah, military, I think,
some pretended, like I had maybe two,
possibly maybe two interrogations
with people who they would said they were MI,
sorry, FBI, FBI.
But you know, I didn't really believe them.
But it was a military facility,
you don't know who's who.
But it was military interrogations.
The questions were just kind of like, you know,
your background, what were you doing there,
and you know, just stupid.
And then the military intelligence, obviously, like I said,
they were more interested in, you know, weapons
and you know, whatever, this, that, and the other,
et cetera, you know, 'cause of the situation we were in.
Later on the FBI, those who said they were FBI,
obviously they were interested in just other stuff,
Al Qaeda, where's Osama Bin Laden, or so forth.
I can't remember, it's been a long time,
so I can't remember the questions.
And there was a lot of interrogations after that,
and they kind of merge into this one, yeah.
Interviewer: So did you know
you were gonna go to Guantanamo, or how did that happen?
-: Okay, that was like, so now,
this is probably my last interrogation.
And I think, I believe it was a military,
it was military intelligence, Marine or whatever.
And he said,
he actually, he said, "You're gonna go,
we're gonna send you to America."
He says, "You're gonna go to America,
we're gonna transfer you over to America,
and you're gonna go either before a military tribunal
or a civilian court."
And then, then there's the usual,
100 years without parole for the default allegation.
If there's no allegation,
this is the default allegation, conspiracy.
They, you know, you want to ask,
conspiracy, well, what's the plot?
How was I involved?
You know, what was this incident?
And there isn't, there's no answer,
it's just a conspiracy, just a kind of,
you know, like just some vague, you know, conspiracy.
So it was conspiracy, 100 years without parole.
I remember him saying that.
And he also said, "You're gonna be on an island somewhere,"
pardon my language, "shitting in a bucket."
That's what he said.
So, okay, something like that.
So shortly after that, I'm gonna be,
we're gonna be transferred.
And then they came and they took me out
as they normally took me out.
I won't go into the details.
And you're on the floor and there's a bag over your head.
There's a dog barking, you know,
incessantly behind you, around you, et cetera.
And then there was a processing,
which was, you know, just similar to the first processing.
So you're naked again.
For some reason, I don't know,
it, I think, I think yeah.
I think, yeah, you're naked again,
they shave your beard off, and the hair off your head.
You know, and then they put you
in orange kind of tight clothing and plimsolls and so forth,
goggles and earmuffs, handcuffs,
and mittens over the handcuffs,
which prevented some movement I think, and et cetera.
And then we were sitting for a long time,
waiting, waiting, waiting,
'cause there's a whole load of us.
But that's probably the first time I came,
once they isolated, in the barn they isolated me further.
So I don't think I actually saw any detainees.
That's probably the first time I came close
to another detainee, cause they were processing him
just before me, but then I didn't see him for long.
And then I was sitting amongst the other detainees,
and then we were waiting.
And then they took us out in two lines,
and I was at the front of one line
and then someone else was at the front of the other line.
And then we were, there was a chain running along us.
So if anyone was too slow, if anyone was too fast,
or tripped or whatever, we'd all fall down,
and et cetera, and they took us on the planes.
Now what they did with the handcuffs,
they didn't actually lock them.
Which means that if you just keep on pushing them,
then they'll keep on squeezing and squeezing on,
and they did that on purpose.
Because they checked whether it was done or not before.
And, you know, 'cause they would just push it slightly
to check whether it still clicks.
So like that, but they did it on purpose,
so that some people, if you just, if it locks,
if they just put it on hard in the beginning,
then it means that they spent the whole,
I don't know how many hours,
maybe 18 hours it was, the flight,
with you know, the blood restricted.
Some hands just swollen, swollen, and so forth, et cetera.
So, and then they put us on the plane.
And then on the plane, you know, just,
there's not much to say.
You're just there.
You're not allowed to lean on anyone,
soldiers shouting at you, and it's a long flight.
And if I remember rightly, I can't remember
it's this vague, but I think we were transferred.
I remember we were taken out of the plane,
and it was hot, and it was very bright.
Obviously I'm earmuffed, and et cetera.
And we were transferred, and it was a quick transfer
from one plane to another, and then it took off.
And the next thing I remember about the flight
is that, you know, the pilot saying that,
"Oh, we're going over such and such American city."
Well, I think he was probably lying,
but you know, just for my benefit.
Also, the guy next to me,
'cause they knew there was a British guy who spoke English,
so they wanted to give words to him,
but they got the wrong guy. (laughs)
They got the guy next to me,
which was, I felt sad for the guy next to me.
He was, (laughs) but I wasn't gonna say anything. (laughs)
It is a crazy, crazy experience.
So we land.
Interviewer: Before we get to Guantanamo,
what were you thinking on the plane?
And just before you boarded the plane,
were thinking going to America
was a better situation than from Kandahar?
-: Okay, yeah.
Well yeah, obviously.
I really, I heard stories.
Stories of, you know, prison, you know, some prisoners.
'Cause the thing is, right,
I'm in Kandahar and I'm starving.
And I'm losing a lot of weight,
and then I'm remembering someone telling me
about how prisoners in America get swollen.
Like, you know, they pump up.
And so I thought, I concluded that, you know,
they must get swollen because a lot of food. (laughs)
So, you know, if we go to America,
there's gonna be a lot of food. (laughs)
So, you know, America must be better than Kandahar.
And you know, obviously I thought to myself, you know,
I had this idea that America,
you know, is a bit like Britain,
you know, there's rule of law,
you know, there's justice,
there's, you know, fair treatment and so forth.
You know, I didn't, I really didn't expect Guantanamo.
I really, it's,
that's changed my impression of America.
Because beforehand, I really thought America
was all about, you know, I don't know,
democracy and...
Interviewer: So even being transferred
to American prison, was it to you at that moment
a better situation? -: Yeah.
Yeah, than Kandahar, yeah.
I really, I was really, you know,
the first thing you're thinking about is survival,
and obviously the second thing then,
you're thinking about legal, your legal situation.
And then, you know how, you know, justice.
But you know, thinking of survival.
And Kandahar, I mean, they were starving me.
They were starving me.
I got to, I was 147 pounds
when I got to Guantanamo.
Interviewer: How much were you weighing before you-
-: I can't remember.
I think I stayed at 170 in Guantanamo.
And then it got worse in Guantanamo, I started going down.
But the best I did is 170 pounds.
But that's a different story.
But I can't remember beforehand,
but you know, that 147 was really, really bad.
Interviewer: So we can go when you land then,
since you were one of the very first people
to come to Guantanamo then, right?
So it's an important story,
if you can describe how it was
when you got off the plane and, you know.
-: Okay.
So they're taking us off the plane, one after another,
and then the soldiers, there's two soldiers,
always one on one shoulder and one on the other shoulder.
You're always flanked by soldiers.
They take you down a ramp,
and obviously you've got the earmuffs on your ears,
and you know, you're blind goggled.
Not blindfolded, (laughs) it's an actual goggle.
You can't see anything.
And you know, it's been a long flight,
and you're taken down the ramp.
Okay, now the first thing is obviously,
you know, everything's by hearing,
you know, by tactical senses.
So it's hot, you know it's hot.
It's dry, the situation, 'cause it was day when we landed.
And then the soldiers, you know,
they're giving their running commentary,
the ones on either side.
So they say, you know, "Oh, look at that."
You know, like, "Those detainees
are really getting effed up," this, that, and the other.
"Those Marines are giving them this and giving them that,
you know, and it's gonna be you next, man."
And this, that, and the other.
Obviously you can hear, from the distance,
people screaming, shouting, you know,
like, you know, they're in pain, you know?
Like whatever, but you know, you can't see,
so you don't know what's happening.
And then like, then it's your turn.
So then they throw you into the hands of the Marines.
And then the Marines then they start,
they do the search again, you know,
like you know, search one side, search the other side.
And you're rushed, and you've got shackles on your feet.
So, you know, you're trying your best
to limit the pain, you know, and then,
but they're trying to make you go faster.
So, you know, we were just,
we were searched by the Marines and then put on a bus.
And the bus doesn't have any seats.
I don't understand why the bus doesn't have any seats.
We're sitting cross-legged on the floor
and then bolted to the ground,
and we're supposed to sit upright.
And we're not allowed to move.
You just have to sit there.
The Marines, at every opportunity they'll get,
they'll push you, kick you, punch you, that kind of thing.
The guy driving the bus, he's happy to accelerate
and you know, like, you know, just being stupid.
So you lose your balance, so you're about fall over,
which then inspires the Marines,
the Marines that are looking after you,
to shout at you because you moved from your position,
and then they hit you and whatever on your leg, et cetera.
Now there's people on, you know,
if you're young, if you were like young like me,
and you know, I was starved, but you know,
like young, relatively healthy,
then you kind of got to take care of these old people.
There's people with back problems,
there's people with, you know, just like, you know,
they're not in the situation, and you know,
able to maintain that position
for I don't know how long we were there.
It must have been hours, like you know,
they took, you know, on that bus.
These people punching, you know, like you know,
you know, just really treating you in a bad way.
The bus was stationary,
must have been stationary for half an hour.
And at the time I didn't,
I thought they were just being mean, you know,
well how come they're just leaving the bus here,
just you know, they can drive to the place.
I'm not sure whether that's the, you know,
later on I hear that from the lawyers and so forth
in Guantanamo that there's supposedly,
to get to Guantanamo you have to go through
on a boat or something, or something like that.
So maybe that was the boat.
At the time, I thought they were just being mean.
And then they brought us to Guantanamo.
And then what they do is they take you
into what I later learned was the rec yard
in, this is Camp X-ray.
So it's just a green, you know, like a green,
grassy kind of in between one block and another.
They took us there.
And then they have you sitting
in basically what they now call the stress position.
I didn't know these terminologies at the time.
All I knew is that, you know, they had you sitting down
and then, you know, like on your knees,
and then one foot was over, you know, the heel of the other.
And you had to put your hands in a specific position,
which was like, you know, just on,
near your knee and that kind of thing, and leave them there.
And you're supposed to sit there for hours on end
while they're shouting at you,
this, that, and the other, et cetera.
I had a face mask on, 'cause they put a face mask,
'cause I think of TB or something?
They were worried about TB or something like that.
So there was a face mask.
Because it's hot and you're sweating
and it's been on your face for a long time,
you can't breathe.
There's always this thing about breathing.
So obviously, in that situation,
then you start trying to find a way of breathing.
So I tried to remove it with my mouth.
So you just, you know, work the jaw
until it comes off my nose, and then just to get some air.
And then the soldier would come over,
scream at you not to do that and put it back on.
And then we just, this was the game we were playing.
You're sitting in this situation.
You can't see anything, there's earmuffs over your ears.
And you know, there's only one soldier.
There was another supposedly Arabic translator,
but he couldn't speak Arabic to save his life.
So, you know, his Arabic was bad.
And then there's a dog barking,
and then there's one guy who supposed to be maintaining,
and there's soldiers, you can hear them around you,
and there's other soldiers
who were just standing guard, et cetera.
So obviously you would hear the guy scuttle off
to mess with another detainee,
and then you take the opportunity
to either lean on one side to relieve yourself,
change your feet over, take the thing off your nose,
or just lean forward to get the pressure off your back,
et cetera, whatever.
And then he'll come running back to you and set you right.
And obviously he'll give you a punch or something,
you know, 'cause you know, like that.
Detainees were dropping like flies.
And whenever a detainee dropped like a fly,
then you know, then you'd hear a scurry,
like footsteps and they'd drag him away.
And then, you know, and then they just kept on dropping,
dropping, dropping, dropping.
And then for some reason, I was the only one there.
And I just remember silence.
You know, I'm just holding position.
What happened was I became numb.
I just, I really, I became numb,
you know, holding that position for so long,
it's just that you kind of become suspended
between pain and I don't know what else, you know?
It's just between, so all of a sudden,
so you're just there, and it was just silent.
And then for some reason the soldier came,
took my plimsoll off my top foot,
so there I am with one foot bare.
I don't know why he did that.
And I'm just there, you know, and fatigued.
It's been a hot day.
The sun was going down.
And then they decided, okay, they're gonna process me.
So they take me out.
Now, obviously I'm worried that, you know,
'cause I haven't got my plimsoll on my foot.
And this is how you got to think.
It's just tiny little, you know,
you're always cringing away from pain.
You're always trying to move away from pain,
cushion the pain.
So now my foot is bare.
I'm worried about my foot getting cut on the stones.
This is your thinking.
And it's always at this level.
It's not, it doesn't go beyond that.
You're just always trying to save yourself from pain
or minimize the pain or, you know?
That's the thinking in that situation.
So they drag me off, one foot bare.
And then, you know, right now I'm fatigued,
you know, dehydrated, you know,
you're just kind of in a twilight.
You know, you're just, like your head is lightheaded,
you know, you're just like that.
So it's kind of vague, the rest of the processing.
And then the sun's going down, and I don't know
if the sun was up when we got there,
but the sun's going down, and you have no sense of time.
And then it was the shower.
So obviously it's naked again.
So you know, like you're naked again,
and they're just watching you.
And then you've got like,
I don't know how many minutes to have a shower.
They throw some soap or something,
or shampoo or whatever at you.
And then you have a shower quickly.
And then there's,
then I remember they just, then you're blindfolded again
and they take you here and there and everywhere.
They do the anal search again.
I think it's not really, it's not a security measure.
Because you know, they did it in Kandahar.
And then 24 hours later, they do it there.
And there's no opportunity, there's no,
you know, you've been handcuffed.
You've been, you know, there's mittens on your hand
that will prevent thumb movement.
You can't deposit anything in your rectum
in that situation, obviously.
So it's just, it's a matter of humiliation.
So they had to put you through that as well.
And then they took me to the cage.
So right now it's just dark.
Interviewer: And they didn't interrogate you
that first day?
-: No, it was just, I call it initiation.
I think what they think they have to do is to break you.
So they put you through that,
and during transfer, they put you through excruciating pain.
That's the reason why they didn't lock the handcuffs,
because they say that if you're in pain,
then you won't to try to escape.
Not that anyone has any escape on their mind,
not that anyone would even know how to escape if they did,
but you know, that's the kind of mentality.
So there was no,
there was no interrogation that first.
Interviewer: And when you were there that first day,
you weren't able to talk to anybody at all,
any other detainees, too?
-: No, when they took me, they took me into my cage.
They took the, you know, blind goggles off.
And then, you know, I was basically deposited in my cage.
And that's the first time.
And then there were detainees around me.
So obviously, this is the first time
I can actually speak to someone,
for the first time in my situation.
But we weren't allowed to talk,
but obviously you try to get around it.
I don't remember actually speaking,
because when I got there it seemed like,
I think it was night.
I saw one detainee in the distance praying,
but he was praying in the wrong direction, I later learned.
And then everyone else,
I don't remember having a conversation with someone there,
so they must have been sleeping, but it was night.
Interviewer: Well, speaking in English,
were you limited in who you could talk to?
Man: Can we just hold on one sec, though?
I just, where's-
Woman: I'll hold.
Man: You want to monitor that?
Woman: Yeah, I show 8:30 now.
I think I'm fast, though.
Man: I think you're fast, too.
Give me a second. -: Let me turn on my phone.
Man: Okay, okay.
-: Okay, so- -: We're good to go.
Interviewer: So we were talking about,
if I remember, people, whether they,
since you spoke English,
whether you were able to communicate with anybody else.
-: Okay, at that time I could just basic Arabic.
I could speak some little bit of Arabic.
Interviewer: So then that was enough
to at least have a little bit of communication?
-: Well, you couldn't actually have a conversation,
'cause you know, they won't understand me
and I won't understand the majority of what they're saying.
But you know, the first days in Camp X-ray,
first thing is I remember it as three days
that we had to remain silent at all times,
you weren't allowed to speak to anyone.
Obviously you tried to get around it
by one way or another, and you'd then get in trouble.
But you know, yeah.
So the first night, I think people were sleeping,
obviously, because of the situation.
We were the first there.
So, you know, it wasn't as populated
as later on, when they brought more people.
So you know, just think,
I think there was only about,
there had to be a maximum of 27 people
that were first brought on the plane.
Interviewer: So I'm gonna ask you again,
did you have any idea what was going on
or where you were, or you know, at that,
since you were the first there,
did you have any idea of what?
-: No.
My conclusion, I looked around and I saw these cages
and, you know, et cetera.
And I thought to myself, this must be quarantine.
You know, cause obviously I had this impression
they were gonna send me to America.
The guy said they're gonna send us to America.
This doesn't look like America to me,
this must be quarantine.
And I thought to myself, well, you know,
like animals when they're being brought
from abroad into a country,
you have to put them in quarantine.
And my basic understanding,
you have to keep them in a situation
where there, you know, might be diseases
or something like that, et cetera.
So that's what I thought.
So I thought to myself, you know, this must be quarantine.
They're gonna hold us here for a short period of time
to work out whether we've got any diseases, or something,
whatever, and then we're gonna be sent to America.
And I actually did start to prepare myself,
like you know, because I knew, okay, right,
they're gonna take us in the,
on the bus again.
So I started sitting on my,
this is later on, in a few days,
I started sitting on the concrete, bare concrete,
'cause otherwise you can sit on the Isomat, I think,
on the bare concrete, preparing my legs.
Just, you know, when the Marines come and start beating us,
then I'll be in a better situation.
So, you know, I had this impression that, you know
we were only gonna be there for a short time.
It was just a holding for a short period of time,
and then they're gonna send us to America.
And then that's we'll face
a military tribunal or civilian courts.
Interviewer: And when you saw more people come
the next day, did more people come the next day, or?
-: Okay, now I was there, what was it?
We came in- -: The 11th to the 1st.
-: Yeah, 11, and then I think it was about three months.
Three months.
So it wasn't the next day that they brought people,
but periodically, you know,
probably quite regularly they would bring people.
And you would know, because they'll tell you
they're holding them in the rec yard,
the green area, which they held us in.
And then they'll tell us to face the other way.
And we weren't allowed to get up and,
you know, whether to pray or to use the toilet,
just had to sit there while they processed them.
So basically they were going through
the same thing that we were going through,
you know, the same situation, the initiation as it were.
Interviewer: And when was your first interrogation,
and how many days in do you think?
-: I would estimate it from memory maybe about two weeks.
-: Two? -: Maybe two weeks, yeah.
-: Two weeks? -: And it wasn't straight-
Two weeks, yeah.
It wasn't straight away that they took us to interrogation.
Interviewer: Okay, before we get to the interrogation,
during those two weeks did you still think
you were just in quarantine?
Or did you begin to think something else was going on?
-: No, actually I think it was quarantine.
I thought it was actually quarantine.
So that's what I was, I was preparing my legs
for the beating and (laughs) the Marines on the bus.
Interviewer: And did you know you were in Guantanamo?
Did someone telling you that?
-: Whether I knew I was in Guantanamo,
no I don't, in the first two weeks,
I don't think so.
And, wait.
Okay, first three days,
we weren't allowed to talk to anyone.
We had to sit in the middle of our cells for this,
face one certain direction,
and your eyes could only go on the vertical.
So you could look up at the sky, the ground,
but you couldn't look around.
The MPs took great pleasure in running up to you
when they caught you actually looking around
and telling you off, which was, you know,
that was their life at that time.
You know, so that's it.
For me, those three days, they were a relief.
'Cause all of a sudden there's kind of time to process,
you know, time to process this, you know,
and I didn't have to like speak to anyone.
So you know, it was quiet time
that you know, I could start thinking,
and I was trying to make sense of the situation.
Others remember it too,
for us to be sitting and not talking for about two weeks.
I don't know, I remember it as three days,
but maybe that's just, after years, you know.
You know, people remember things differently.
Interviewer: Do you remember what food you got
those first few days?
-: Okay, okay.
The first night, I'm put in my cage,
they take the goggles off,
my eyes are finding it very hard to focus
because I've been looking at the back of the goggle
for like, I don't know, 24 hours or over.
And so I'm looking around and it's dark
and it looks like people are sleeping, detainees.
And a soldier just kind of waltzes by,
and he throws this silver food packet
through the gap in the door.
And then that was dinner.
And then the flight were, you know,
it was like a peanut butter sandwich and an apple.
That was about it for the flight.
Interviewer: Were you able to eat those on the flight?
-: Well, you attempted to eat it, like, you know,
your hands are in mittens
and they wouldn't take the mittens off.
And you just kind of leaned forward
and tried to eat it, et cetera.
So I mean, you ate, but you know,
the soldiers on the plane, they ate more than us.
And you know, I remember hearing them,
you know, (laughs) I understand English.
So I hear them, you know, like chowing down on our food,
and they ate more than us.
So, you know, they didn't give us much to eat.
And then that was it for dinner.
What was the other question?
Oh, do I remember what we were fed?
Okay, yeah.
And then...
Then they, sorry? -: For breakfast?
For breakfast the next day, were they the same?
-: Vaguely.
I remember one breakfast, which it seems to like,
you know, descend pretty quickly.
What they did, they decided that you know,
'cause we weren't gonna be moving around much,
they were gonna give us just enough calories
to keep us, that would keep someone
in a comatose state, I believe.
So they gave us, I remember one breakfast,
it was a bagel and a small portion
of cream cheese, or something like that,
but they didn't bother putting it on a plate.
So they put it on the ground, served it like that.
Another lunch or dinner was a small polystyrene cup
of, you know, it was just rice
and beans on top, in the same cup.
And they put the spoon in the cup as well,
so (laughs) that took up space.
They didn't bother opening the door this time.
For the bagel, they opened the door.
So you know, for this one,
they just fed it through the gap
between the frame of the door and the frame of the cage.
So that was that.
And I think lunch, they had an MRE,
but they had a special one.
They said it was a kosher one.
So basically it was just things like raisins.
The good thing is, we got granola bars,
bagel chips, sunflower seeds,
that kind of thing like that.
For the Arabs, that was like,
'cause they're used to meat and rice
and that kind of thing, et cetera,
you know these were snacks for them.
And that's what we got.
Yeah, that's what I remember.
Interviewer: So can we move to the first interrogation?
Was that any different from the interrogation in Kandahar?
The first interrogation in Guantanamo.
-: Okay, first interrogation in Guantanamo,
I think it was military again, it's a military guy.
And if I remember rightly, it was,
none of the information, if I understand rightly,
from Kandahar had got to them.
Or they said they were starting a clean slate.
You have to start your story all over again.
So like I said, a guy just sits there,
and he seemed very disinterested.
And then he's like, "Okay, tell me your story,"
blah, blah, blah, so you know,
that was the first interrogation.
They called it, they called it
exhibition, the code name for it was exhibition.
So if they're taking a detainee to interrogation,
they're taking one to exhibition.
And they would take you out of the cages,
and then into kind of shacks that were made like that.
There would be a guy with a shotgun,
you know, like outside the door.
And then obviously you'd be bolted to the ground.
So the shackles would still be on your person.
And then you answer the questions.
There was cameras.
I remember, I think I remember cameras,
'cause I don't know where they were.
Maybe they were, they were somewhere, situation.
I just remember thinking to myself,
they're actually filming this,
and then listening to it as well.
You know?
I don't know why, what conclusion I came to that,
but it's, yeah.
Interviewer: And it's almost time for us to take a break,
but did the interrogations change over time,
or were pretty much the same, repetition?
-: What they'll do, they'll work out rapport,
who you have rapport with.
So there's military intelligence
and then there was FBI at the beginning at Camp X-ray.
Obviously I didn't like the military people,
'cause of the way they treated us.
The FBI were kind of more civilian.
So you know, they came to, I think,
I don't know who dealt with the interrogations or whatever,
but FBI became dominant.
The military kind of left me alone,
because they realized I'm not gonna talk to them,
and I didn't like them at all.
Just at Camp X-ray, or you want to talk
about just the whole of Guantanamo?
Interviewer: Well, you can talk generally,
if there's something you wish to.
-: Okay, so later on, that's Camp X-Ray,
that was mainly, it was either military or there was FBI.
Then Camp Delta, then you get,
it's military, FBI, sometimes New York Police Department.
I don't know why they were there.
Yeah, some New York police guy came.
MI5, the Australian intelligence.
I don't know why they wanted to speak to me.
ASIO, A-S-I-O, they came and yeah, spoke to me.
I don't even know why.
Yeah, so it's just a whole, it's a whole mix.
Interviewer: Were they also the same questions
again and again?
-: It, no, it changed.
It changed.
First of all they were interested
in background information in your story.
Then there's a kind of maybe,
yeah, there's always, where's Osama Bin Laden stupidness.
Then it just kind of descended into just,
just nonsense, really seriously.
They just, they just said, "We just want you to talk.
Talk about cricket, talk about football, just talk.
We don't care what you talk about, just talk."
Like that.
And then like, if you think about it,
like you know, what kind of intelligence value,
if we had any at the beginning, we would have
after so many years of being incarcerated?
We won't.
So, you know, they just wanted us to talk about anything.
So we could just, you know,
you've talked philosophy, you could talk about,
I mean kind of, I mean, with the FBI
funny conversations like, you know,
we were talking about the sighting of the moon
in the Ramadan, the month of fasting,
whether you do it by the calendar
or you do it by the sighting.
'Cause he had talked to someone or something like that.
Whether the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
you know, whether the Prophet Muhammad was illiterate.
What that meant, did it mean he couldn't read and write,
or it meant, you know, cause he was a merchant,
which meant he knew numerical, so it doesn't,
so we had a conversation about that.
There was a conversation about whether laws of a country
are based on the morals of the people of that country.
It's just things like that.
So, you know, it was very quick
that, you know, the, you know,
the questions weren't always about terrorism,
or Osama Bin Laden, or this, that, and the other.
It just became, at least in Camp Delta,
it just became, just talk to us.
Just talk to us about anything.
And as long as we can bring you into interrogation
and ensure that you're talking,
but not necessarily talking
about what people would think you were talking about,
you know, in Washington and so forth and the White House,
then that was fine.
That's what it descended into.
Interviewer: Well, why don't we take a break
and then we'll continue to- -: Okay.
-: Okay? -: All right, okay, thank you.
I'll be back soon.
Interviewer: What I want to go back to was when,
I just want to confirm you were,
you were on the first plane load
to come to Guantanamo, and you knew that?
You saw no other detainees when you arrived,
and how did you know that you were the first plane load?
-: Okay, how did I know?
It's probably a number of factors,
but it would have been my ISN number.
I was 024, and then they were processing us
chronologically at that time.
Later on I, so that meant
I was the 24th person to be processed.
We must've been 27 on the plane.
I don't know how I came by the information,
but it must have been cumulative.
For instance, you know, you talk to people
and then, you know, they came later and so forth,
you know, cause they found people already there.
People talk to interrogators,
and then they come back with information and so forth.
So it wouldn't have been,
I wouldn't have known it at the beginning,
apart from the fact that, you know,
there wasn't that many people.
But when people keep on coming,
then you start to realize, you know,
then this batch come from this,
and that batch came from there,
and you start hearing people's stories
and so forth in that regard.
But I know it was the 24th person to be processed, 024.
There must have been about 20, 27 people on the plane.
Interviewer: And you knew it was January 11th,
which was the first.
-: Yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: And then when the MI5 interrogated you,
were the British any different
in the questions they asked you from Americans?
-: Okay, so we're kind of jumping now.
Do you want me- -: Oh, they came much later?
-: Yeah, they came much later.
This is, actually, no.
They came in Camp X-ray, actually.
Yeah, they did.
Okay, I think there was a period of two weeks
being interrogated every day by the FBI.
They just kept on taking me every day
to get interrogated for two weeks.
And in fact, the other detainees got worried,
you know, they said this is, what's going on here.
You know, this guy is just being taken
every day to be interrogated.
During that period, the Red Cross came to talk to us,
and the MI5 came to talk to me
and the other British detainees.
But it was,
one of them said he, they didn't actually say they were MI5.
So one of them said, "I'm a consular official,
I've come in to speak to you,
just, you know, to see how you are, et cetera,
I'm from the British government and so forth."
And then he said, "My colleague
is from the British government."
He didn't actually say MI5.
It's only later on that I learned,
and they did that I think for a period of time.
And it was, I can't remember the exact date,
but it was at least a few years.
At least, definitely one year,
but it must have been over a year,
when the actual British consular guy comes.
So they pretended that whole time
that, you know, that-
Interviewer: And did you believe them
that they were consular?
-: Obviously, yes.
You know, like the situation is that, you know,
I've just got to Guantanamo Bay, I'm in Camp X-ray.
And you know, I'm new, you know.
You have to be lied to so many times
before you start realizing, well, you know,
what they tell you is not the truth.
So obviously, I'm fresh to the situation.
And I actually believed, I actually believed
that, you know, one of them was a consular official
and the other one was just British government,
so I didn't know what that meant.
Interviewer: Did they say you'd be coming
back to Britain soon, or did they give you any?
-: No, they just want us to know who,
they just wanted to confirm that I was who I said I was,
and you know, to know my story, so forth,
you know, how I got into the situation.
And then they would just, they would go back.
They never said anything about being released
or anything like that, et cetera.
Interviewer: And how do you know
there were other English, or other British citizens there?
How do you know that?
-: Okay, because
Asif Iqbal, he was in the same kind of,
'cause we were, I was Bravo Bravo nine.
So you were in kind of like, section Bravo,
and then I was segment Bravo, and then I was the ninth cage.
So he was in the same section, but he was in Bravo.
So he was Bravo Alpha something.
Like that, Asif.
And then Shafiq Rasul was in the same,
I can't remember which section he was,
but he was in the same kind of segment.
So I actually could speak to them.
And Hicks was in the same segment as well.
So I actually could speak across,
when we were allowed to speak,
and definitely after two weeks we were allowed to speak.
I could, we would shout over across to them,
and then you have your conversation and so forth.
And you know, you could talk to them
to some degree. -: How did it feel
to see some more Englishmen there, how?
-: Yeah, it was,
it didn't strike me as anything significant.
I mean, the thing about being incarcerated
in that situation, like it's, I tend to go quiet.
I tend to go quiet and just keep myself to myself,
kind of brood in a way.
So, you know, conversation wasn't a big thing for me.
Like, you know, not to say that I didn't appreciate it,
and it was good to talk to them, but you know,
like they weren't close enough
to have a long conversation with, so you had to shout a bit.
And so you couldn't say, it was just like a few words
and you know, sentences passed along, et cetera.
And then, you know, you couldn't sustain it for long.
'Cause you would be shouting
for a really long time in that regard.
So, yeah.
Interviewer: Did you go quiet with the interrogators too?
-: Okay, there's me, and my naive self,
you know, thinking that, you know,
like, okay, this is Guantanamo.
I think Hicks was the one who told,
he, when he was processed, he told his story.
The Marine said something like, you know,
"Welcome to Guantanamo Bay, you are US property now,"
or something like that, et cetera.
So he relayed it to us, and that's one of the ways
we found out, or at least I found out,
we were in Guantanamo Bay.
I didn't hear about Guantanamo before then. (laughs)
I know about Cuba, but (laughs)
like that I saw it on TV,
and I actually wanted to go there on holiday one time.
But I'd never heard of Guantanamo Bay before.
And so, sorry, I missed the question.
Interviewer: How, what was the question?
-: It was- -: You know...
(interviewer mutters)
Oh yeah, did you ever go quiet with the-
-: Okay, yeah, quiet with the interrogators.
Okay, so there, I'm telling him,
you know, telling him my story, being truthful, et cetera.
This is my story, and so forth.
Then, you know, they, I don't know.
They were just,
I didn't like where they were going with it.
So actually no, in Camp X-ray I didn't go quiet.
I didn't go quiet with them.
But...
But they were they were taking, you know,
they were going...
You know, I was telling him the truth, et cetera,
but they were going with it
in the wrong direction, if you understand.
I wasn't happy with it.
So I, you know, I decided,
basically I let them know I wasn't happy with it.
And then they kind of became a bit despondent with me.
And then, you know, they went quiet on me.
So there was a whole period of two weeks
when they were,
when they were, you know, interrogating me,
and then they just basically stopped.
I don't want to go into too many details concerning it,
'cause it's probably an ongoing thing.
But they they stopped, and they stopped interrogating me.
For them, they thought it was a privilege.
I don't understand why they think,
they thought it was a privilege
to bring the detainee to the interrogation room.
They bolt you down to the ground,
and you have a guy behind you with a shotgun,
'cause for sort of some reason it was a privilege.
Later on, in Camp Delta, they referred to the,
I don't think they ever saw the cages.
So they referred to the cages as the shithole,
meaning that when they took us out of the shithole
and brought us into the interrogation room,
it was a privilege.
I would have rather stayed in my cage,
because, you know, I wasn't bolted to the ground in my cage.
At least I had some freedom to walk around.
Although it was a small cage,
it was better than actually being bolted to the ground.
But they saw it as a privilege.
So I guess because they thought, you know,
like for two weeks they were privileging me
and, you know, I didn't want to do
what they wanted me to do,
and then, so that was, you know, that was it.
They weren't gonna privilege me anymore.
So basically, they shut up on me
rather than me shutting up on them in a way, in that regard.
That was in Camp X-ray.
Interviewer: And then where were you moved to next?
-: Okay, it must have been after about three months,
and then Hicks was our kind of line of information.
He would go to interrogation
and then bring information back.
So he tells us about this new prison, blah, blah, blah,
is built, whatever, et cetera, and this and that,
and that's where we're gonna be going.
So, you know, he's, I took his information to be credible,
and it was, it was credible.
So I'm thinking, okay, they're about to process.
I was thinking about, they're gonna send us
through to process again and send us to a new prison.
That's, this is Camp Delta now.
Unfortunately, the Arabs in general,
they, sadly, they didn't want to hear about a new prison.
They had this notion in their head
that, you know, the American government
will realize that they made a mistake,
and they will soon transport them home.
So when there was this whole big mass movement of us,
I think we were 300 at the time,
we'd amassed from about 27 to 300,
you know, being moved into like empty cages
and then, you know, being transferred,
you know, you could see the hope in their eyes.
This was, this was their homecoming.
And you know, and I remember speaking to one of the Arabs,
trying to tell him, "Look, you know,
they're going to take us to a new prison."
He didn't want to hear it.
He really wanted to believe that he was going home,
he was going home, and it was sad to see.
It was sad to see.
So obviously the transfer is the same thing.
The Marines, you know, search you.
They weren't supposed to touch the Quran,
I think Saiful Islam, you know,
the chaplain at that time,
told us they weren't gonna touch the Qurans, et cetera.
They touched the Quran, flicked through it,
you know, did it on purpose, you know.
Like the Marine, he did it on purpose,
'cause I know the Marine grabbed my Quran,
looked me in the eye, and flicked through it.
I looked back at him in the eye.
they had cameras there filming it.
I don't know what they've done with the footage.
They probably have it somewhere,
if they haven't done a CIA
and actually gone and got rid of it.
You know, look at his eyes and so forth at the camera.
'Cause I was looking at the Marine very, very sternly.
And then he gives me back my Quran.
And they put us in the bus, and it's the same thing.
So obviously you're bolted to the ground,
sitting cross-legged, you can't lean on anything.
You're sitting there.
The bus is just jolting forward and backwards,
so you're being, you're moving out position.
And then, you know, they're messing you up,
they're pushing you, hitting you and so forth.
I remember Asif Iqbal, he couldn't maintain the position.
So I hear him screaming, "I can't do this,"
and putting his legs out,
and then they're hitting him and so forth
because you know of his back.
He had a back problem, pain in his back, and et cetera.
So that's all, you know,
the same situation again, the mass movement.
And then they bring us to Camp Delta.
Obviously you're blindfolded, you know,
like blind goggled.
It's not an actual material, it's an actual goggle.
And then I was taken into the Charlie block,
and I was put like in the first cage.
Being there, I was put in my cage obviously.
You know, people being brought,
and we have a change of situations,
so new people being brought into the cage,
and they didn't keep the same set up as Camp X-ray.
Obviously I'm gonna give them greetings,
Islamic greetings, but you know,
the Arabs, they were just choked up.
You could see the tears in their eyes.
They were just, you know, they were sad.
You know, the Islamic greeting,
it's actually obligatory to reply.
They didn't reply, and I don't blame them.
Because they were, they couldn't take it.
They were hoping to go home, and that's what they saw.
Interviewer: Do you think
you didn't have the same feelings
'cause you understood what was going on?
-: You know, in Camp X-ray, I evaluated the situation.
And being from the West, I, you know,
I, you know, in Britain, et cetera,
I've never had any trouble with the police.
You know, like I'd never had before,
before Guantanamo, nothing.
I never had any trouble with police.
Obviously, I watched movies and so forth.
I know America has the Miranda rights
or something like that here.
You know, read you your rights and so forth.
So the way I was grabbed and et cetera,
I started putting things together.
I thought to myself, you know what?
These people don't have a clue where the Afghans,
'cause the Afghans lied to them, actually.
The Afghans said they found me
roaming around after curfew in Kandahar,
and they grabbed me
and then handed me over to the Americans.
When they know the true story is
they took me to the Pakistani border,
and then they said they were gonna take me to Herat,
and then that's why we ended up in Kandahar at night, yeah?
But they lied to them in that regard.
So the Americans, and they didn't have a clue
who I was, whether I was doing anything or what I was doing,
where, they don't have a clue.
Because it was the Afghans that got us.
And the Afghans would fleece you,
and they would take anything from you,
money, your watch, your whatever,
this, that, and the other, et cetera.
I don't even know what they passed on to Americans,
if they passed on anything.
So, you know, they don't have,
they don't know where you were caught.
So I thought to myself, you know what,
okay, my rights haven't been read to me.
They don't know where they got me.
The only way they're gonna, you know, justify having me
and then like, you know, like charging me
and then keeping me in prison for a long time,
they're gonna have to frame me.
That's what I thought.
And believe me, like from the beginning,
I thought to myself, you know,
I'm gonna be in Guantanamo for a long, long time.
That's it.
I'm gonna be, I'm not, there's no hope
of me leaving this place unless, you know, you escape,
or you know, you leave out of a body bag
or something like that, yeah.
I'm gonna be in this place for a long, long time.
And then as a young man, well, what can you do?
You can only just make the best of it as you can,
and try to live your life.
There were very few detainees who took that line.
The majority were, they'll languish in their cells
and wait to be released.
Interviewer: And why did you take that line,
and they didn't?
-: I guess because I understood that, you know,
the only way they were gonna keep us in prison
was to frame us, and they were definitely gonna frame us.
And I believed, you know, the American government
and the FBI and all the others,
the interrogators were gonna frame us.
Later on, I came, I thought to myself,
I came to realize that maybe no.
Because I was surprised by that.
This is later on, I started to realize
that, you know, the interrogators,
as much as they would all go toe the line,
they wouldn't put their behinds on the line.
And it would take, you know,
like an act of patriotism in a way,
for one of them to lie in so much
as put someone in prison because of that lie.
So they were covering their backs.
And that, basically I believe is what saved us
from being framed, at least, you know,
me in that situation.
I don't know what's happening now.
Interviewer: So do you think you had an advantage
that you knew English and you were from-
-: Of course, of course, of course.
They, how is an Arab,
Hicks is the one who's telling me this.
He got it from his interrogators.
I understand the system, in a way.
And you know, like, you know.
And you know, you kind of understand,
we're getting more information.
As an English speaker,
we're getting more information than the Arabs.
The Arabs are not getting any information
apart from themselves, you know?
And which is, you know, it's not helping them at all.
Interviewer: Were you getting information from guards,
or could you overhear the guards?
And did you get get any information that way?
-: The guards, in terms of how we're gonna be treated?
I think it was the interrogators.
'Cause it depends on whether a detainee
was in rapport with the interrogator.
Hicks was very, he had the military intelligence,
and I guess they told him some stuff.
And I remember it was Hicks
who was telling us about the new prison.
And I thought he was credible, you know,
that that was the likely scenario.
Obviously the Arabs, they don't.
First of all they, you know, they didn't want to hear it.
They just, it was a matter of like,
they didn't want to hear it.
I mean, there was, in Camp X-ray, one of the Arabs,
he said, 'cause he would speak a bit of English.
So he said, you know, he had a dream,
and the dream said tomorrow he was gonna be released
and so forth, et cetera.
Tomorrow came and he was watching the sunset
and it didn't happen, and he was miserable.
There was one time I was sitting in X-ray,
and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I was standing there, and I looked around,
and I scanned the whole, you know, section Bravo.
Everyone was sleeping, in the daytime.
Everyone just like, I was wondering what's going on.
They just sleeping, like that.
Because it's like they,
like I said, you know, there was very few
who said, I'm gonna be here a long time,
I'm gonna make the best of it.
And the majority were, this is a mistake,
they'll realize the mistake, they're gonna release us soon.
So let me just sit and languish in my cell
until they release me.
And that's not a healthy thing to do in Guantanamo.
Interviewer: Shafiq Rasul said to us
that knowing English helped too,
when you could speak to the guards,
and sometimes, you know, the guards were nice to him too,
because he spoke English.
Did you have that experience?
-: Yeah, communication breaks down barriers.
So, I mean, if you can communicate...
Are we talking Camp, just general?
-: Yeah, generally. -: General?
Yeah, if you could communicate, then you know...
First, you know, if they're doing something bad to you,
like you can't breathe or whatever,
you can say, "I can't breathe."
And then they might, they might show some,
if you want to call it mercy, upon you
because they understand your situation.
If you can't say that, then if you're wriggling,
they're probably taken in a bad way.
You know, it did help.
I think, you know, it really,
being British, speaking English,
meant that we got the better of the treatment
by default, by default.
And I really feel really sad for the Arabs,
'cause they would have, they just got it hard.
But you know, by just the fact that we're British
and we speak English and we can relate to the guards
and we can say when there's something wrong,
we can ask for something, and we can speak to them
and explain to them the situation.
And just by the fact of them speaking to us,
we can break down those barriers
and they can say, well, you know,
these guys are not so bad.
They're not just speaking a funny language.
And then, you know, like really,
they can't demonize us in the way they can demonize
an Arab or an Afghan or a Pakistani or so forth.
You know, that was an important factor.
And, but it's sad that it had to be,
it had to come down to that really.
Interviewer: Do you think you got
better medical care, too?
-: Okay, the thing is about both questions,
like for instance, speaking English and medical care,
there was, in Camp Delta...
I actually got sick of speaking to the guards.
Like, you know, it's, they just got on my nerves.
I didn't want to actually speak to them.
So for a long time, I was pretending I was Arab. (laughs)
So when I'd ask, I would speak to them in Arabic,
as best as I could, but they didn't know Arabic.
So they couldn't realize the faults in my language.
And so when I asked for something,
I would just say it in Arabic,
or like, you know, point and whatever, like the Arabs.
And medical care, I made very sure,
as best as I could not ask for medical care.
I stayed away from that. -: Why?
-: Because, you know, that's where they get you.
They will use that against you.
And there came a period of time in Camp Delta
when the interrogators were given free reign of our welfare
in the sense that whatever you had in,
they had control of your condition.
And therefore, if you needed medical care,
you had to go to your interrogator
and then speak to them and ask them
and then they would get you medical care.
And if you wanted to write letters to your family,
you had to go to your interrogator.
If you, you know, like you're missing something
in your cell, like for instance you wanted a blanket
or something like that, you had to go to your interrogator
and speak to them, everything was through the interrogators.
And that was a way of leveraging people to talk.
And it wasn't just like talking, just generally talking.
You know, they were trying to extract confessions.
They were really, they were treating people really badly.
There was a time in Camp Delta
when they were putting pressure on people
to extract confessions.
Interviewer: And so you just
wouldn't ask for any medical treatment?
-: I stayed away, I stayed away.
They were, they had this thing about,
the only medical treatment I got in Camp Delta willingly,
not even willingly, they said, you know, I had TB.
The thing is, in Britain you have,
they call them BCG shots when you're young.
And you have them like when you're young,
and I think you have them maybe twice.
Some people only have them once.
Any TB tests will show positive because of the shots,
because it's an immunization shot.
So when they, in Camp X-ray, they did that TB test.
And then it showed up positive, because of the BCG.
I wouldn't be a threat, because of the immunization shot,
I wouldn't have got TB, but because it showed positive,
then they wanted to give me some pills.
I didn't know that, like you know, I didn't know
because you had the BCG, it shows positive on a TB test.
So, you know, so I started taking the pills.
And I thought to myself, you know what,
I don't want to take the pills.
So it was only a few.
Like maybe a few times I took the pills, and then I stopped.
And then in the whole time Camp Delta,
I stayed away from that,
because that was a way they could get you.
And, you know, they could really use that against you.
And I made sure of those two things.
I didn't speak English to the guards,
and medical care I kept away from.
Interviewer: And you didn't see a dentist either, then?
-: No, I, (laughs)
that's another thing of being from the West.
The Arabs didn't know how to use a toothbrush,
because it was weird,
they don't use, I don't know why,
but, 'cause I don't know Arab culture too much.
They have a different way of, you know,
dental care and so forth.
And toothpaste was, some of them found it difficult
with toothpaste because they couldn't,
they couldn't hold the toothpaste in their mouth.
So this seems to be one of those Western kind of,
I don't know, (laughs) one of our peculiarities
that we can actually hold the toothpaste
in our mouth while we're brushing.
I was fine with it, I was fine with that.
And when they changed the toothbrush to a little finger one,
I still, because there was,
before, in Camp X-ray they had a normal toothbrush.
But they had snapped it.
So it was shorter, the handle.
'Cause they said it was a weapon.
Then they decided without it,
that can still be used as a weapon,
so they give you one that goes on the finger
and it just has bristles and it's just plastic.
So I was fine using it, and I could use it well.
The Arabs, you know, in general, they,
first of all, they weren't used to it, I think.
Or some of them weren't used to it.
At least I know one of the Russians, Russian detainees,
he couldn't do it, he wasn't used to using it.
So it would dribble out of his mouth.
And then the second thing was,
they didn't know what was in the toothpaste.
So they said maybe it's not lawful
to swallow or something like that.
So they kept away from it.
I'm from the West, I've used toothpaste before.
So you know, that was fine.
So no, in terms of dental care,
no, I didn't need dental care, no.
Interviewer: And were you ever put in isolation?
-: Yeah, okay.
Isolation, I was isolated about...
This is MSU, yeah, a maximum security unit.
Even though the whole of Guantanamo is maximum security,
but they have MSU, maximum security unit,
which is disciplinary isolation in the actual Camp Delta.
I was there three times, I think.
Interviewer: For what reasons?
-: Was it three or four?
Okay, I'll go through them.
Okay, they brought us,
they brought me to Charlie, Charlie block.
And I was in Charlie one.
I decided to take my sheet
and wrap it around my head like a turban. (laughs)
-: They took offense. (laughs)
They took. (laughs)
Interviewer: What was your purpose?
-: Huh? -: What was your purpose?
-: One of detainees said the Prophet Muhammad,
he wore a turban, like, he wore a turban.
So, you know, in our religion,
if you emulate Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
then you get rewarded for it.
So if you see, you're in a situation
where, you know, we're just in a cage and so forth,
and you can't really do much.
So I thought to myself, you know what, let me,
I've got a sheet here I'm not really using,
so let me use it as a turban.
So I wrapped it around my head as a turban
in emulation of the Prophet
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
They took offense to it.
I think I gave him words.
'Cause I said, you know, I'm not gonna, you know,
you don't tell me what...
You spend a lot of time in a cage.
So, you know, (laughs)
you've got to pass your time somehow.
And sometimes you do crazy things.
I mean, for instance,
I don't think Asif will mind you telling this,
Asif and Juma, 'cause they,
I was in Charlie one and then Shafiq was Charlie two.
I think Asif was three, and then Juma Al Dossari was four.
Now, Asif and Juma, they got on pretty well,
but sometimes they get into little arguments and stuff.
So they were going a bit wacky,
so they would throw water at each other.
They, at that time on the toilets, we had canvases,
like canvas strips to put on the toilet
because it was just a floor toilet.
So I guess they were,
you know, it was a new prison.
So they were being reasonable in a way.
Obviously, that canvas,
Asif and Juma didn't put it on the toilet.
When they got it, they put it
and they made it into a bandana.
Then they upgraded their headgear.
And what else did they put on their head?
Then they took their shorts,
and they put their shorts on their head.
Like jester's hats, and then they would, like that.
So obviously you've got a lot of time on your hands,
and there's not much to do.
I decided to do the turban thing.
The guard said, "Take it off."
I gave him some words.
So he put me in isolation, India block.
So I was in isolation for a few days.
That was the first time.
You know, isolation is not good.
The thing is with me, if I,
the more I get isolated,
the more I become just within myself.
I become very quiet, I don't want to speak,
even to the other detainees.
It's just, so isolation wasn't good.
It's just kind of, I don't know.
It just affects me in that way.
Then the other time I was-
Interviewer: Did you have the Quran
while you were in isolation?
-: No, I think, I think...
No, I don't remember having it in, no.
Because isolation is just like, you're being punished.
So, you know, they take your things away.
They take your,
what they call comfort items. -: Comfort items.
-: Of course, I call them essentials.
They're not comfort items.
They, you know, the wordage they try to use is, anyway.
So you would just, we just had the Isomat,
and they might give you a blanket when it's time to sleep.
But then, they have the AC, what they call the AC,
which is really for punishment, on high.
So you're freezing all the time.
Like that, but I wouldn't have had, you know, no.
I think the Quran would have been in a black plastic bag
with the rest of my stuff, which they'll keep on the side,
when they take you from the, you know, MSU.
Now, the second time I was in MSU...
The second time was because the detainees,
over a period of time, they've come to the conclusion
that the Qurans are being used against us.
The interrogators are using the Qurans against us.
So it became like a, this was the situation
where the interrogators have control of our welfare.
So it became like, just that like,
like a plastic cup or you know, like,
you know, what they call the comfort items.
So we said we were gonna give them back.
And then they wouldn't accept them back.
I took the policy of taking the English Arabic translation
because technically it's not a Quran, it's a tafsir.
It depends on, you know, like,
I won't go into the details.
But an English Arabic one was not a Quran.
It's a tafsir, meaning the explanation
of the meaning of the Quran.
And it doesn't have the same rules as a Quran,
because of the fact of this desecration of the Quran.
So I didn't take the full Arabic one in that regard.
So I tried to get around it that way.
But what happened was that the detainees decided
that you know, they weren't gonna flick through the Qurans,
because that's a desecration in itself,
before they go for recreation.
So, you know, the policy was, from the general I guess,
was that then you can't go to recreation.
So the detainees said, we're fine.
We'll stay in our cells.
And then the policy comes that you have to go to recreation.
It's mandatory to go to recreation.
Even if you, they call it touch base,
so you put one foot in the rec yard
and then they take you back, but you have to go.
So if you're sick, you have to go.
If you, whatever, you have to go.
And when one of the detainees was taken out,
then one of the senior kind of officers, et cetera, came.
And then he decided to flick through the Quran,
which meant that the whole block decided to scream about it,
and then, you know, like shout about it
and you know, like kick up a fuss.
I was there shouting, "Hitler is your leader,
you Nazis, religious persecutors."
And then after they kind of,
after they pepper sprayed a lot of people,
unnerved them, you know,
they took them and me into isolation.
So that was another reason for isolation.
When I was in isolation at that time,
one of the senior officers comes and says something
like, you know, "You effing get over here."
So I said to him, "Who do you think you're talking to?"
And then that landed me another three days. (laughs)
So that was another time I was in isolation.
The other time was because the MI5 agent decided
that he wanted to break fast with me.
So he told them to put me in an air conditioned room,
blah, blah, blah, somewhere separate
from the other detainees.
And then said that I'll be brought back,
when it's time to break fast, they can break fast with me.
They decided to put me in isolation.
And then the last time I remember,
they put me in isolation but this time with all my stuff.
I hadn't done anything,
but that was before taking me to Camp Echo.
But they put me in isolation with all my stuff,
which was very strange,
'cause the soldiers didn't understand.
I'm a level whatever four, but in isolation.
Like you know, not level four.
I think whatever level I was,
I can't remember the levels now.
But I had my stuff, but I was put in isolation,
which was very strange for them,
'cause you know, you go to isolation for punishment.
And then, but that was in preparation
for going to Camp Echo.
Interviewer: And why were you going to Camp Echo?
-: Okay, well that's, (laughs)
that's a long, long, long story.
The FBI, okay, interrogators
in Camp X-ray, like I said, in Camp X-ray,
there was, you know, they were going,
I told them my story, et cetera.
I was truthful, did not lie.
I didn't have anything to lie about,
nothing, you know, I was truthful.
They were going with it in a way
that I didn't like them to go with it.
So they thought that if they just, in Camp X-ray,
if they just, you know, stopped the interrogations,
I'll start getting worried.
I wasn't worried.
You know, like I'll be eager.
But in Camp Delta, after a month
they pulled me into interrogation,
and I don't know,
they thought I'd be in tears maybe,
and begging them or something like that.
And they decided, you know,
that that will make me compliant.
It didn't work.
And the situation worsened,
because at some point in Camp Delta
it was the second hunger strike.
It was, part of the second hunger strike
was to hunger strike and not to talk,
not to talk in interrogation.
The guy next to me convinced me (laughs)
I should go for it.
So I decided I would.
They took me into interrogation.
They realized that the situation's getting worse,
and now this guy's not even talking to us.
Beforehand, I was asking for lawyers.
So I was saying to them, "I want my legal representation.
If you want me to talk about my case,
I'm fine with it, just give me legal representation."
They were happy I was just talking about general stuff.
But now I'm just not talking to them, blank.
So they saw the situation worsening.
One of them, you like to give names, or is it,
yeah? -: Sure.
-: WJ Corbett.
It was WJ Corbett and Robert Iorio,
I-O-R-I-O, yeah. -: How do you know their names?
-: WJ Corbett, I mean, he showed me his badge.
But you know how they flash it?
'Cause I said to him, you know,
"You people don't even give me real names."
And then he flashed it.
But if I remember right, I think it's,
you know, that these were the two,
WJ Corbett and Robert Iorio,
that were the main FBI interrogators in Camp X-ray.
And then they had their own agenda.
Let's just say their agenda was supposedly,
I'm supposed to be some co-operative witness
or something in that regard.
So that's the reason why in Camp X-ray
I rejected, you know, their proposal.
And actually, I had to think of a way
of getting them off my back.
So I thought, I was told I was sold for 30,000.
So let me tell them, I want $6,000.
I want, I just thought of things like off my head,
like just to get them off my back.
I want $30,000, immunity from prosecution, and a green card.
That's what I was. (laughs)
I didn't even know what this green card was, (laughs)
but that's what I said.
So that, obviously they thought this guy, yeah,
we treated him too nice, we told him our plan,
and now he's just, he's become greedy.
So we're gonna just, you know, shut him up
and shut him off for a while, and in that regard.
WJ Corbett, he seemed to become the model,
he was still there when we got transferred to Camp Delta.
A few interrogations with him, you know,
his jovial, you know very happy self,
seemed to kind of just become deflated.
I think he realized what the situation was,
and you know, how things were going.
And his idealism kind of just went.
I didn't really hear much from him after, for awhile.
Robert Iorio, which, he's a guy.
If you look him up, I've looked him up on Google.
And I don't know whether it's the same guy,
but I think it's the NCIF, that's the Naval whatever,
whatever NCIF, there is a PDF
of an indictment about a drugs charge,
someone, they did this kind of drugs charge.
It's on the internet.
Interviewer: Could you spell his last name again?
-: I-O-R-I-O.
And I looked it up,
and I don't know whether it's the same guy,
but it's the same name from the same organization.
The, I can't remember, the NCIF, the Navy,
Navy whatever, I know I have it in my notes.
I wrote it down, so I knew it then.
Same thing, and that indictment's about 1994,
like the 1990s, mid.
So it's kind of like pretty old, but it is on the internet.
So I don't know whether it's the same guy.
But he wouldn't let the thing go.
So I think he pushed for me
to be the first to go up for a military commissions.
And he said he was taking a chance here.
And this is what happened in Camp Echo.
So if you want me to jump forward to Camp Echo?
Interviewer: Sure, if that's okay.
-: If it's okay? -: Yeah.
-: Okay, let me, okay.
Let me just do a quick one.
They put me in, okay.
The first thing happening, like I'm in Mike block, I think.
And this is 2003,
before Iraq was attacked.
Because later on, I found out that the date
that they took me to Camp Echo
was the same date that Iraq was attacked.
Yeah, like you know,
that's the beginning of the conflict, et cetera.
Later on I realized that the date sticks in my head.
Before they did that, I'm in Mike,
and they took me to the medical.
I didn't ask for medical intervention or nothing,
but they took me to the medical facility on the base.
And then they did an x-ray,
and I think it was a chest x-ray.
So that was weird.
And then later they take me out of Mike
and out of the actual Guantanamo Bay, the prison.
And they took me like, dude,
I didn't even know that that existed.
They took me to the hospital.
So they actually took me to, you know,
like the civilian part, I don't know what it is,
but I could see that. -: On base?
-: Yeah, like they took me off, out of,
'cause you say Guantanamo Bay,
but Guantanamo Bay is an area.
It's not just a prison, like that.
They took me out of that prison,
and then they took me to the civilian area.
I could see roads.
I could see like, you know, just,
you know, like maybe shops or something like that.
High rise buildings, so forth.
And they took me to the hospital,
and they gave me a CAT scan.
So this- -: What were they looking for?
-: They don't tell me, they don't tell me.
So I asked them, this is, what's going on?
This is weird.
And they actually took me out of the prison itself.
And then they bring me back.
Then I'm in isolation with my stuff.
And it was from there that it took me to Camp Echo.
Now I thought when they took, brought me to Camp Echo,
they brought me there because their, you know,
medical intervention showed up something.
So this was like a holding facility
for something, maybe the TB or something like that
was active or something like that, in that regard.
Robert Iorio, he comes to visit
with another interrogator who called himself,
they would give false names,
so he called himself Gregory Highland.
He supposedly had Scottish roots, so whatever.
And his favorite movie was Scottish or something.
I don't know.
And Robert Iorio said that, you know,
here, being Camp Echo, can be like a short holiday stay
or it can be like for a long time.
And, you know, I think he was the one who pushed
for me to be offered a military commissions, to go up first.
And I guess it's just in connection with them
wanting me to be a co-operative witness in that regard.
And then he said, "Because I gave you a promise a year ago."
I don't know, I don't even remember the promise. (laughs)
"I promised you a year ago that, you know,
I think you'd be out of Guantanamo.
You know, this is me coming back to fulfill my promise."
At that time I'd sick of them.
I wasn't even talking, I wasn't even talking to them,
and I just blanked them.
And then, you know, he just,
he came for a few days over there
and he showed, you know, they had their movies, DVDs,
which I wasn't watching.
And then there was one about fishing,
and then he made me sit through it
just for one scene, one scene where the guy says,
you know, "You have to help someone,
even if they don't want that help."
That's it, that was the whole thing.
That was supposed to get me in my heart.
And I was supposed to break down in tears
and so forth, et cetera, so this is his big thing.
And then some nonsense about him,
he became more religious and he's going to church more now.
And he saw a dream where he's gonna give me a prayer mat.
So (laughs) he dumps it on my lap.
I thought it was some furry animal,
because I wasn't looking, (laughs)
and I was about to freak out.
And then I realized it is a prayer mat,
because prayer mats have these kind of frills
or something like, so. (laughs)
I didn't actually look at it
when he dumped it on my, and you know,
so he supposedly had a dream where he gives me a prayer mat.
And then he was pushing for me to go,
to be the first for the military commissions.
'Cause I guess that was leverage for me
to become a co-operative witness,
and then for them to have their way.
Like I said, WJ Corbett seemed to just kind of left the idea
and probably left the island a long time ago.
Robert Iorio, I think he was looking for,
you know, like, you call them glory hounds?
You call them glory seekers.
I think he was looking for his big break,
you know, like and I was supposed to be
that big break for him.
Interviewer: So when you didn't play the game,
you were moved back out of Echo, or did they keep you?
-: No, no. -: They kept you there?
-: Oh, I,
how much time do we have?
Interviewer: I think we should stop for a moment
to change a card. -: Yeah, we should change.
Interviewer: We just have to change a card, but.
Man: Okay, we're good.
Interviewer: Okay, so in Camp Echo,
you said you were there for a while?
-: Okay, Camp Echo, yeah.
So I must have stayed one year in Camp X-ray and Delta.
I remember the anniversary, one year anniversary.
I was in isolation (laughs) in Camp Delta.
So that was my one year anniversary.
I can't remember what the reason was
for me being in isolation, but yeah.
So the whole time I was there was three years.
So it's, let's say it was two years that I was in Camp Echo.
Interviewer: And was it better in Camp Echo?
Is that what you're saying?
-: Camp Echo was a nightmare.
Interviewer: Because?
-: It was a real nightmare.
I could deal with Camp X-ray.
I could deal with Camp Delta.
But Camp Echo was a nightmare.
Okay, how to put it?
Okay, first of all, the situation is there's only one cell.
It's within a building.
There are no windows.
And the guards, there's two guards.
You know, at least one would be there all the time.
And basically, you know, going from population,
not speaking Arabic, sorry, English to the guards.
And you know, just speaking like Arabic
when you want to ask him for something,
not being under that much attention.
All of a sudden you're the center of attention right now,
everything you do.
Because I, I think I was actually probably
one of the first to go into Camp Echo,
'cause they expanded Camp Echo.
But right now, I believe it was just only two buildings
or just maybe more, when I was brought there.
And later I learned,
Mozhan Beck was taken into the other building.
And he was there, like you know,
they brought him straight there.
Interviewer: So you were really in,
that's really isolation. -: That's really isolation.
Because right now, you know, you're in the cell on your own.
And then like, there's this enmity.
And then the guards, they weren't shy
about showing their enmity.
They really weren't.
First of all, like the first two weeks,
they take every day, I think it was every day,
that the corpsman, this is,
I did my best to stay away from these medical people.
All of a sudden, for two weeks,
they're taking my blood pressure or heart rate, et cetera.
Every day they're checking it.
And I'm wondering why.
I'm wondering why.
I'm getting worried there's stuff being put in my food.
Because when you're in population, you know,
they can't slip drugs and so forth in your food and so forth
because, you know, they just hand it out, et cetera.
Now it's, you know, specifically,
I'm specifically targeted in that way.
The soldiers, they have this idea
that, you know, because I'm up for the military commissions
and so forth, I must be Al Qaeda or something like that.
So it was, they're showing enmity.
And you know, it was a really bad situation.
Really bad situation.
When I got there, I believe, you know,
like when you're a detainee,
you've got to like work with minimal information.
You know, you don't know what's going,
happening around you.
But I believe they injected me with something there
that made me go, you know, like crazy in a way.
And you know, I really believe it for a number of reasons.
One reason is that when you're talking in interrogation,
you're just talking about general stuff.
So, you know,
you don't think that, you know, there's a malicious intent
by the people that you're talking to.
It's only later on you learn that, you know,
they're using what you're saying against you.
I remember them asking me, you know,
like the situation, you know, it must be bad.
It must be a bad situation.
And I said, no.
I said, you know, like, you know,
"This situation is bad, but you know,
the worst time of my life was my teenage years."
So that was worse than Guantanamo.
I mean, yeah, it was worse than Guantanamo, seriously.
And they said, "Why?"
Because they expected me to say to, you know,
"This is the worst time in my life.
I never, like this, yeah."
And I said, "I don't know,
maybe because of the testosterone."
And I think they caught on to that, you know,
like they caught into that.
And then that was,
that was kind of like a leveraging thing.
You know, as you do, men, medically,
some men might be embarrassed by this,
but you're supposed to check yourself,
you know, et cetera,
so that there's nothing growing
or whatever cancer and so forth,
on your genitals and so forth, for health reasons.
I remember specifically checking,
'cause I was isolated at that time,
checking, you know, like you know, myself obviously.
Obviously I was worried that in Guantanamo,
something's gonna happen to me.
And like, you know, for instance, medically.
You know, you worry about those things
because you have to, you know,
you have to, you don't want to go to them.
So, you know, in that regard.
In Camp Echo, there was this thing
about, okay, it's time for your immunization shots.
They gave us shots, immunization shots,
like, I don't know how regularly,
maybe four to six months,
every four to six months immunization shots.
So it wasn't something,
and if you refuse, they'll IRF you
and they'll give it to you anyway.
So it's something regular.
But two weeks after the immunization shots,
all of a sudden there's a cyst on my testicle.
There's a growth on my testicle, like that.
Now I'm figuring out,
now I could have thought to myself, you know what,
you know, like it's been there for a long time, et cetera.
But because I'd check myself beforehand,
you know, like so all of a sudden now,
between being in isolation and being in Camp Echo,
there's this growth on my testicle.
Then I start to have panic attacks.
Panic attacks, as though something in my cell
is attacking me, and I start to defend myself.
Now, this is very strange for me,
because I'm the type of person that, okay,
no one can deal with isolation,
but some people can do with isolation better than others.
And you know, I'm a person who can,
you know, I'm not very talkative
in the sense that I'm one of those people
that needs to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk talk.
You know, I can be quiet
for long periods of time and so forth.
But the cell there was affecting me in that way.
And I don't know why, but it came to the point,
after like maybe a month of that injection,
then I started to have panic attacks,
like something is attacking me and I have to defend myself.
You know, strange things were happening,
like thoughts in my head that weren't my own.
And I could distinguish,
because there was me, my rational thoughts,
and there was other thoughts
that were just coming into my head,
emotions that I felt they were just dislocated from myself,
in that regard.
When, you know, the doctor,
she would come, I don't know,
like every week maybe or something like that.
When the doctor, 'cause I had a panic attack,
and you know, it was this panic attack,
like you know, I was sleeping.
All of a sudden I felt something was attacking me.
I defended myself, and there was nothing there.
But rationally, I could rationalize.
I could think to myself, well, there's nothing there.
So why are you doing this?
But I didn't have control of my body.
It was just, I was just defending.
There was a kind of, kind of like a survival response.
I didn't say anything to the doctor,
because I'm thinking to myself, you know,
these people will have set me up,
they're giving me injections to unhinge my sanity.
This is it, this is the big frame-up, you know,
this is how they're gonna get out of this situation, yeah?
They've incarcerated me without any evidence.
I'm an innocent man.
They want to save face,
and they're gonna do it by taking away my sanity.
So I didn't want to say anything to the doctor,
the same doctor who gave me these injections.
Obviously the MPs there, they'd seen,
they had seen the panic attack.
The doctor came, asked, do I need medical treatment or not?
I said, "No, no, I'm fine," and et cetera.
The MP pulls her aside and says,
you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
"He had a panic attack."
She comes running back, says,
"Oh, by the way I didn't tell you,
you got to have another immunization shot.
Now this is very strange, because the period of time
between one immunization shot and another
would at least be four months.
Now this is like maybe a month.
So that's very strange to me,
like you know, all of a sudden, immunization shots.
And the doctor was walking away.
And when she was told that,
all of a sudden she starts to tell me,
runs back and says, "Oh, in the next day
you're gonna have immunization shots."
So I'm thinking, okay, right.
This is minimal information I've got,
but you know, if they gave me another shot,
I'm gone, that's finished, that's my sanity gone,
I got to preserve my sanity.
So she comes back that night,
not the next day, that night.
She comes back and she tells me,
whatever she told me she's gonna give me,
wasn't the same thing that she told me in the morning.
Okay?
So she doesn't even know what I'm scheduled for.
Like she doesn't,
she doesn't know what she told me.
Like, you know, in that morning, whatever,
she told me one thing.
And then that night she tells me another thing.
So I said no.
Okay, no, I said, "You're not gonna send me crazy
by this stuff, so that's it."
And I knew I was gonna get IRFed.
I knew I was gonna get IRFed.
And it would be, you know,
it would be the first time of resisting.
Normally when you're IRFed,
when you're IRFed you know,
you just kind of put your hand on your head
and turn around on your knees and then they come.
They just knock you down, if they're being nice,
and then they just take you away.
This was basically, I'm gonna resist, et cetera.
The consular guy had come already.
He'd brought a picture of my mother.
I ripped up the picture, threw it down the toilet,
and flushed it 'cause I didn't want these people,
you know, making fun of it and doing whatever, et cetera.
The Quran, I couldn't do anything with my Quran.
They came to take my comfort items away.
I gave them the comfort items,
except for the picture and the Quran.
The Quran, you know, I can't,
you can't flush it down the toilet.
So I put it right in the corner of my bunk, underneath,
you know, just to preserve it.
This was it, this was my last stand.
And you know, the panic attacks just kept on happening,
like in that regard.
So they're getting the stuff, the MP has got the stuff.
They put it outside the cell,
the IRFing gear for me to see.
The situation's getting bad,
I'm having my last stand, this is it.
They're gonna send,
they're gonna take my sanity away from me.
And, you know, just you know,
you can't imagine that situation.
I'm having these panic attacks.
Now I'm conscious.
And you know, I feel that, you know,
I'm being attacked and I'm defending myself.
And I can rationalize,
like I know full well there's nothing there.
So why am I defending myself?
But I defend myself in that regard.
And then, you know, the thing is dragging on
and I don't know, it just, it's strange.
But I had, in that situation under that pressure,
I didn't know a way out, but I had a dream.
I had a dream, you know, I had a dream.
And then for some reason, after that dream,
I thought to myself, you know what,
I'm gonna have to just call in the interrogators.
This is, they've won.
They've won, basically.
Call in the interrogators.
This is it, like that.
So I call in the interrogators.
Now it's, what name did he give?
Antony, was it Antony?
It was Underwood.
He said Underwood.
And he was kind of something.
He was kind of military, whatever,
you know, joint terrorism force intelligence.
And then it was, was it Gary?
Gary Washington from the FBI.
He was a black guy, the first black FBI guy I see.
And then they're called in.
Basically, Robert Iorio had gone back.
Highlander or Highland, whatever his name was,
he left the island.
So these were interrogators.
So basically I just,
I come out of my cell and say, "You know, I've had enough.
I had enough, I want to go home."
And that was the first time that I said
to the interrogators, "I want to go home."
Every other time, if I ask them for something,
I said, "You know what, just bring me
in front of a court of law.
Let me have my day in court.
You're telling me you're accusing me of all these things,
telling me 100 years, 50 years, 70 years, 20 years,
et cetera, let me have my day in court."
That's what I said to them.
But at that time they'd broken me.
And you know, I said them,
I told them, you know, that situation,
you know, this is the situation, et cetera.
So they said, "Look, have the immunization shots,"
et cetera, "You'll be okay," and as well, whatever.
So that was the way of getting out of the situation.
So the next day, very strangely, they come.
Now, interrogators don't come for your immunization shots,
but they came, just to make sure it happened.
And I was given I think three shots.
And if I remember rightly, at least one
maybe might've been in a tricep.
I'm not sure whether one in the tricep.
And the panic attacks, they didn't come anymore.
Didn't come anymore.
But it seems that I think there was a lasting effect.
There was a lasting effect.
But it didn't come anymore except for one moment,
like I felt something grab, I grabbed my throat,
like as though I was defending myself, then I held myself.
But it wasn't as bad as before,
because I'd gotten full motion.
Interviewer: And did you talk to interrogators then,
say something? -: Well, what else could I do?
-: You did, yeah. -: I had to talk to them.
I had to talk to them, I'd broken my silence.
And you know, that was it.
They broke me, that's how they broke me.
Interviewer: And after that, you stayed at Echo anyway?
-: Yeah, I stayed at Echo.
I was supposedly being held for military commissions,
but you know, it never happened.
But I stayed there for like, you know,
for a good part of the time I was there.
Interviewer: But you felt better
than you felt, did you-
-: Not really, because it wasn't,
you know, the panic attacks had gone,
except for that brief moment.
For some reason I just started drawing hearts
and stupid, stupid stuff, girly stuff in my letters.
And I don't even understand what's going on.
I can't make sense of this.
So I don't know, I don't understand what was happening.
But there was a sense that, you know, I could feel
like there was split personality in a way,
that you know, there was me
and then there was something else, like in that regard.
But that kind of dissipated over time.
And then there was a sense that there was maybe
three people existing within me, in a way.
But it wasn't like in a way that would impede my everyday,
but you know, just the sense that it was happening.
And it was very strange.
It was like an old man, a woman, and a child.
Just weird.
I can't make sense of all of this.
I don't know if a psychiatrist has to do that.
I can't make sense of all of this.
And then over time, it just kind of dissipated.
But I don't know.
I feel there's a lasting effect of that,
in that situation.
But for two years, roughly, I remained in Camp Echo.
Interviewer: Why was it a lasting effect?
-: It's just like, I don't...
Interviewer: Do you still feel it?
-: I don't think I've really recovered,
really recovered from that situation.
I really, I can't make sense of it.
I'm not a psychiatrist, I can't psychoanalyze myself.
I don't think I've really recovered from that situation.
You know, it's like...
I don't, like...
For instance, I don't feel the same.
I don't feel the same.
When I was in Camp X-ray, the guy,
you know, the guy with the shotgun decided one time
to point the shotgun at my,
you know, shotgun at my head.
You know, obviously you don't try to show fear.
You don't show fear, et cetera.
So you just, you know, like you know,
you just try and brave it out.
When in Camp Echo, after the incident,
there used to be a patrol of infantry outside.
And one of the idiots over there, MPs,
he loved, every time anyone new came,
to run to them and say, "This guy's Al Qaeda.
So he told them.
So they put, they're outside,
but there's a gap between the fencing.
And then they'd put the gun on the ground.
And obviously they lift it up in a way
that I could see that it was pointed at me.
Fear, but a fear that I haven't felt before.
But this is why, you know, I scolded myself.
Why are you being like, this is a kind of fear
that, you know, it was shameful for me.
And, but why is that?
Why is it?
This is, I changed, I changed.
So why is it I can, you know,
a shotgun can be pointed at my head at close range,
you know, and I can at least kind of,
you know, I can think to myself,
well, the guy's just being an idiot.
He's not gonna shoot me, yeah?
Not gonna shoot, he's only being an idiot.
So I'm not gonna be afraid.
To when an infantry man puts his gun on the floor
and points it at me, and I'm terrified.
Terrified, just strange things like that.
It's not something you can put your finger on,
but it's just very strange.
I don't feel the same.
Interviewer: You know, Mozan told me
when he was in that similar situation,
that he was so desperate for having somebody to talk to,
and he asked for somebody to talk to him,
and they finally sent him a psychologist,
a psychiatrist to talk to.
Did they ever send someone like that for you to talk to, or?
-: Well, supposedly Bush himself sent a psychiatrist.
Interviewer: That's what they told you?
-: Yeah, yeah, I believe it.
He sent a psychiatrist from Washington,
and he came and he spoke to me,
after all of this incident.
And I told him, I told him about the panic attack,
you know, et cetera, and being in,
because I was held in building four
and they took me out of there.
And then, because they'd expanded Echo by the time,
and then they took me into one of the other buildings.
Building four, that was a nightmare.
The other buildings were a bit better.
And I told him about the panic attacks and so forth.
He was supposed to evaluate my mental health,
in order to check whether I can go up
for the military commissions,
and he's gonna go, he said himself,
he's gonna go straight back to Bush.
And I think he was actually documented,
like yeah, by the media and so forth.
And there was this thing about, I wasn't mentally capable,
you know, like to go up before a trial.
And then, you know, that I had to be assessed.
And he, the psychiatry said he's come from,
he's spoken to Bush, and he's come from Bush.
You know, he was gonna go back to Bush
with an assessment on my mental health.
Interviewer: And did you feel better
after that conversation?
Did you feel like that went?
-: Well, he had his own agenda.
He wasn't there to take care of my welfare, no.
Interviewer: So how much time after that
did you realize you were gonna go home?
-: Well, it's a long time in Camp Echo.
And then...
Actually, it was...
I think it was, I think he called himself Underwood.
Underwood, this new interrogator,
he said, I think it was him who said,
or one of the interrogators said
that you're gonna receive a target letter.
Actually, no, the target letter is, okay.
I can't remember whether the target letter
is because of lawyers, that your lawyer,
you're gonna get a lawyer, an attorney,
or it's because of the military commissions.
Anyway, news came that we're gonna have lawyers and so forth
and we're gonna get legal representatives, et cetera.
Now, you know, these are civilian lawyers, et cetera.
I didn't believe it until I saw the lawyer myself.
-: Well- -: Yeah?
Interviewer: I guess what I'm thinking is,
after you said to them you want to go home,
if that somehow changed?
You might not have known it,
but if that made a difference to them,
and they started looking to see whether you could come home?
-: No, no, it wouldn't have made a difference.
They don't really care.
That wouldn't have been it.
If you want to know specifically the time
when I knew, in a way, when I believed them,
because I mean, the military came
and then they had their announcement,
but you don't believe them because they always lie to you.
You know, they took one detainee on the plane itself,
telling him he's going home, going home.
And then they tried to interrogate him on the plane,
and then they took him back to, you know, his cell.
Was when, okay.
I know his name, but I forgot his name now.
Okay, from Reprieve.
-: Clive? -: Clive, that's it.
-: Clive Stafford Smith. -: How could I forget his name?
Interviewer: He came to visit you?
-: No, he, what he did in Camp Echo,
he would act like he didn't know
which cell to go to, which cage.
So he'd just go into any one,
and he happened to go into mine.
And, you know, I happened to be waiting
for someone like, you know, to come.
So he kind of looked at me,
and then he didn't recognize me at first.
And he said, you know, "Who are you?"
And (laughs) I think he was a bit surprised
that I spoke English to him.
You know, like, and I'm thinking to myself,
this is like an interrogator.
And he said, "Oh, don't worry.
The news is true, you're going home."
And then like, he kind of had to leave
'cause he was in the wrong cage, but he did that.
And then obviously Gita Guitierrez,
she came and, you know, I think she told me as well
that the news is true.
And whether she came and told me or not, I can't remember.
And then they took us out of Camp Echo,
and then into population again, Camp Delta again.
But they separated us,
'cause we were the military commission people.
So they had us separate.
Interviewer: Us meaning you and Mozan?
-: Well, us meaning the military commission people
from the actual, the rest of the detainees, in that regard.
But obviously you don't really believe them.
I didn't really believe them.
Even when they come to measure you up.
They've done that to many detainees.
I think they did to Mozan when he first got to Camp Echo.
'Cause they asked me whether I got measured up
for a suit or something like that.
You know, I don't know.
But they do that for military commissions as well.
But you know, I didn't really believe it
until it was actually happening.
And you know, that's the best policy you can have.
You know, they can tell you whatever.
But until you set foot and you're free,
that's the only time, you know.
Interviewer: When you were taken out of Echo
and sent it back, did you feel better, just to leave Echo?
Did you think that was a good start?
-: Yeah.
I mean, Camp Delta is, you know,
it's not the best of places to be.
But you know, you can get by.
You can get by.
Interviewer: By the way, how did you know
that one man was taken and told he was going home
and then just interrogated on the plane and put back?
-: Oh, because the stories get around. (laughs)
The stories, the detainees will tell you the story.
I mean, he obviously told other people,
and then they pass on the story.
They shout over the blocks and then pass it on.
Or you get moved enough to get the new news
from other people in the next camp.
Interviewer: Do you know who that detainee was?
-: I don't.
I don't know who that detainee was.
But you probably can find out, you know,
if you speak to someone who was close to them.
Interviewer: So it sounds like things,
I guess I just want to just ask this.
So after you told the,
that you were willing to talk,
do you know how much time passed
before you finally got moved to?
-: Oh, it had to be a year or something.
Interviewer: Another year?
So you had another year -: It had to be
-: still in Echo? -: at least a year.
Had to be at least a year, yeah.
Interviewer: But you were better in Echo then,
because least you weren't having,
except for that one incident, the panic attacks?
-: Because they took me out of building four.
Building four.
Interviewer: And now you were with other people again?
-: No, I mean, in a different kind of,
I'm still in Echo, so you're still isolated.
The guards changed, so they weren't the same mean ones.
The whole push for the military commissions
kind of flopped, I think.
And it just became like, you know, everyday.
And then like for instance, the guards,
you'd speak to them and you know,
the others were just mean.
They didn't want to speak to you.
The way the other buildings were set up
was that the guard would be closer to you.
So obviously, you know,
you couldn't avoid having conversation with them.
So when you have conversation, then the barriers go down.
They didn't have this idea that, you know,
you're such a bad person, whatever, like you know.
I know what you did, you know,
it's about, you're nearly there
to have your head being chopped off,
you know, like by the military commissions,
it's just a long drawn process.
They found you there, you know, and then that was it.
So that was their life for them.
And then, you know, it wasn't good.
Because like for a long time in Camp Echo,
I didn't see sunlight
except from coming under the door.
Recreation, they used to take us out at night and so forth.
You know, yeah, for a long time.
Interviewer: Could you see the Red Cross
during that time?
-: I don't remember seeing the Red Cross during that time.
Interviewer: And the British Consulate,
did they come by in there?
-: Yeah, they came a little.
Interviewer: But they didn't...
-: They didn't care, they didn't care.
The guy didn't care.
He once said to me, "I don't care
about your emotional health,
all I want to know about is your physical health."
And when you told him about what was happening,
he tried to put it, construct it in a way
that, you know, he just constructed it
in a way that was in favor of the administration.
So I was telling him about my thumb,
the color, you know, like on my thumb,
started to discolor
because of not being out in the sunlight, you know.
Like a patch here started, you know, because I'm black.
So it started to go, you know, like non-black.
I told him about that.
He just wanted to construct it in a different way.
Like, you know, it was the soap or something like that.
He didn't want to hear, he didn't want to hear anything.
He didn't care.
Didn't want to know about emotional mental health.
Just wanted to know about physical health,
and all you're supposed to say is,
you know, I'm fine, I'm great,
you know, they're treating me wonderfully.
Interviewer: So I ask most of the men I speak to,
how did you endure that?
Was there something in you that kind of,
I think you obviously said part of it,
by saying that you finally decided
you were gonna talk to the interrogators
to help you, is that, is there anything else
that kind of kept you going through that time?
I mean, like- -: The first thing,
the first thing that will keep you going,
not the first thing in terms of importance,
just
in a sense of chronologically, maybe,
is your innocence.
Because an innocent man incarcerated,
that keeps you buoyed in a way.
It keeps your head up, keeps a sense of your self-respect.
You feel that you're being mistreated, unjustly,
and injustice won't last, it won't get its way.
You know, the truth will prevail in that way.
That's the first thing, chronologically.
The second thing is...
You know, it's,
there's many, you can look at it
in many different levels, but
on a personal level, I saw it as, you know,
this is from, this is what Allah has decreed for me,
what God has decreed for me.
There's a reason for him decreeing this for me.
And you know, you can't,
there's a wisdom and mercy behind it,
and I don't understand it.
I don't understand why I'm going through this situation,
but I know that, you know,
that there's a reason why God has put me here
and through this situation.
In that way, you have to humble yourself.
And you know, I'm a revert to Islam.
So I haven't been Muslim like the whole of my life.
I reverted when I was 19 years old.
And you know, reading Malcolm,
I actually read Malcolm X over there,
'cause one of the soldiers gave it to me.
You know, you know,
in the book "Malcolm X," he says,
"Only guilt admitted accepts truth."
And that resonates with me,
because the reason why I became Muslim was,
you know, I mean, I was 17.
Well, actually I was 19.
And I looked back on my life, which was very short.
And I said to myself, you know what,
you're not really a good guy.
You can't say to yourself, you're such a great guy.
So you need to just humble yourself
and you know, like, you know,
try to seek repentance and so forth.
So when you're in that situation,
if someone has an arrogant attitude to the situation,
they say, "I don't deserve this,
and why is God treating me like this?"
They won't survive.
But if you think to yourself, you know what, you know,
"I'm not the best of people,
and you know, like I can't challenge God in this situation."
You know, I can't say, "I'm the best,
I'm the greatest person on earth.
Therefore being treated like this
is such a great injustice."
You know, that you can't do that.
So you had to humble yourself in a way,
and accept it, and not be arrogant in front of God.
So that was one aspect.
And the last aspect was,
not so much in Camp Delta, because I didn't realize
how much the soldiers were suffering.
But my thing was, if they're suffering,
then I'm willing to suffer too. (laughs)
So in Camp Echo, they used to whine.
You know, they only had us to talk to,
'cause the other soldiers won't listen to them.
And if they did listen, then you know,
they would just say, "Serves you right."
So, you know, they have to whine to us,
and I realized how much they were suffering.
And you know, that kind of, I thought to myself,
you know what, if it was just us suffering
and you guys having it good,
that would be hard to deal with.
If we're suffering and you're suffering,
then you know, like fine, bring it on. (laughs)
Yeah.
Interviewer: And another thing I ask is,
I have only a few more questions,
and we're just about done.
But you know, there's always,
there's a lot of negativity that you've experienced
that comes out of Guantanamo.
And you can, if you want, just tell me some more of that.
But sometimes people think there was something positive
that came out of that experience.
And I often wonder if you could ever...
-: Okay, it's, you know, okay.
In Islam, you know, there's a general trend,
like not a trend, but kind of...
How to put it?
It's like...
Okay, okay.
Islamically, you know, there's the tradition
of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
He says, "Paradise."
Paradise, that's, you know,
like I think Christians call it heaven.
But we make a distinction
between heavens as in skies and so forth.
But heaven, "Paradise is surrounded by hardship,
and hellfire is surrounded by ease."
So, you know, Islam tries to instill in you
that if you're going through hardship,
you're actually going through that veil to paradise,
that in order to get to paradise,
you have to go through hardship.
So, you know, Guantanamo, if you said to me,
"You know what, do you want to go to Guantanamo?"
This, that, and the other, et cetera,
and you have a choice, I would say no.
I would say no, I would say that now.
You know, I would never want to go to Guantanamo.
You know, as human beings, that's how we are.
But sometimes God doesn't give us the choice.
And you know, the positive thing
that comes out of Guantanamo, I guess,
is that, that you know, you go through hardship
and then you realize, for me, it's been...
Right now, I look at the world in a different way.
I really, it's like the veil has been lifted off the world.
And what I see, you know, what the world is,
it is about, it is pain, it is suffering.
Guantanamo is the real face of the world and life.
That's how I see it.
Coming back, that veil has been placed back,
and I'm expected to like accept society
as though, you know,
things like Guantanamo Bay aren't happening,
or you know, even worse.
But I can't do that, because I've seen beyond the veil.
So that's another thing, that it's shown me the reality.
That, you know, before Guantanamo,
before this happening, maybe I was kind of deluded in a way,
that the world is a place
that, you know, in reality as I see it,
that's not the way the world is.
Interviewer: Is there, since we're just about done,
is there something else that maybe I didn't ask you?
That, you know, 'cause you're very thoughtful.
And if there's something else that maybe, to finish?
-: Yeah, well,
I mean, there's a lot to say.
You know, there's a lot.
In Guantanamo, I wrote down a lot of it
before, you know, we were released.
So- -: Will you make it
into a book, or you just have notes?
-: No, I just have notes.
And you know, I've just,
I've just recently typed them up.
'Cause they were handwritten.
They're, all of them are not there,
but a large chunk of of what happened is there.
So that's the reason why there's a lot of detail.
Because when I wrote it
would have been in the same situation,
and you know, there would have only been three years passed,
and obviously you're in the same situation,
so your mind doesn't.
When you leave, then you start forgetting things
because you're not in the same situation.
The neurons are not used and so forth in that regard.
So there is a lot, and you know.
So I can't really identify anything in particular,
'cause we've covered like just generally what's happening.
And I know you can only do so much
with, you know, like just speaking for me.
Interviewer: I have one question, though.
How did it feel reading those notes after all these years?
-: To tell you the truth,
it has taken me five years to deal with.
Five years.
First of all, when they brought me here,
I was really depressed.
I was really, I was really sad.
And I've made a conscious effort not to deal with it,
because the way I am is that, you know,
with kind of things that are emotionally hard to deal with,
I know I can box them away.
So I can put it in a little box and put it away.
And it's up, I'm gonna have to deal with it,
but it's my choice when I deal with it.
And it's taken me five years, taken me five years.
I've kept myself busy.
So when I came out, I just,
I did my, you know, I went,
I went back to college, to university.
And that was like, that's already four years.
And it's only now I've started working with Cageprisoners.
And that is the part of the process
where I'm unpackaging things.
And in fact, this is part of the process as well,
where I'm actually talking about it.
But I really kept away away from, you know,
even looking at the news
or seeing that kind of thing in the paper and that.
I didn't keep up to it.
I just tried to shut it out, you know, as best as I could.
So the questions were, again?
Interviewer: Are you finding it, then,
therefore valuable to read those notes
and to talk about it? -: Yeah.
So it's taken me this long.
And you know, it's only like in the last,
in last week that I actually picked up those notes
and started going through them in detail,
typing them up.
I'm having to type them up for a reason.
But that's when, and it has been hard.
Because you read about things that, you know just,
it reminds you of things that happened to you
that you kind of buried away and tried to forget.
And it is hard to read those things.
But you know, I'm not helping myself
by not actually dealing with it.
And you know, if I don't deal with it,
I'm gonna have to deal with it sometime.
So this is part of the process.
So it's been hard reading those notes.
But you know, I've kind of-
Interviewer: But it's important for you
to do that, right now? -: It is.
After five years, I'm opening the package now.
Interviewer: I think we're done,
unless there's something you want to close with.
That was an amazing interview. -: Okay, I think that's fine.
-: We're very thankful -: All right, thank you.
-: and very honored. -: You're welcome.
All right, thanks.
Man: Can we just do run time, or?
Interviewer: Can we just be quiet for-