Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. Okay, good afternoon. - Hello. 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 an 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 can form a better understanding of what you and others have endured and observed. Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo and by telling your story you're contributing to history. And we are very grateful and appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us today. And if there's any time during the interview you wanna take a break, just let us know. - Will do. - And if there's something you say you'd like to retract we can remove it, just let us know. - Okay, no problem. Interviewer: And we'd like to begin, if you could tell us your name, and your age, and country of origin, and birthdate, and nationality, maybe we can start with those. - Okay, my name is Abdurahman Khadr. I'm 30 years old. I'm of Egyptian origin and I'm a Canadian national. I've been in Canada for the last 10 years. Interviewer: What year were you born? - I was born December 18th, 1982. Interviewer: And what languages do you speak? - I speak Arabic, English, Dari, which is the Afghani version of Persian, Pashto, also from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Urdu, which is from Pakistan. Interviewer: And what religion are you? - I'm Muslim. Interviewer: And what's your marital status and do you have children? - I'm married and yes, I have one child, Yusef. Interviewer: And can you tell us a little about your education? - My education, I mean, most of my education was in Pakistan, I was going to a school there, an Arabic school when we were living there. And then, I mean, I only finished eighth grade and that was in Canada, we came back for that year my dad was injured. And after that we went back and there was a lot of war and a lot of stuff going on. So I never got to continue my education then, until I got back to Canada. And then when I got back this time, I got my equivalency, my GED from my high school. And I'm trying to get into some college programs right now. Interviewer: And do you know what day you arrived in Guantanamo and what day you left? - I remember the day I arrived, it was I think the day after the Iraqi invasion in March 23rd, 2003. Interviewer: And when did you leave? - And I left on- Interviewer: Or what month? - It was October 1st, either October 1st of 2003. - Okay. - Yeah. Interviewer: So we'd like to begin, I guess, since you came to Guantanamo a little late, where were you on 9/11 and then how you ended up in Guantanamo, who captured you or who? - So, my story is very extended, I've been through a lot of, but I'll give you a short version of it. So on September 11 I was in Jalalabad, when we heard the news and everything. And then the American invasion happened on Afghanistan and everything. I was separated from my family on November 11th, 2001, when the Afghan Northern Alliance actually entered Kabul, I was separated from my family. So I was kidnapped by a former commander of the Northern Alliance for money, which I tried to get from all kinds of sources, where I thought maybe my dad had kept some money or left some money. It took around two months for us to find some money. He took his money and then he's supposed to release me or help me reach my family in Pakistan. Instead he gave me to the Interior Ministry. I spent two months there just as a person staying there. One of the aides of the minister there recognized my father, remembered my father, so I was staying in the ministry for two months working as a police officer. And then this continued for two month until I was translating for them because I spoke well English and I spoke Farsi and everything. And then one day I was translating at the French embassy in Kabul for a representative of the French president and the Afghani defense minister and Yunus Qanuni, which was the vice president of Afghanistan and the interior minister. And I was sitting there and translating and everything, and then somebody, you know, recognized me. And then it went back to the person that I was staying with at the Interior Ministry that, how could you let this Arab get into the embassy, the French embassy and everything. So they took me and locked me up. And then the British intelligence came to see me and the French intelligence and the Canadian intelligence and everybody in the CIA, FBI. And I was put in the intelligence jail in Kabul. And from there- Interviewer: What year is this? - This is in 2002 beginning, February, March, 2002. And then I spoke to the CIA, I spoke to the FBI. I agreed to cooperate with them. I cooperated with them and they kept me at a safe house in Kabul for eight month. And then from there, they sent me to Bagram, and from Bagram they sent me to Guantanamo. Interviewer: What did they want from you when you were cooperating with them? - Well, in the beginning they just wanted me to give them the locations of like any offices in Kabul of the Al-Qaeda or anything like that, and that was sufficient. And then they wanted to send me, I guess in the field to look for any Al-Qaeda people. And that didn't work out. And then they decided, okay, they're gonna send me to Guantanamo to see if I can like work for them there. Interviewer: And they first sent you to Bagram? - Yes. - What were they thinking when they sent you to Bagram? - Well, they sent me to Bagram to put me through the regular channels to be sent to Guantanamo through the regular channels instead of like, you know, just putting me on a private jet and bringing me to Guantanamo. They just brought me into Guantanamo like a regular guy, they tied me up days, you know. They put me in a suit and everything and brought me to Bagram. Interviewer: Were you mistreated while you were in Bagram. - I was. Interviewer: Were you working for the Americans or the British at that- - No, I was working for the Americans and yes, I was mistreated. They told me that only one person in Bagram would know that I was working for them. And that was to maintain the cover that I'm just a regular detainee. Interviewer: And so they told you, you might get mistreated and you need to understand. - Yes. Interviewer: Were you on a payroll at that time? - I was, and I mean, they told me there would be mistreatment, but they didn't explain to what extent. So when I first reached there, I mean, that the treatment I got when I first reached there, they took off all my clothes. All this stuff that happened to us, just when they registered to go in they treat you like an animal and you know. And that's why like, I mean, I waited three, four days until someone would see me. So I could be like, what is this? You know, I didn't sign up for this, you know? Again, all of this was for the hope that I can get out. So nobody saw me for a while. And by then, you know, I was just, you know, I was starting to get depressed. In Bagram, they way you're staying it's like, you're staying, like, it's like an animal barn, it's not like a human living area. It's like a few barbed wires around 10 people. And there's 10 people they just sit down and they don't do anything. They're not allowed to talk to each other. They're not allowed to communicate with each other, touch each other, anything. And you just sit there for 24 hours, or until you pass out doing nothing. And then they take you into the interrogation rooms and they tie you up to the ceiling of the interrogation rooms. You hear people screaming. Anytime somebody gets up or like even reads Quran too loud they get taken out of the range, or whatever you wanna call it. Food was given to us like dogs. They would throw cereal boxes at us and tell us, here this is all you deserve. They'd talk very rudely to us. When I reached Bagram I had heard about Omar, my brother being there. He was very popular with the guards. So they started treating me extra bad because of my brother and because of the allegations against him that he had killed American soldier. Interviewer: Had you known that before you came to Bagram? - Yes, yes, I knew about it right away. I mean, the second day it happened they told me what had happened. Interviewer: And were you interrogated while you were in Bagram? - Yes I was. Interviewer: And did the interrogator know you were on the payroll of this- - In the beginning, he didn't know until like, I mean, I think our, like, I didn't wanna say anything either until my third or fourth meeting with him. He didn't know what was going on. And then he told me. And I told him, I'm like, listen you know, like, 'cause they apparently wanted me to stay in Bagram for like three months, three to six months. And I was like, that's not happening. I'm not staying here for three to six months. I can't help you guys here because I can't talk to anybody around me. Everybody's extremely tight lipped because of the treatment they're receiving. So, it would be really like, there's no, like the planes from Bagram were leaving, I think once a month. They're like, there's one leaving in a couple of days. We can't put you on that, you know it's impossible and there's another one in a month, maybe on that one. So I made a lotta noise. I said, no, I wanna, like, I wanna outta this place. I want out of it right away. And I mean, I guess I was digging up my own grave because the experience of traveling from Bagram to Guantanamo is miserable. It's one of the worst things in life itself. Interviewer: Why is that? - From the time they come and get you from the range to when you're on the plane, I think it's six to seven hours. I don't know, I think it's like an experience of exhaustion, so that when you are on the plane you don't resist. You don't have any energy left to do anything. They tie you up, they cover your eyes, your ears, your head, and they tie you up in a really, like your hands behind your back and your feet tied to your hands, and you're sitting in like a crouching position for I think two, two and a half hours. You can't go forward. You can't go backwards. You can't lie down on your side. You have to stay in that position. And every time you even like go to lean over somebody comes, grabs you, you shakes, don't move, don't move. Then they put you in a truck and they leave you in the truck for approximately an hour and a half. And then they put us in a plane and they left us in a plane in that same position for almost two hours or two and a half more hours. And then they picked us up and put us on the chair. During this whole six or seven-hour experience there's people screaming, there's people crying, and you can hear it all around you. People were begging. And then for me personally, on the plane at one point I got so frustrated I just wanted one of the soldiers to go crazy and blow my head because I just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't wanna live. It was just the worst experience ever. I wanted to die, honest to God. And if there was a way for me to kill myself right there, like jump off the plane or do something, I would have done it. It was the worst experience ever. Interviewer: You had no idea it was gonna be like that? - No. Interviewer: And did you ask to get some medication to knock you out? - No, they wouldn't give anybody any medication. And the same time, the goggles that I had on they'd been freshly spray-painted. So I think sometime during the flight, I don't know if it was the sweat or what, but the paint went back into my eyes and my eyes were burning. And then I kept screaming that my eyes are burning. And they kept burning more and more. It wasn't getting better. And I was just screaming for someone to help me. Nobody would help me. And in the end, like two soldiers came, they just shook me really hard and then held me against my seat. And then somebody came opened the google, barely opened it, sprayed a bunch of water in my eyes, closed the goggle, opened it again, sprayed a bunch of ice in my other eye and just shut it. And if you scream one more time, you're gonna be tied down to the floor. And that's it. Interviewer: Did they feed you while you were on the plane? - They had peanut butter, I remember they had peanut butter and jam sandwiches. I remember very specifically because the experience of like everything being shut down, I remember like the food tasted, like, I remember what it was but it felt like, you know, this is. I don't remember. I mean, the experience was extremely like horrific. They just, they come, they take off the mask and they put it against your mouth, bite. Okay, you bite and they put the mask back on. And they fed you like this the whole sandwich. And then at the end open mask, put the bottle at your mouth, drink. You had to complain for like 20 minutes to go to the washroom. I complained and complained until they took me. And then you have everybody around you screaming and crying. It was a really, it was a miserable experience. Interviewer: Did you know other people on that flight? - I knew other people on the flight, I guess, from their voices. But there was people that I also didn't know. And everybody, like, I mean, in that experience you kind of like zone out. You're trying to find a place, a peaceful place inside you because it's honestly like one of the most horrific things that you can go through. Interviewer: So I just wanna be clear. Were you getting paid by the U.S. government during this time? - Apparently, apparently I was getting paid. Interviewer: Do you know which agency? - The CIA. But I never got paid. I never received anything from them. They said apparently that they would be paying me. I never received anything from them. Interviewer: So when you were being sent to Guantanamo did you think maybe you really won't gonna be sent as an agent for them, that maybe you were being sent as a detainee? Or did you still think- - No, in my mind I hoped that I'm still working for them because I felt that would be my only key outta that place. Interviewer: Did you know what Guantanamo was before you went there, did you have an idea? - I mean, just the general idea that it was a place where they were keeping everybody they caught in Afghanistan, all the Arabs. Interviewer: Did you know about people being bought the U.S., people sold to the U.S.? - Yes, yes. - Had you heard that? - Yes, I've heard it and experienced it when I was at the Interior Ministry. We had people bringing people that they would say, this is a Taliban and they would pay them. They would get the money from the Americans and pay them for anybody that was considered a Taliban or an Arab. And of course, any Taliban was $5,000. And Arabs went from 10,000 to $100,000, depending on like how high they were. And then when I was in Guantanamo, I spoke to one older man. And he said he was sold by his son to the Americans for the money. Him and his dad, an Afghan. Him and his dad had like a lot of, him and his son had had a lot of conflict. He gave his dad a gun and brought him to an American base. Interviewer: Do you know what the name of that Afghan? - I don't remember his name, but I remember like, you know I mean, there was, you know, I mean, at the very beginning the Americans were paying for anybody. You just have to give the person a Kalashnikov and be like, you know, bring him over to a base and be like, oh, you know, this is a Taliban or this is an Arab, and they were paying for it. Interviewer: But I assume you weren't sold since you were working for them, right? - No, I wasn't sold, no. Interviewer: And when you got to Guantanamo do you remember how it was when you first arrived? - When I first arrived, I remember the plane landing and then us being taken off the plane. Here we go again, right. They took us off. They put us on the tarmac, I guess. And they left us there for an hour in the heat. In Guantanamo, Afghanistan is different, like it's hot, but when you get off the plane in Guantanamo, it's like, it's hell, it's extremely hot. And then the dogs kept coming around and we were, like the dogs would be so close you'd think, what if these dogs aren't leashed, what if they bite me. And people are screaming and crying again. Then they take you from, they put you on a truck. And you're on the truck, the truck is just stopped and you're on the truck for approximately another hour, an hour and a half. And then they took us to outside the clinic, which I realized that when they took us inside, this is when they took off the mask. We're outside the clinic for another two hours. Just sitting on gravel. - Blindfolded and- - Blindfolded, ear muffed, nose, everything is covered. You can't see anything. Everything is dark around you. And you're hot and you're sweating. And you're sitting in a squatting position, you can't move. You have dogs around you. And then they took us inside, inside the clinic. And then there was AC inside the clinic and they took off your, and then you start realizing, like it starts all like coming down on you, you know. Like here, here you go, this is place that you're gonna be for God knows only how long. Interviewer: So where did they send you? - They, they brought me inside. They registered me. They gave me the bracelet to put on my hand and everything. And then they put me into segregation and they said they put everybody in segregation for 30 days when they first arrived to Guantanamo. I was in there for maybe I think, eight or nine days before I started like, just losing it, you know. The whole trip there was like something I didn't wanna go through. And being in segregation and I hadn't done anything. You know, there's no reason for me to be there in Guantanamo at all. I started screaming and yelling. And they said, nobody's gonna see you for at least a month, so you can do whatever you want. So I just, you know- Interviewer: Did you tell them at that time you were working for- - No, I just wanted to see somebody. I couldn't tell them that because, I mean, obviously that would be blowing my cover. But I just kept asking to speak to somebody. And they said, there was nobody to see you for, I think after the 12th, 11th or the 12th day you go to see a doctor, you go see dentist. You do a couple of trips outside of segregation because segregation as you know is, once every 72 hours you go outside. 10 minutes rec and 10 minutes shower, I think, or five minutes rec, 10 minutes shower. It's like 15 or 20 minutes outside of your cell, every 72 hours. I mean, I know even death mates, don't get that treatment. Interviewer: Were there other cells nearby where you could yell to another? - Yeah. I mean, it was a whole range, so I think there was like 36 cells. You could speak to, because of the segregation, you could speak to maybe two this way and two this way and one across or two across, that's it. But because of the walls and everything, you couldn't speak to anybody further than that. Interviewer: And did that help that you able to speak to someone since you knew so many languages? - It did, but at the same time, meeting somebody that you don't know what they look like or what language they are and you know who they are, who you're speaking to. I mean, some of us dealt, some of the people that were there dealt with it by speaking to people, other people just isolated themselves more. And for me the first, like 10 days, I just isolated myself. I didn't speak to anybody around. I didn't know when it was day when it was night. I just went into like a whole like bad state of mind. And then after that I heard people speaking, so I would try to like get into the conversation and everything, but I mean, the whole experience, the segregation experience was horrific again. Interviewer: And they told you that after 30 days you would be moved into a communal situation? - Yes, general population. Interviewer: And was that true? - It was. Interviewer: And could you describe how that was? - It was nighttime, I think it was eight or nine o'clock at night. They came and told you to pack your stuff and get everything ready, which we didn't have that much stuff. We had a toothbrush, a mat, one of those workout mats. And that's it. And I think that was, that was your whole, maybe a bed sheet, maybe a bed sheet that you threw over yourself, because as you know, the segregation, sometimes it's extremely hot. You know, even with the AC and everything, it's so hot in there that everybody starts going crazy and banging the doors and everything because it's really hot. Or sometime at nights, it's freezing and you have a bed sheet and it's extremely cold. And people start getting up and like being loud. So we rolled our little workout mats or sleeping mats and then they took us to a regular range. They walked us out, two soldiers on each side and they chain your hands to your feet and to your stomach and they walk you over to your range. They put you inside your unit. They take off your chains and then you start seeing around. Okay, I'm still on Earth, you know. Interviewer: Were you interrogated while you were in segregation? - No, nobody saw me while I was in segregation. Interviewer: And so can you tell us what happened then, once you were put in the general population? - Once we were in general population, I think for two or three days, I mean, general population wasn't so bad after everything we went through. I mean, it is, it's horrible. Once you're there for a few days, you're like, okay. But after everything we had been through, general population wasn't so bad 'cause there's people on each side. There's just a net between you and them. And you speak to them, you get your food, you get a book, a Quran, you know. When I was in segregation, I think I had to ask for a Quran maybe like a hundred times before I actually got one, which this should have been a very basic you know, every unit should just come with one. Because everybody in Guantanamo is pretty much Muslim, right. But I had to fight with them. They're like, yeah, I'll bring it. Oh, I can't hold it. Like all kinda excuses, not to bring me a Quran. And there was a chaplain there that you're supposed to be able to see, that takes forever to see, even in general population. So yeah, I mean, general population was okay. Interviewer: Could you communicate and tell the other people in the general population, what you knew like that Iraq had been attacked? - Yes. As soon as you reach there people of course ask you like that was going on outside. And I told them that Iraq was invaded and what was going on with the world. If there was anything I knew about, you know and people were, I don't know, there was some kind of, there was some system of like news keeping in Guantanamo too. The detainees there they found a way to keep up. I don't know if there was some guards that were speaking to them, or some of the chaplains were like giving them hints of what's going on in the outside. But there was a system of information, you know, with the detainees. Interviewer: Since you spoke English, was that an advantage? - It was an advantage, but it was also a disadvantage. Because it was an advantage because you could speak to the guards, but it was a disadvantage 'cause now they saw you as a traitor, not just as an Al-Qaeda. Oh, you're Canadian. Oh, you're Canadian and you're Al-Qaeda, oh. So now you're a different level of evil for them, you know. Interviewer: Did you have any personal conversations with the guards at all because you spoke English? - I mean, in the very beginning I would say hi and bye to them, but that was about it. I mean, the guards had a certain like attitude towards all the detainees there. I didn't view them as like friends because they weren't nice to anybody around me. I had heard of detainees like being beaten. I saw one detainee being kicked because he was struggling to walk in his chains. The guards dropped him on the floor and started kicking him. And then they were all like, "Oh, he was resisting." And the guy's in chains in his ankles and his hands and his stomach. He can't resist if he wanted to. He just couldn't walk. And those chains, you always have like these marks. I have them until now on your hands from when they had them on. Interviewer: Was he young or old or middle-aged man? - The man, I think he would have been young, 24, 25. Interviewer: But he couldn't walk in those chains. - He couldn't walk in those chains. Anybody couldn't walk in those chains. I mean, they put the chains on really tight and like, the way the chains are on your feet they're not like, I mean, there's chains here that go from like, on your stomach and then a chain that goes down to your foot, each one. No, this one was a chain around here. And then two chains go down and then your two feet are chained to each other too. So you barely have like this small like gap of walking. Interviewer: Were you ever ERFed while you were in Guantanamo, where six or seven soldiers in riot gear come in and mace you and then beat you? Have you observed that? - They almost did. When I was in general population for, as I said, like, I spoke to my interrogators for a while and they were trying to tell me to work with them and find out if I can find out anything. And I kept telling them, "Look, there's nothing I can do. There's nobody that will speak to me. People here are, you know, the guards are really hard, because they feel like there's a lot of people that work for you guys in here. So nobody talks about their personal life. Nobody talks about their past. I'm tired of this. I came here to do something for you guys, but it's not working, I don't wanna be here anymore." And my interrogators weren't listening to me. So I think it was after a month and a half of being in general population, I just one day snapped. And I started banging the walls, started punching the walls and my knuckles were bleeding. And I took my bed sheet and I tied it up to the ceiling of my unit and I threatened to kill myself. I threatened to hang myself. Interviewer: What happened? - So I said, "If I don't see somebody right now, I'm gonna hang myself." So they said, "Hold on, hold on. I'm like, "No." Anyway, they brought the team and they said, if you don't step away from it and this and that. And I'm like, I don't care. You guys can come in. So they came in. They didn't have to mace me or anything. When they came in they said, "Go on your knees," I did. I just wanted to leave that unit. I've been in that unit for a month and a half. Everybody around you are the same people. Like I was tired of it. And I was tired of the whole experience, the whole travel to Guantanamo, the people I dealt with. The interrogators there were like, other than the interrogators I was dealing with in Afghanistan. My whole purpose in being in Guantanamo was becoming like fruitless to me. I didn't wanna be there anymore. So they put me into the mental ward. They had a little range for people that were, you know, they thought were conditioned like mentally okay. And that's where I met the guy that told me his son brought him. And then- Interviewer: Can you describe the mental ward? - I mean, it's the same thing, like regular range. But the only difference is there's a bunch of cameras in the hallway and there's a camera in your unit. There's a camera in your unit right on top of you. And as soon as you're taken there a psychiatrist comes to see you. Speaks to, you asks you how you're feeling you know, this and that. And you're treated like a mental, you know, you know a mental person. So I was there for two days. And then my interrogators asked to see me and I told them I'm like, "I give up, I don't wanna work for you guys anymore, I'm done. If you guys don't get me out of here I'm gonna hang myself, or I'm gonna like go out and tell all the other people cooperating with you that this is how you treat the people that cooperate with you. I'll just scream and yell in the ranges and tell everybody that I'm working for you. I'll burn my cover." So they said, "Hold on." And I'm like, "You know what? Your $3,000 a month, you can keep it." I actually used this term, I remember I said, "You can roll it up and shove it. I don't want your money. I want out of this place, I'm done." So they said, "Okay, give me a couple of days." And then in two or three days from then they moved me into a different unit Interviewer: Before we get into that. So from the beginning, you told your interrogators that you were paid, you were an American plant or- - Once they saw me after I was in, I left segregation, they knew. They had a file sent to them from the people in Afghanistan. Interviewer: So what kind of conversations would you have with them if they knew that you were really on their side? What were they- - Well they just said to me, "Have you spoken to anybody? Have you found out anything? Do you see anybody you recognize?" And just questions about the people there. "Have you heard anything about any plots or about where somebody's hiding?" And I always told them, I mean anybody that's here has been here for at least a year. Whoever was outside that was hiding or was plotting, they know that this person is here. They've changed where they are and the plot has probably changed. So any information I get you guys is useless, plus nobody's speaking to anybody here. Interviewer: Did they believe you? - Well, they could believe me or not, it didn't matter. I mean, at the beginning, obviously they didn't because they kept leaving me in the general population. Think that I would come out with something, which I didn't. The whole time I was there I was never able to give them something productive. Interviewer: Do you think there were other plants besides you in Guantanamo? - I'm pretty sure there was, I'm pretty sure. They told me that there was, but they wouldn't tell me how many or where they were, who they were. But there was other people. Everybody wanted outta that place and I'm pretty sure a lotta people would do anything to be outta that place. Interviewer: And where'd they move you to when you said they moved you to yet another place? - They moved me to another range that had six units, but this was like a house. You go in there's a little like rec area. And then there's like a little small portion. Then you open the door and there's like a whole unit, like a room, which has a living room and then a little bathroom in the back and a bedroom. And this whole thing is yours. I was there- - Just you? - Yeah, yeah. And they have, I think they have like, they have a bunch of people there. I mean, the high priority, I've read about them in the news a little bit. I think some of them are people that work for them. And then other ones are people that they just wanna keep away from the general population. Interviewer: Do you know where this building was compared to where you were? - No, beyond this. The day they came to take me, they blindfolded me. They put me in an SUV and they drove around for like 40 minutes. And then every time after that I would be brought because like the Red Cross wanted to see me after I was moved there, they would drive around, drive around and put me in an orange suit and bring me back. 'Cause when I was there I was just dressed in regular clothes. Interviewer: Why would they put you back in orange suit for the Red Cross? - To see me. 'Cause the Red Cross wanted to see me, to see how I am and this and that. Of course they told me when you see them, don't tell them, just tell them that you're in a different ward. Don't tell them that you're in this unit. This unit was very like hush, hush. Nobody knows about it. You don't speak to anybody. You don't tell anybody about it. Interviewer: And were you treated better in this unit? - Yeah. It was just like, I mean, it was like house arrest pretty much because I had my own TV, I had my own PlayStation, I had my own bed. Everything in it was like a regular place, you're just not allowed to leave, that's it. Interviewer: Were there other men nearby you could talk to? - I heard people. They told me, "Don't try to talk to the people in the other units." I'm pretty sure I heard people more than once. But they said, "No, there is nobody else. And if you hear anybody, don't try to speak to anybody. When you're in the rec area outside the unit don't try to talk, don't be loud." Interviewer: Did you go to your regular rec area? - Yeah, outside, I was smoking back then. So I was going outside for a smoke. Every like two, three hours I'd go outside. They had cameras all over this unit in the inside. So I would just tell them, "Guys, I wanna go outside." And then I would wait around like five minutes, somebody would come open the unit for me. Then they would leave the rec area and I would be allowed outside for as long I wanted to. Then I'd go back in. And I would go sit on the sofa and somebody would come lock the unit from outside. Interviewer: Could you talk to anybody when you were in the rec area, or? - No, I only talked to the MPs there that were, because they'd bring me food and everything. And like the people I was working with, they would come and see me. Interviewer: Who were they? - The CIA. Interviewer: They would come see you? - Yeah. - What would they talk to you about? - They would talk to me about like what my options were from now on. You know, they thought about maybe sending me back to Pakistan or sending me to Iraq. And they would just like discuss scenarios. They were doing a lot of tests, mental tests on me to see like what my mental state is. And they were deciding if they wanted to take me back to the States. I don't know, like they had all these options, they never explained them to me. But they said, "We're trying to figure out where we're gonna send you from here on, or how we can use you." They had people like psychiatrists come and see me. They did a polygraph when I was there. I did a polygraph when I was in Kabul also. So they just, you know, like they were just trying to decide what to do with me. Interviewer: And what were you thinking during all this time? - I don't know, I mean, I was just thinking that like, yeah, again, the unit was nice. I couldn't complain, but with time it was, I was there in that unit for five month. With time I was just getting tired of the unit. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be out, you know? So I told them, I'm like, "You guys let's make some plan, whatever the plan is and let's go ahead with it. You know, I don't wanna be displaced anymore." So, I guess they had some people trying to figure out what I could be helpful doing. And they decided to send me to, they discussed the scenario with me and I'm like, "Yeah, that works. Send me to Bosnia and then get me through some pipeline there for the Muslim people that go from Bosnia to Turkey, to Iraq, during the insurgency there against the Americans." So I said, "Yeah, that's fine." And then that's when they decided to send me there. Interviewer: Well, I'd get to that, but when you were in Guantanamo did you get to see your brother? - My brother, when I was in general population I tried to get in touch with him more than once. And then once I spoke to him. He was in a different range altogether and it was across an opening, so it was really hard. And when I started screaming for him he talked back to me and then the MPs started running to my unit because you're not allowed to be really loud and you're not allowed to speak to anybody in a different range. So we just said, "Hi, how are you?" And that was it. Interviewer: So, he knew you were there then? - Yes. My interrogators were trying to arrange for my brother to come see me in interrogation room. And on the date that I was supposed to see him, he was in the hospital on antibiotics, so I couldn't see him. Interviewer: Did you hear rumors about him or stories about him from other detainees? - Yeah, a lotta people that were with him in the same range before told me that he was in bad shape. That he had a lotta pressure from the detainees around him and from the interrogators. I got the impression that he was under a lot of pressure from his interrogators too. So, he was young. And from before that, when I was in the Kabul, interrogators there told me how he was shot. How he was in Bagram, all the stuff that had happened to him in Bagram and everything else. Interviewer: I wonder why they didn't think you could help by meeting with him? You know, maybe he would tell you things he wasn't telling, they could have thought. - What Omar went through in Guantanamo, is Omar when he was first captured, he was injured really bad. He was treated really bad in Bagram, right. So when he reached Guantanamo he was already in a different state of mind. And then there, slowly, slowly his interrogators started working with him and they decided, okay, you know like, we'll give him books. He's cooperating with us. And they gave him books. He was a little bit nicer. He was cooperating with them. The detainees around him saw that he was receiving books and magazines, so they're like watch out. These people that you're cooperating with, you know they're only trying to use you, this and that. So he was manipulated by the people around him. So he refused the books. He was treating his interrogators really bad. And he started uncooperating and being, so he was always, he was very young, so he was influenced a lot by the people around him. Whether it was the CIA that was trying to like, you know abuse him and like use him, or the people around him. Interviewer: People meaning other- - Other detainees, yeah. Interviewer: And did the Canadian officials ever come to speak to you while you were in Guantanamo? - Yes, they came to see me. I think they came to only see me once. And I'm not sure it was in Guantanamo. I know they came to see me in Pakistan. But once the CIA decided that I was working for them, they didn't have the Canadians see me. Whatever they were getting, I'm pretty sure they had a deal with the Canadians they would share it with them. The Canadians didn't really come to see me. I think maybe once, I'm not sure though. But if they did, it was only once. Interviewer: Did any of the detainees suspect you might be not one of them or? - No, I mean, people there had suspicions against everybody. It wasn't just me. - Really? - But it was the smallest things that we could set people off. Like people, if you speak to an MP in English that would set them off, like, "Don't talk to this guy. He speaks English and he's talking to the MPs." But this could mean something, it could also mean nothing. You're just trying to get your food earlier than anybody else, or something like that. Interviewer: Did you see any detainees resist the guards or get into other situations? - I mean every day or every couple of days you had an incident on the range, or you had an incident on different ranges that we'd hear about. I mean, people walking to the rec, not being able to walk in in their chains, people like some of the detainees obviously were throwing feces and stuff at the MPs. Other MPs were just rude and mean. You know you couldn't speak to them even if you were nice. I mean, just, you know, being there is like it was a different experience. I mean, nobody can expect anybody that's in a place like that to be extremely nice to you. I mean, you're my MP I understand that. Don't expect me to be nice to you or anything. I'm going through this experience for no reason that I know of, I'm not being tried, I'm being kept here for God knows how long. And the other detainees told me, I mean, you know some detainees were being seen every month or two by interrogators. Some detainees hadn't seen anybody in two years. And they would keep it that way. They would keep it for two and a half years, three years, nobody would see you except like a doctor or something. So you wouldn't know what's going on. You wouldn't know if you're getting out. If you're being charged, if they know that you're bad or they don't know that you're bad, or they think you're bad, you wouldn't know what was going on. The indefinitcy of it was just, it's what put a lot of people through a hard time. Interviewer: So the five months you were in this little house, did you feel better that at least you weren't in the same population as everyone else? - I did feel a little better, but I mean, the whole time in Guantanamo is like, it's isolated from the world. You don't speak to your family members. You're not in touch with anybody from back home. You don't know what's going on around you in the world. In the beginning, it was a better place than general population, but again, with time, I am sitting in a place where I don't speak to anybody except two or three guards. I see my handlers once a month, once every three weeks or so. So after a while, you know, yeah. I mean, it is a better place, but it's also isolated and you start getting tired of it. Interviewer: Did you see doctors at all? - When I was there I saw a doctor once and I saw a dentist once. Interviewer: Did they do any care for you? - You were only seen by a doctor, or a medical practitioner if you were in really bad shape, or when you first arrived there. They wouldn't see you for, I have pain here or I'm not feeling well. They wouldn't see you for that. And when they saw you, they wouldn't give you medication unless your interrogators approved it. So let's say you had an infection, an ear infection, which I did, right. They wouldn't give it to me. The doctor prescribed it, but they wouldn't give it to me for another 15 days after he prescribed it to me, until they approved it through my interrogators. Which until then I could be dead. I mean, you won't die from that, but you could be in bad shape. You could catch another infection, you know. Interviewer: But your interrogators knew who you were, right? So they should have approved right away. - But again, it's a process, you know. I mean, my doctor doesn't know. So maybe he has a bunch of files that are going to a bunch of interrogators to get approvals. He's not gonna put mine at the top, right? He just puts them somewhere and then one-by-one they're taken and people are, "Oh, you know what, I'll look at this for a couple of days and decide." So your life is pretty much, in Guantanamo your life is in your interrogator's hand. Interviewer: And so for the dentist, what kind of care did you get there, if any? - I think I had a cavity and a filling. And that again, I only got it through my interrogator. Like I had, when I first arrived in Guantanamo I asked to see a dentist, 'cause I was in a lotta pain, for some pain medication and also for the cavity, and nobody would see me. And then when I got out into general population and my interrogator saw me, I'm like, "I've been in pain for the last month and half from my teeth." And that's when they're like, "Okay, okay, we'll get somebody to look at you." And somebody saw me after a couple of days. Interviewer: Did they fill your cavity? - Yes. Interviewer: Were they nice to you when they did their work? - I mean, professional. I mean, they're not nice, but they're professional. They're just doing their work. And again, the treatment you receive from anybody in Guantanamo is based on how your interrogators want you to be treated. Your MP, from your MP from the smallest thing, to the people that serve you food, to your doctors, to your handlers, everything, even how long you get to see the Red Cross for, or how many Red Cross letters you get in your range, if you get books or not, anything, it's all up to your interrogator. Your life and everything is in their hand. Interviewer: Did you get letters? - I received letters once I was there for maybe like three or four month. Interviewer: From whom? - From my grandmother Interviewer: And were they censored? - Yes. - How? - You would read, read, read and then there was like a black like marker over a bunch of stuff. And it wasn't even at the point where you're like, "Okay, well I can guess what's coming up next." They would cut from the beginning of the sentence to the end of it, if there was one thing they didn't like. So you wouldn't know what this whole area said. Interviewer: Could you send mail out to your grandmother? - Yes, from the Red Cross. Interviewer: Was that censored? - From what I got back I realized, yes. Yes, everything was censored that came outta there and went into there. - And did you hear of any suicides while you were in Guantanamo? - I heard of a couple of attempts, I didn't know of anybody that did. But I heard of a couple of attempts, like serious attempts, like people being found with their bedsheets around their neck, and barely saved by the MPs. And when you're in a state where you don't know when you're coming in, you don't know when you're coming out, you don't know what you're charged with, you don't know if you'll leave tomorrow or you won't leave until you die. 'Cause that's pretty much Guantanamo. Every day you're in a state where you think, okay, I could be here for one day, or I could be here for the rest of my life. So when you're in that state, you don't care for your life anymore after a while. Interviewer: Did you think once you were put in the nicer location you were gonna go home or at least get out of there? Did you think that was really gonna happen? - Yeah, I mean, every step that was nicer than the last step was a nice step, but I mean, in the end the hope is just for me to leave, to leave this place. And I mean, during this period that I was in Guantanamo, it just made me like reflect on everything with my life and reflect on working for the CIA. Because when I was working for the CIA in Kabul, they put me in a cell with another high-priority, Al-Qaeda prisoner that they had by the name Rada. And the way I was treated and the way he was treated was so inhumane that again, it made me like reflect on working for them. Because I mean, I'm sitting with these people, I'm speaking to them about why I should be working against Al-Qaeda. But then I see certain things that they're doing and certain ideas that they have that, you know, you're not as bad as Al-Qaeda, but you're not as amazing as you might portray yourself. So, I started reflecting on my participation with them. And by the time I was at the end of my line in Guantanamo I had decided that you know what, I'm done. I don't wanna work for them, I just wanna go home. Interviewer: Could you tell us how you were treated in Bagram? You said you were badly treated in Bagram. What's the other, what's the high-value person that you were with? - Rada. - R? - R-A-D-A. Interviewer: And what happened to him? - I don't know what happened to him. It wasn't in Bagram, it was in this Afghani prison. They took me from the safe house that I was in in Kabul, the CIA. They drove me blindfolded for awhile. Brought me to a place and put you into the cell that's totally black, you don't see anything. This cell is inside another building. So it's like a room that's built inside another building. And once they close the door, it's totally dark. You can't even see your own hand. And you are put into that squat position that I was talking about earlier, but only I was in that position for maybe 12 or 13 hours, overnight. They put me in that range with him to try to talk to him. They gave us, I think, like a quarter piece of bread. And had used the washroom like right there in my clothes because they wouldn't come and take you out. They wouldn't like, and their reasoning was like, oh, he's being kept with Afghan so it's not really a problem how they treat him. But they were come and interrogate him. And he was being kept there by the order of the CIA. So it was things like this that made me think, okay, you know what, like you guys aren't like better. Look at the things you're doing. Interviewer: So he was there before you came and he was there after you left? - Yes. Interviewer: Have you ever heard the term the dog prison? - No. Interviewer: Have you ever met Bisher al-Rawi? - I might, the name kinda clicks, but I don't remember him exactly. Interviewer: So, going back to the five months you were in that place, how do you feel you were able to endure it by reflecting about your life. Were there other things that kept you from staying sane, kept you staying sane? - I mean, I read my Quran. I just tried to think of my family. I kept thinking that, you know what, hopefully one day, you know, I'll be back with my family. And I always like cried for my brother, Omar because it felt like he went through so much. And I always felt bad and guilty about the fact that I might get out. But I don't even know if Omar will ever get out of this place. Interviewer: The fact that you were working for the CIA that couldn't help Omar? You didn't think it could help him? - I asked them and I asked them and you know, but again, it's up to your handlers. I mean, your handler could be like, "Yeah, I want you to work for me." Your handler could be like, "You know what, no. You know what, I'm not gonna let you work for me. I'm gonna get all the information I want from you. I'm gonna use it against you. And I'm gonna keep you here as long as I can, or forever." I mean, in the beginning, in the first two or three years of when I was there, like the first, like two three years of Guantanamo, there was no limit. I mean, even now there's some people that we know that might never leave that place. But back then, the idea was that everybody, the whole 600 people that were there might be there forever you know, until they pass away. And there was points where I felt like, okay, I'm in that boat. And that's like, the day I decided like, you know I was gonna hang myself. I was like, this is not a life. Like, nobody wants to live like this. Interviewer: So you told us off camera that you met Moazzam Begg. - Yes. Interviewer: And could you tell us how that happened? - When I was in segregation, again him and some of the other British guys that were there, they were with us in segregation. And I saw them when when I was outside in the rec. And we just spoke for a couple of minutes. It wasn't for longer than that. Interviewer: And Feroz Abbasi the same thing, just a few words? - Yes, yes. Interviewer: And you also mentioned that you saw David Hicks. Can you tell us about that? - When I was first moved to general population from segregation, I was there for maybe a couple of weeks, maybe two or three weeks and then they brought this guy, they brought him in such a rush in the middle of the night. They put him in the cell and then we're like, "What's going on?" And then he didn't talk to anybody. He just, as soon as he got into his cell, he passed out. And then I asked my neighbor, I'm like, "What's going on?" And he's like, "Oh, this guy, they always bring him. They don't keep him in one place more than two or three hours. And they come and move him again." And we just barely put our heads down to go to sleep again, and exactly like my neighbor said, they came back, they told him, get up, get ready. They shackled him and they moved him again. Interviewer: Had you heard the term frequent flyer while you were there? - I hadn't heard it when I was there, but I heard it when I left. Interviewer: And did you associate it with what you just described? - Yes. Interviewer: Did you know anybody else who had been put on that? - There was a lot of people put through it. I mean, from people I spoke to, those types of torture I mean, the air conditioning in the segregation you know, to the point of like you're freezing, you can't sleep, you can't think, you can't do anything because your bones are so cold and you're shivering. The heat you know, when the cells are so hot that you can't breathe even. The loud music, the frequent flyer, the tying you in the interrogation rooms and leaving you for seven, eight, nine hours. Because being in your cell is bad, but then when they take you to the interrogation room they tie you to a seat and they'll leave with your whole body tied to a seat, to the floor, for six or seven hours with nobody coming to see you. And nobody around you to speak to. And you can't even move from the position that you're in. A lotta people, of course urinated themselves and defecated and everything. Interviewer: And what kind of questions would they ask in interrogation? In your case from the beginning, they knew who you were so they didn't ask- - I mean, the questions they asked is, what's your name? Who are you? Why were you in Afghanistan? What's your ideology? What are your plans when, you know about leaving this place? Why do you hate America? This and that. They just asked you, I mean, they asked you really like a lotta questions and I felt most of them were stupid, to be honest. You have these people that are here, and I told my handlers this when I was in Guantanamo. I told them, I said, "80% of the population here has nothing to do with anything. 20% you guys are right. They're high priority and you guys got your hands on the right people. 80% of the people here are Afghans. They don't know Tom, from Dick, from Harry, they don't know anything. They were brought here for money." They're enemies of somebody who tells 'em, oh, come I'll make up. Because animosity in Afghanistan is a huge thing. So he'll go and tell this guy, "Look we'll break off the animosity that me and you have. Okay, come over to my house, we'll have dinner, we'll fix everything. " And you'll be going over to their house and the Americans will come arrest you on the way. You know, he ratted you out to the Americans, said that you're somebody else and now he got rid of you. There's so many cases of Afghans that had nothing to do with anything that were sitting there. I said to them, and a lot of cases of Arabs too. There's a lot of Arabs that went to Afghanistan because they were just going with the whole caravan. You know, they wanted to go there and participate in what they considered is the jihad, right. And then the big ideas, I mean, attacking innocent people, killing innocent people, you know, suicide bombing, this was for the high priority people. It wasn't for the small players in Al-Qaeda. Now, you take these small guys, these guys would've probably came, stayed for a couple of months, went home and went on with their life. You take these people, you throw them in Guantanamo for four, five, six, seven years, even the smallest person in there, the person that had nothing to do with nothing at all, when he leaves, he doesn't like you now. And it doesn't matter what you say to him. It doesn't matter if you deradicalize him. Now, he hates you. Now you've taken him away from his family for seven or eight years. What do you expect from this person? Interviewer: Going back, did you get actual confirmation from Afghanis telling you that they were sent there because their tribal enemy essentially- - Yeah. Yeah, I had more than one case of people because of tribal animosity, you know, because there how it works, if you have an animosity with someone or a problem with someone, it just carries on generation after generation. Your kids will fight their kids and it will keep going on. It will never end. Somebody will always be trying to kill somebody from your family. So people will arrange for a sit-down where it's resolved through money or some kind of land giveaway or something. And then you'll be on your way there. This is one case, the guy he's like, "I was on my way there. And the American stopped me." People in Afghanistan drive with guns, it's very normal. It has nothing to do with Taliban or not. If you live in Afghanistan you would be carrying a gun too. Everybody carries a gun there. It's very, you know, it's a different kind of society. So he's like, "I got arrested." And I asked him, I asked him, "Do you know this? Do you know that?" He's like, "No." He's like, "I have a business. I've always had a business. I haven't had anything to do with anything." He's like, "My family's had guns before the Taliban, before the Mujahideen, before the Americans, before the Russians. We live in a mountain area. We carry guns, you know?" And that's it, that was sufficient. And then when I spoke to my handler about it, I'm like, "I was next to this guy and he has nothing to do with anything." "Oh, it's okay, we'll decide that." I'm like, you know you guys aren't building, you know, like, you know you're not building something that's helping America. You're building something that's just eventually gonna be, is gonna stand up against America, most of these people. Interviewer: And how about the Pakistanis? Were there tribal enemies there too, or how were they picked up? - A lot of people were picked up from Pakistan, given to the Americans, or, you know, a lotta Pakistanis were with the Taliban. Now, again, like Al-Qaeda's one level. Al-Qaeda's who the Americans had a problem with. And then there's the Taliban. The Taliban said, "We won't give away Osama." But really their ideology wasn't as extreme as Al-Qaeda. You know everybody knows this, even the Americans know this, right. So there was a lot of Taliban that went to the fight, I mean, Pakistanis that went to fight with the Talibans against the Northern Alliance. They had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, or would that ideology at all. They were captured and they were brought, and they were accused of being enemy combatants and like American haters and this and that and all these like big terms. Interviewer: And then when you said Arabs, are you saying that any Arab that was in Afghanistan was pretty much picked up and sold? - Any Arab, any foreign person at all, if you weren't Afghan, you were worth money. You had a dollar sign over your head as long as somebody knew that you weren't from there. And any Afghan with an AK-47 had a dollar over their head. By the time that, you know, you were through Bagram and through Guantanamo, there's a lotta people that went to Bagram and Guantanamo, and by the time Americans were like, "Oh, we finished the whole like interrogation process and everything. And we realize this person knows nothing actually." It would take two, two and half years, three years. And this is a simple process of just interrogation, which here in North America, you're allowed to have that for 72 hours or whatever. There it's three years. - Did you meet any Uighurs while you were in Guantanamo? - Did I what? - Meet the Uighurs, the Chinese dissidents? - No, no. I met a couple of Turkmens when I was in Afghanistan, but not in Guantanamo. - Why would you meet them, were they- - There was some of them that were in Afghanistan. There's a lotta people, a lotta Muslim people that migrated to Afghanistan when the Taliban had control of Afghanistan because they felt it was a state for them to live with no persecution. Interviewer: Did you ever see any hunger strikers? - Yes. Yes, there was, when I threatened, after they took me to the mental ward, they moved me back to segregation, before they actually put me into that different unit. When I was there a couple of people around me were in hunger, and I actually went on hunger strike for a couple of days, but I didn't continue. But yeah, there was a lotta people that were on hunger strike. They were always telling you if you're gonna participate make sure it's something that you wanna do. And that you're not gonna break it because every time somebody eats it just discourages everybody around them. So there was I think five or six people. I think it was the British guys too, but I'm not sure, I can't confirm. But they were on hunger strike for five or six days during the time I was there. I was moved after. Interviewer: Do you know if they were force fed? - I didn't hear of anybody being forced fed. No, actually, yes. Something about putting a balloon inside your stomach. But this was in the very beginning. I hadn't seen it myself, but I heard from other detainees that if you go on hunger strike for a certain amount of time they force feed you. Interviewer: When you said you saw a psychologist after they took you from that cell, what would the psychologist ask you? - Well, "What is your state of mind?" I'm like, "I'm losing my mind. I wanna kill myself." "Why, why do you wanna kill yourself?" "Because I'm here and I don't know if I'm ever leaving here." "Well, tell me how that makes you feel." "I'm feeling suicidal. I'm feeling like you're taking my life away. I have no control over my life." You know, when you're in your cell in general population in Guantanamo, from urinating to doing number two, to eating, to drinking, to sleeping, to praying, everything is monitored by your MP. And if he doesn't like the position that your peeing in then he can tell you to change it or he can call ERF guys to come rough you up. Or he can move you to another range. You know, if you start making a couple friends in this range, he can move you. So, you know, I mean, you feel like when you're in that cell, you feel like your whole life, every part of it, you have no control over. Even your state of mind, you have no control over. Interviewer: Were the psychologists sympathetic? - No. No. We want you to stay here and not complain and not threaten to kill yourself. We want you to just stay like a nice little quiet dog and just not complain. Interviewer: Did they ever suggest to you how you might kill yourself? - No, no. They just told you that you have no right to kill yourself. We won't allow it either. And I mean, one of the biggest things they always told me is by doing that you're just gonna make it worse for yourself. They would no way sympathize towards why am I doing this? Do you think I'm a guy that just wants to kill himself? You know, I'm not. I wanna live my life but there must be a reason why I wanna kill myself in this place. And people have to understand, like people have to understand why everybody there is on hunger strike right now. I mean, it's easy for me and you to say, oh, you know what? They're not so bad. We feed them. We give them money. We know we give them food. You know, it's easy for you to say that, me and you here sitting on our nice sofa, but for people there that have been there for five, six, seven, eight years, no, what is the purpose of my life now? I'm gonna be in the same cell for the rest of my life. No, I'd rather die. And a lotta people, they don't wanna kill themselves because in Islam suicide will end you up in hell. So they just wanna go outside and fight, or punch one of the MPs and then have them shoot him. Because like, if I'm killed by somebody else at least I won't go to hell. Interviewer: When you saw the Red Cross, what could you say to them? And how, how did they treat you? - We complained to them and they try to sympathize as much as they can. But I think it was so difficult for the Red Cross to be there and for them to see the prisoners that they had to keep a certain like distance from all the prisoners and treat the prisoners a certain way. You didn't feel like when you went to see them, like, okay I'm in a safe place here. They made you feel like, okay, here's a couple of letters, write these letters. Oh, you know what? I'm getting some really bad food. It's okay, there's nothing we can do about that. Oh, you know, I don't like the treatment I'm getting. There's nothing we can do about that. Like it was just a bunch of, there's nothing we can do about that. We just got these letters for you if you wanna write them, send them to your family. Interviewer: So did you find it frustrating talking to the Red Cross? - It was, it was very frustrating. Tried to talk to Amnesty, there's nobody from Amnesty there. I talked to the Red Cross. The Red Cross seemed very like indifferent, you know? And I don't know, I don't know if they do that by choice. I think it's that they're forced to do that or the MPs, or the interrogators can tell them, you don't like it take a hike. We control this place, we own this place. We own everybody in there. So whatever privilege you get to seeing one of the detainees it's a privilege. It's not like a right or anything like that. Interviewer: So I don't understand, why would the U.S. want you to put on an orange jumpsuit when you go see the Red Cross, and not let them know that you're staying at another location in civilian clothes? I don't quite understand why. - Because obviously, they don't want the Red Cross to know about this location. Because the Red Cross doesn't know about anybody else and there's people that were staying in those units. And there's more than one unit. I know that the one I was saying in had six units. But I'm pretty sure there was a bunch of other ones that had six units around it. But they don't want any, you know they don't want the Red Cross to know about those people. There's some people that the Americans have that nobody knows about and nobody will ever know about. And their families are in countries that are so poor they have no way to reach the American media or the North American media to tell them, "Look, our son or our brother or our husband or our wife is missing and we don't know where he is." There is people that have gone into the abyss and nobody will ever know what happens to them. Somebody in the CIA or somebody in like the Homeland Security will know that this person is in this place and that's it. And you'll never hear from them again. I mean, my father personally, I don't know. I mean, there's people in my family convinced me, I'm convinced that my dad is dead too, but sometime I have my doubts. I just think, okay, what if my dad is alive? Because we never saw his body and we don't know where he was buried. So what if my dad was injured really bad, but they got to him and they rescued him and he's in a prison somewhere. And they just are keeping him there. They can afford to. The CIA can keep anybody for the rest of their life in a prison somewhere in Tibet or in China, or somewhere where nobody will ever hear from them again. Interviewer: So you think U.S. is hiding certain people in this part of the prison. - Yes. Yes, I'm not thinking, I know for sure that they're hiding. They told me that there's people here that we don't want that Red Cross to know about. Interviewer: And they told you what kind of people they are? - They wouldn't tell me what kind of people or who they were. Just I got the impression from them that they were high priority to them. And I don't mean this by, they were cooperators. I think some of them were, but also some of them were just like some people that they don't want the public to have access to them, or the media to have access to them. Interviewer: So you had to pretend you were living in another part of the prison when you would meet with the Red Cross? - Yes. - You have to give them the name of the place you were living at? - Again, the Red Cross were very like censored by the MPs. The amount of time that you're with them is very limited. And there was an MP standing right outside the tent. So at any point he could tell, "You know what, time to go." And there was cases where like, I would open my mouth and be like, "Look, I need this." And then the guard would come in and be like, "Your time is up, let's go, that's it." Anything that was like, they were monitoring everything. Like the interrogators monitored the conversations that you have with your lawyer, if you had a lawyer. They monitored the conversations you had with the Red Cross. There was no privacy. There was no rights in that place. Nobody cares about your rights. Nobody cares about privacy Interviewer: But you didn't have a lawyer while you were there, right? - No, I didn't. But other people that did we know now that everything, like my brother, Omar, his conversations with his lawyers were recorded by the CIA. And I have no doubt, they would tell me stuff like this. They would tell me that, from the day that you guys decided to attack the Twin Towers, you gave up every right. We own your life now. We own everything about it. Interviewer: Were you able to visit Omar since he's come back to Canada? - I wasn't able to visit him. The government won't allow me. But my mother and my sisters and my brother has visited him, and my sister-in-law. Interviewer: And why won't they let you? - I don't know, to be honest. I mean, I don't know. I mean, is it because I was with him in Guantanamo or not? I don't really know. But I wasn't allowed to see him. Interviewer: Well, we can talk more about that. So can you tell us how you found out you were actually going to leave and what exactly transpired as you were leaving before you got to Bosnia? - They decided that they would put me in Bosnia. Put me through some pipeline there to get to Iraq and work for them against the insurgency in Iraq. And I said, okay, I just wanted out. So they said, any plan that they came up with I was usually like, "Yeah, that works. Yeah, that works, yeah, that works." Because they kept coming up with different plan. They came to me with a forged Moroccan passport. They said, "We're gonna put you there. We're gonna put you in some place. I'm gonna put you near a mosque. And we're gonna try to get you to speak to people." I was in Bosnia for maybe like a month before I blew my cover without blowing my cover. So I went back and told my grandmother to go to the media and tell her that I'm in Bosnia and I'm trying to get back to Canada. And I told the CIA that she was the one that said she was gonna do it. It wasn't me that told her. And she said she was gonna do it either way. So the Canadian government got up and said, "Oh, we have to bring him back." So they sent me back. And that's how I got back. Interviewer: So when you left Guantanamo, what kind of plane did you leave on? - I left on a private jet, apparently the deputy director's jet, from what I know, of the CIA. The jet, they took me- Interviewer: You were in a hood, or- - No. They put me in a hood for the whole drive to get to the airport. No, to a boat, a speed boat. And then there they took off the hood and they put me on the speedboat. We went for a little cruise in the water, and then we got off and got in another car and went to the airport. And then we sat there and waited for like maybe 30 to 40 minutes until the plane landed. And I was like, wow, that's a Gulfstream IV and they're like, yeah. And I went inside, there was food and everything, and my handler was in there. And he spoke to me about what I was gonna do when I get there. We landed in- Interviewer: You were in civilian clothes? - Yes. Interviewer: And you were not shackled at all? - No, I wasn't shackled. Interviewer: Were there men with guns on the plane? - There was nobody with guns. There was a pilot, there was a couple of stewardesses and that was it. Interviewer: So they really trusted that- - Yeah, yeah, no at this point they had me, like they trusted me and everything. They felt like, you know, I'm working for them. Interviewer: And then the plane flew directly to Bosnia? - No, we stopped in a Portuguese island on the way, to refill. So we stopped there, we refilled. And then from there we landed in Bosnia. Interviewer: And when you landed in Bosnia, where did you go? - We landed in an American base in Bosnia. And then from there, they drove me to a hotel and we stayed in a hotel for a few days. And then from there we drove to Sarajevo. We stayed in a hotel there for a few days until they found me a place to stay. And then they put me up in a place Interviewer: Who's they? (off camera chatter) Okay, sure, let's take a break and then we'll come back. After you leave and you've got to Bosnia, can you tell us exactly once you were put into the community, well actually, who your handlers were. Who were your handlers when you got to Bosnia? - I don't remember their name, but it was two guys. It was a black guy and a white guy. - CIA or- - Yes, they were CIA. And they came to see me once a week. They didn't see me that frequently 'cause he didn't want me to be seen with anybody, like any Americans or anything like that. So it was very clandestine when we met up. It was like, go here, do this, and then go there and go there, and then we'll pick you up at a place. Interviewer: And what was the intention for you? What did they want you to do? - So their intention for me was that there was a mosque in Bosnia. They wanted me to go there and start talking to people and get into the community or whatever and find out if somebody there can send me to Iraq. You know, if somebody knew how to smuggle somebody from Bosnia into Iraq. 'Cause there was a lot of Muslim people leftover from the Bosnian war that stayed in Bosnia. And a lot of them did go to Iraq when the the Americans invaded Iraq. So there was a certain pipeline from Bosnia to Iraq and they were trying to get me to find it and get myself into it. Interviewer: And what did you say, where were you coming from when you showed up there? - When I showed up, I told them I was in Afghanistan and I had been hiding in Pakistan for like the last two years and collected some money here and there and I smuggled myself into Iran. And then from Iran, I smuggled myself into Turkey. And then from Turkey, I'd found a way to smuggle myself into Bosnia. Interviewer: And they believed you? - And people believed me, yeah. Interviewer: And did they find a place, a way for you to? - So as I said, when I reached there, my reflecting and my whole reflecting the whole time on if I should be working for the CIA or not, I think I'd come to a conclusion that I don't wanna work for them. That I was just a pawn to them. I mean, obviously I was a pawn if they wanted me to go to Bosnia and they wanted to throw me in there, with people getting killed left, right, and center. They didn't really care about my health or anything. They just wanted to get a result out of me and that's all that mattered to them. So I decided that no, I don't wanna work for them anymore. And I just broke my ties and I emailed my grandma and told her to like go to the media and tell them that I'm in Bosnia and that I'm trying to get back to Canada. Interviewer: And what happened then? - I right away went back to my handlers so I can cover my own back, because I felt like if they find out that I blew my own cover they might just snatch me and throw me somewhere where nobody can find me again. So I right away tried to like, there was a way of contacting them if there was an emergency. And I'm like, "I talked to my grandma today and she said that she was going to the media. And I tried to plead with her and everything and she's like going to the media anyway." So this is again, I had a little, like I had my own manipulation when I was in Bosnia with the CIA. I mean, they manipulated and I manipulated too. When they brought me to Bosnia I'm like, "We have to inform my grandma that I'm outside. Because if somebody sees me in Bosnia and somehow contacts somebody, that contacts somebody, and then my grandma reaches the news that I'm free and I'm walking the streets in Bosnia, then they're gonna be like something is suspicious. Why are you out and not telling us. And then they might be suspicious that I'm working for you guys." So I'm like, "When I get out, I have to tell my grandmother that I'm there, but with a cover story." The whole smuggling and smuggling and smuggling, right. So they're like, "Okay, just make sure that she doesn't go to the media." That was the condition. I was like, "Okay." I talked to her a couple of times when I got to Bosnia. And she had said, okay, she won't go to them. And even the third time she hadn't said she was going to them, I was the one that told her to go to them. So she went to them and I right away contacted them and said, "They're going so you guys should be aware of the storm that's about to hit." So they're like, "Okay." They took me right away off the apartment that I was staying in and kept me in a safe house for two days. And then the news hit the wire. The media found out. When the media found out, they asked the Foreign Affairs minister in Canada and he called somebody in Washington and Washington was calling Ottawa, and Ottawa was calling Washington. And then obviously it went down the chain to the CIA to bring him back. Whatever way you have to bring him back, just bring him back. So my handlers got the news like get him to the Canadian embassy as soon as possible. And they took all everything I had, my cell phone, everything, and they brought me in front of the embassy and dropped me there. Interviewer: And what was the story your grandmother told the media? - She told them the story about me getting smuggled, from Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to Iran, to Turkey, to Bosnia. Interviewer: She didn't know you had been in Guantanamo? - No. Interviewer: And so when did it finally break that you in fact were in Guantanamo? - When I came back, I sat down with the media. I told them the same story about me getting smuggled here and there and there. And then one day I was speaking to a friend of mine from the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And me and him were just speaking randomly and I felt like I had this whole big weight on my shoulders and on my chest. So I told him, I'm like, come I wanna tell you something. I can't anymore. And me and him walked around the same block maybe 18 times. He wouldn't stop, he's like, "No you have to keep going." And I was telling him and telling him, and he just couldn't believe it, like everything. And he's like, "You have to tell everybody. You can't live on this lie, like you have to. People will eventually know. And when they know you're gonna be a liar. Instead, it's best that you tell people." So I went ahead and did the documentary. Interviewer: With whom? - With the CBC and PBS. Interviewer: You went to them and- - I did a documentary with the CBC. And it was also on the PBS. Interviewer: Is that how the story broke through the CBC? - Yeah. Interviewer: And did they pay you for that? - No. Interviewer: And so no one really knew, even your family they didn't know until the CBC- - Nobody knew until the CBC- - Broke the story. - Yeah. Interviewer: And how'd the U.S. respond to it? - I mean, of course there was denial from the CIA and from everybody that I worked for them. So they got a polygraph, they polygraphed me at the CBC and they realized that yes, I did work for them. And then they asked me to indicate certain things to them that indicated that I did work for them. So I brought up details that nobody could know but me. And then one of the people I worked with was an FBI officer. And I still remember his name, Steve Bongardt. He's a special agent out of New York. And he worked on the Oklahoma tower, on the Oklahoma bombing. So I said, I remember his name 'cause he told me, "If you're ever back in the States." So I gave them his name and they pulled him up and they pulled a bunch of pictures of him from his high school and other people. And I picked him out, out of like eight people. I'm like that's him. And they said, that is him yeah. And then the polygraph also proved that I was being honest and an unofficial person from the U.S. government confirmed and make my story, but he wouldn't give his name or anything like that. So that's how my story came out. Interviewer: The FBI agent, what was his relation to you? How did you know him? - When I was in Afghanistan, in the very beginning when the CIA and FBI was talking to me, he was one of the people that spoke to me. Interviewer: And at that point you also told how you were in Guantanamo for those eight months. - Yes, I told the whole thing. Why I was in Guantanamo and Bagram, everything. The flight to Bagram, the flight, you know, the whole thing. Interviewer: And how were you treated by the Canadians once this came out? - To be honest, the Canadians didn't respond to it very well. I don't think they understood the story. I got a very better response from the American like audience than the Canadian audience. The Canadian audience just took it as like, "Oh, another son of the infamous Canadian Al-Qaeda family. Just kick him out of Canada, this and that. The Americans responded in a way better way. And you know what, this person worked for the CIA and as usual the people that work for the CIA get treated like crap and we end up losing all our assets around the world because we're ignorant. And it was really good responses from people. Interviewer: And were you able to get work in Canada? - It was difficult in the very beginning, it was really difficult because of the documentary. And then because of that, I also like, I mean, the beginning of the first two years it was a lot of publicity, but after that I lay low for a long time. But now it's okay. A lotta people don't recognize the family anymore. Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit about the family going back to your childhood, or back to your father, since he- - So my dad came to Canada, he studied here. And he met my mother here. - From where? - From Egypt. He met my mother here. She's also came from Egypt, she's Palestinian, but she was a refugee in Egypt. And then she came to Canada. He met her here, they got married. And then my dad was teaching. He was a professor at a university in Bahrain. And then he came back and he was working for Bell Northern here for a few years. And then he decided that he wanted to do something like, you know, he wanted to help the orphans. The Afghan war was very like mainstream and like popular and politically correct back then. You know, the conflict there with the Soviets, 'cause America supported it, obviously. So my dad decided to go there and then he went there. He got very involved with the orphans and he got involved with the Islamic cause and with the Al-Qaeda cause. And that's how we ended up staying there. Interviewer: Where were you born? - I was born in Bahrain when my dad was teaching there. My mom gave birth to me. Interviewer: And how was your childhood and what kind of conditions did you live in as a child? - Pakistan, I mean, what I remember about my childhood, like I have very fond memories of my childhood. I mean, other people think I must have miserable, but I have very fond memories of my childhood because we were very close family. And we are until now. I mean, we were very close knit, we love each other, we miss each other. We can't stay away from each other for a long time. And I think most of it is because of what we went through that we have each other to hold on to. So yeah, I mean, our childhood was okay. I mean, it wasn't a North American childhood, it wasn't camps and this and that, but whatever we had there it was okay and it was good enough for us. Interviewer: And it was in Pakistan? - Yes. Interviewer: And how close are you to Omar? How many years apart are you? - Me and Omar are three years apart. Interviewer: And were you close with him? - Yeah, but I was closer with my brother Kareem. He was the one that was paralyzed in the same attack that killed my father. Interviewer: Could you tell us about that? - When I was in, where was I, I was in Kabul, I think. Yeah, I was in Kabul and they. No, was I? Yes, I was in Kabul and they told me about the incident where my father and my brother were in a compound and my brother was outside collecting water from like a river. And he saw the Pakistani soldiers and they grabbed him and said, go inside and tell everybody to surrender or we're gonna kill everybody. So he went back inside. And he told my dad. My dad is like, take the other kids that are there. There was two, four other kids. And he's like, go through the back and just keep running and don't look back. So they did. And they started running, they all got shot. My brother and two other kids got shot. And in the compound a firefight broke out and it went on for three, four hours. And the Apaches bombed the whole compound. And my dad was killed, apparently, in this compound. My brother was paralyzed. He was left in the dirt after he was shot for like four or five hours. They wouldn't even give him water 'cause they thought he might have something strapped to his chest. And then they took him in a helicopter and brought him to Islamabad and then back to Canada. Interviewer: And how did you hear that story? - From my brother. Interviewer: Which brother? - Kareem. Interviewer: You didn't know that story 'til you came back to Canada? - I knew about my father being killed. I knew about like my brother being in the compound, but I didn't know about the details. I heard the details when I came back from my brother. Interviewer: And how'd you know that your father was killed? - My father was by my handler in Kabul that told me that my dad was killed. Interviewer: And where was your mother and your sister during all this turmoil? - Somewhere in Afghan and Pakistan border somewhere. Interviewer: So why is this such a problem in Canada, your family, I don't quite see that. - The issue with my family in Canada is that my father was arrested in '95 to '96 in Pakistan for allegations that he was involved in the Egyptian embassy bombing. And then he was there and we were trying everything to release him. And there was a mission by the prime minister back then to Pakistan. So we spoke to the media and the media put some influence, like they put some pressure on the prime minister and we did too, and he spoke to the prime minister in Pakistan and he was released. - Your father? - Yes. And then all of this other stuff came out about my father being involved with Al-Qaeda, being close to Al-Qaeda, being close to Osama. So they call it the Khadr effect here in Canada. You know, the Canadian government helped someone come out and then look what happened. Interviewer: And what happened was? - What happened was that they turned out to be a big Al-Qaeda family, for them anyway. - Did you meet Osama? - Yes, I met him, more than once. Interviewer: Do you have any thoughts about him? - I mean, I don't know, I was very young when I met him. I have a few experiences where I was like, I was a troublemaker when I was young, so my experiences with Osama were usually me getting disciplined. - By him? - By his body guards. Osama usually didn't deal with anybody. He had so much people around him to deal with everything for him. One incident, I was playing with a can, a pop can, and I filled it up with gunpowder. And I put it on a rock and I'm thinking if I light it up it's gonna go up into the air. But because of the angle of how I put it up and Osama was just leaving his, like the guestroom where he stays and meets everybody. And this thing just came up. And when it came up, everybody got into the position, they thought it was an American attack or something like that. And then everybody looks at me and I'm standing there. So I got in a couple of troubles because of that. Besides that, you know, I mean, I was too young, but for me he was just a, he was the Big Kahuna back then. I mean, I guess that's my impression of him. Interviewer: Where were you living? Was it a compound that you were living? - Yes, we were living in a compound that had all the people that lived with him and we were in that same compound. We had a house there. We had a house in the city too. Interviewer: You don't have to answer these questions. I'm just wondering, did he ever speak badly about the U.S. in your presence? I mean, did you know that he really hated the U.S. or- - No, to be honest, I've never sat down once and he said, you know, like, oh the U.S. is bad. And we're gonna do this and that to it. Like, I would see stuff in the news about it and about how he's bad. My first experience with Osama was I was coming back. After my dad was released from Pakistan, he went to Canada, he stayed here for a while, and then we decided to go back to Pakistan. On the flight back, I was reading Time magazine and in it was the world's most wanted person is Osama Bin Laden. I'd never met him before or heard of him or anything. This is my first experience with him. And we landed in Pakistan. My dad was telling us about us going to this special place but he wouldn't tell us where, you know. We landed in Pakistan and then after approximately a month we were driving one day to this special place. And then we walk into this compound. We walk into a huge guest room, and there he is, there's the person, there's the most wanted person in the world. And he just said, hi to my dad. And we sat down and we ate. And that's it.. Interviewer: What were you thinking? - Well, I was thinking, you know, look at this guy, he's the most wanted person he's just sitting here eating with us. He doesn't seem like that wanted to me. He just seems like a regular guy. Interviewer: And did you hear other people speak about America? - I mean, the general, like I mean general consensus there was that America's bad. Everybody hated America in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Talibans and the Arabs. I mean, you know, the whole, I mean, most of the Middle East the places I visited and the people I visited, I mean, a lotta people don't like America, for a lot of their policies, their foreign policies. But I mean, yeah, I mean, people didn't like America, didn't like that they were in Saudi. They didn't liked that they were in any of the Arabic countries. All the air bases all over the world telling the world what to do, policing, you know. Interviewer: And how about Canadians? Was there any hostility toward Canadians? - No. No, Canadians are conceived as nice, you know, nice people. They're not involved in anything. And they weren't, I mean to the Al-Qaeda, they weren't until they got involved in Afghanistan war. Interviewer: And do you feel your father tried to inculcate you in this kind of thinking, or? - A couple of times, I mean, I was sent to training camps. I was sent to like four, five training camps. I had one guy speak to me about like the whole idea of becoming a suicide bomber and stuff. And it just wasn't for me. I don't think, to be honest, personally, I don't think my dad believed in it too. In this whole, you know, he believed in like man-to-man and stuff like that. I don't think my dad believed in suicide bombing. Interviewer: What kind of training camps did he send you to? What were they training you for? - They're training you for like regular urban war, like, you know, AKs, tanks, explosives, stuff like that. Interviewer: Did you feel comfortable in that, or did it seem like, oh, you're too young or? - I was 12 or 13 years old, so I was kind of young. But again, for me, like I had lived there. We moved to Pakistan when I was two years old. So I was more like of that culture than of this. So it wasn't really a shock to me, everything that was going on there. I'd seen people walking around with guns and everything like that was normal to us. It wasn't a surprise. Interviewer: And the other children in the family were sent to the same camps? - Yes. Interviewer: And do they ever react differently? Did any of the kids react differently to what they experienced? - No, I mean, it was a normal thing there for the kids to go to camps, like training camps or schools. Like we went to school in the regular school year, and then some families stayed in Pakistan and stuck with like work and school. And some families moved to Afghanistan, got involved more with the conflict and sent their kids to training camps. Interviewer: And how did Omar seem to you when, he was younger than you, but how did he seem to you as a kid? - Omar's the nicest kid in the world. Omar couldn't hurt a fly if he wanted to. I mean, I still, I don't believe the allegations against him. And I think the evidence is clear. A lotta people are convinced that because he agreed to plead guilty that he is guilty. I mean, for the people that are conscious and aware and open books and open internet, they would be aware that he only did that to get outta there because he had no other options of getting out of Guantanamo, but to plead guilty. I mean, he didn't for 10 years. If he was going to he would have done it from the first year. He didn't, he resisted for 10 years until they told him your only way outta here is to plead guilty. So I know Omar didn't do it. He didn't have anything to do with it. They shot him. There was a wall that landed on him. He's been in jail for more than half his life. And they still accuse him and talk about him as a murderer. I don't know. Interviewer: So as a young kid, 'cause you knew him as a very young kid, he was always. - Nice guy, extremely nice. Mommy's boy. I mean, everybody knows that about Omar, he's mommy's boy. So I mean, if we were hurting an animal outside, he would go complain to my mom. He was never sent to training camps. He was never sent to like, any place where he could have been radicalized or anything like that. My dad sent him to translate for these guys and these guys started showing him things. And I'm pretty sure my dad isn't aware of it or my mom because they wouldn't have been okay with it. And there was a video of him making a bomb and all of this and that, and then. Interviewer: So you think your dad sent him there just to help them out as a translator? - Yes, I don't think, I know for a fact, I mean, Omar was too young. My dad lived in Afghanistan and everything, but my dad is an open-minded person he's been around the world. He knows a 15-year-old can't be involved in a conflict. I mean, he knows that, you know. But he sent us to training camp. He'd send me to the training camp when I was even younger than that. But the only thing is Omar was Omar. Omar wasn't built like me. I was a little bit tougher. Omar was always around my mom. So the only reason he was there was to translate Interviewer: Was Abdul and Kareem more like you too in that sense? - Abdullah as tougher too. But again, Kareem, was too young. Kareem the whole time he was too young. And Abdullah was tougher, but I mean Abdullah got caught in Pakistan. The whole time he was out he never got caught until I think it was like 2004 or something by the Pakistanis. And then they threw a bunch of accusations against him, the Americans and the Canadians. He's still wanted in the States for selling AK-47s and weapons to Al-Qaeda. They're not saying that he had anything to do with any killing or by any of the stuff, but he just sold them weapons. Interviewer: So he never went to Guantanamo? - No. Interviewer: Do you see him, while you're- - My brother Abdullah? Yeah, I see him all the time. Interviewer: And Kareem? - Kareem, I see him all the time. He's with my mom in Egypt right now. Interviewer: He was able to travel even though he's- - Yes. - Is he paralyzed from the waist down. - Yes, he's paraplegic. - But he was able to travel? - Yes. Interviewer: So you still feel close to all the members of your family? - Oh everybody, everybody in my family. Interviewer: And how does Omar do you think, how is Omar doing, even though you couldn't see him, have you heard from your mother? - I don't know, I mean, I speak to him on the phone all the time. - You can speak to him.? - Yeah, I speak to him on the phone. I don't know what to say about Omar. Omar is just, is a sad story. It's a devastating, sad story and a horrific example of abuse of power. Omar was 15 years old. When he was captured he should have been treated and he should have been released, or put through some program to show him what's right and wrong. Instead, he was kept for 12 years now. Abused, not treated for his eye injury, not treated for his back injury. And in the end forced to take a guilty plea. And go through the, like then the ringer. I mean, Omar lost his whole life. He was 15, he's 26 and a half now. I always tell people to give them perspective, you know, Omar has never seen an iPhone. He's never seen an iPad. He's never seen a PlayStation 3. He's never seen a flat screen. Interviewer: So when you talk to him, what do you talk about? - How are you? How is everything? He's okay, he tells me, I'm okay. He doesn't wanna talk about jail. 'Cause he's like, "I live it everyday. Just tell me about what's going on outside." And he misses it, when we go camping, he wants, you know I just feel like, you know, it breaks my heart. He hasn't done any of these things. Interviewer: Do people listen in? Does he Canadian authorities listen in to your phone calls? - I don't think so, now. It's different here, now he's in Canada. That's why America doesn't wanna bring any of the prisoners to the States because it would be difficult to like do the crooked things that they do in Guantanamo out in here in North America and Canada or the States. So I don't think they do. But they're not making it any easier for him to get out. I mean, they could have released him like David Hicks as soon as he came back. You know, we have a conservative government that's very in hand with the American government, I believe. I mean, they want him to spend the whole four or five years that he has to do instead of just paroling him. Interviewer: Does Omar know that? - Omar is just hoping for the best. I think it's hard to be in Omar's shoes and I think we all feel like if we ever did time, we would never be institutionalized, but I think he is. I think he's at a point where he's been inside for so long that he, like, he doesn't know anything else. Interviewer: How do you think he'll be when he's finally released? - I think he would pay the whole world's money or fortune to just hug my mother. To just see her one time and hug her. Everything that me and my siblings like take for advantage, he would do anything in the world to have. He's like, if I came out, I would plow the snow at my grandma's house for the next 10 years. I would mow the lawn for the next 10 years. I would spend the next year living with her, not going anywhere, just living with her for the next year. He wants these things that he hasn't experienced. Interviewer: When his mother came to visit him. She couldn't hug him. - No, there was a separation. Interviewer: So does she have to talk by the phone? - Yeah. - With a glass panel? - Yeah. - And that's true for- - That's true for all of us. - All the visitors. - Yeah, all the visitors that visit him. Interviewer: How's his life in the prison? Do you know anything about that? - It's not the best. It's not the worst. I mean, he was in Ontario in the beginning and that wasn't, I mean, it was okay. But you know, he wasn't getting the phone to call us. He didn't know how the system works here. Guantanamo's bad, but it's different here. I mean, here there's, there everybody around you, like nobody's your enemy there. Like, nobody's trying to stab you. There's none of that over there. Here, now you have the stabbings. Well people wanna stab you because you're Omar Khadr. And there's the gangs, there's bikers. We have all kinda people inside and he's getting threatened by everybody. - Really? - Yeah, he's threatened by everybody. He just got punched like two weeks ago by a prisoner. And he's like, when I asked him why he's like, "I don't know, I just wanted to. You're Omar Khadr, I just wanted to punch you." Interviewer: So everyone knows who he is? - Yeah. Interviewer: And they don't like him because- - They don't like him because he's Omar Khadr. Interviewer: Does he have any friends, do you know? - He doesn't have any friends inside. He was with a couple of friends when he was in Ontario and the prisoners moved him from that range and put them in another range. He was with a couple of other Muslim guys. They would pray together and stuff. They moved them from each other. - Why? - Just to keep them away from each other. So he doesn't radicalize them. - Really? - Yeah. And my brother is the nicest person in the world. I mean, he's watching National Geographic. He likes Shark Week. That's what he'd probably be talking to them about. Interviewer: What's Shark Week? - Shark Week, like on Discovery. Something like that, you know. I mean, that's what he'd be talking to them about. Interviewer: And in Edmonton are there any Muslims there that he can pray with? - I don't know. I mean, not in his range. He doesn't have any other Muslims in his range. Interviewer: What's your thoughts in terms of his future, when he finally does come out? How do you think? - I don't know, I mean, that question is as good to me as it is to anybody else, to you I mean. What does a person do after coming out? You know, after being in jail for 12 years. I mean, Omar wants to start easy. My brother was in for six years, my older brother Abdullah. And he was, I mean, he was gone for three months, four months when he came out. And I wouldn't understand it, I'm like, what's wrong with you? This is regular stuff. Just go out and get something from the grocery store. And he didn't want to. He didn't wanna leave his room. He didn't wanna do anything. So imagine Omar. I know when he comes out he wants to spend a lot of time with my grandmother. Like a lotta time, you know, maybe he said six months to a year. He registered for some schools. He wants to go back to school and maybe try to get his life back together. Interviewer: Did his grandmother come to visit him? Can she do that? - She couldn't visit him. He's in Edmonton. When he was in Ontario, she couldn't visit him because my grandmother is really old. She's 85 years old. So she can't make the travel and everything. But hopefully when he comes out, he'll be staying with her for awhile. Interviewer: And is he being educated now? - There's people from University of Edmonton sending him books and trying to get him his equivalency and trying to get him into some school programs. He said, he's doing a couple of school programs. Interviewer: And is Dennis Edney his lawyer and does that help him? - He's able to help him as much as he can. I mean, it's better now that he's there because he's closer to Dennis Edney and everything. And hopefully we also moved him there because we wanna get him out of Ontario because Ontario has a grudge. Like they have a grudge for Omar, you know. We're not gonna get any parole here. We're not gonna get anything. There in Edmonton they don't know Omar that well. They're more liberal in Edmonton. Here they're more conservative. So they sent him there. Hopefully he gets better treatment and the parole board there is gonna see him, in I think six or seven days, they're gonna see him. It'll be his first parole hearing. So hopefully, you know, hopefully he gets out. I mean, we have high hopes for him to come out on that hearing. Interviewer: Really? Come out on a day parole, or? - I don't know, whatever works for them. As long as they release him somehow. Interviewer: And can people come as witnesses to the parole hearing on his behalf? - You know what, I was discussing that with a friend of mine would the wife of Christopher Speer come to the hearing. But you know, Michelle was telling, it was Michelle, she was telling me that you know what, I doubt people are gonna come from the States, all the way here. She's like, I doubt that people are gonna come from the States all the way here. People want it to be over with, you know? And hopefully that's what it is. Because if people show up, then it's no good for him. Interviewer: So there's fear that Christopher Speer's, the wife of the man who was killed, might come and try to? - Be a witness in the hearing. Interviewer: Have you ever heard from her or spoken to her. - No, no, no. Our family hasn't heard from them at all. Interviewer: And you feel that Ottawa is much more difficult than Edmonton would be in terms of being sympathetic to him. - Ontario, I mean, I think Ontario, Omar's very popular with the Ontario media. I mean, everybody in Ontario, Michelle Shepherd, the CBC, The Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, everybody writes about him every time he does something. Now, since he's been an Edmonton, you know, you don't hear about him that much in the news. And that's what we want. We want people that don't know anything about him to be the judges in his hearing, not people that already have a preconceived notion about him. Interviewer: Lou, do you have some questions? Lou: Well, I'd just like to know about your feelings. What is your sense of the United States, of President Obama about, and what would you do with Guantanamo if you were in charge? What would you do with this institution that is now there? How would you handle it? - What I would like, what I would do is honestly, like, here's the thing So what are you gonna do? You keep people for seven years they get out, they're radicalized, they try to attack America anyway. So, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna keep everybody there forever? You can't do that. And you can never stop every attack that's gonna be against America. You can never stop all of them. You'll never even like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna take every, like, terrorist out there. Can you collect them all and put them in Guantanamo and keep them there for eternity? And their kids too, because their kids are gonna probably be like, mindwashed too. You can't do it. You can't do it. You know what we start with, we start with the first right step, which is I would close it down. And I wouldn't talk about closing it down and keep it open. No, I would close it down. I would send people back to their countries. And I would use my intelligence and my drones, you know. I mean, that's another illegal step in my eyes, but I mean, we can't do everything illegally. We try to do what we can to protect ourself, but that's about it. I don't think keeping people there is productive. I think the people there, even if you keep them thinking, okay, most of these people when they get out, they're gonna be attacking America. But what about their relatives? This is one person that's sitting there. Now you have 20 cousins and four brothers and 20 uncles. Do you think when you're walking down the street they're gonna give you a break. I haven't seen my cousin in eight years. No, I hate you, of course I hate you. And if somebody in the mosque tells me to come join a group, I'm gonna come join it. So what he's doing is totally counterproductive. It's totally counterproductive. Anybody would get off their pedestal and actually get off that, you know, like you know, that mentality that, you know like, the way we're doing it here is the right way. Everybody around the world doesn't know anything, 'cause we have it figured out. No, get off your seat, get off your pedestal, go visit these countries, go learn their culture. And that's what I've been saying to my handlers from day one. Thinking that you guys can come around the whole world and tell everybody how it happens, it's not. You need to come and learn from these people. Learn what is making them. What makes them tick? What does is making these people go from a person that's trying to feed his kids, to a person that straps something around his chest and just think about it, actually pushes a button that will kill him. What makes a person do that? I mean, I'm not justifying it, but I'm saying there's gotta be some crazy convictions behind it. And that's the thing, I mean, what Obama is doing there is totally counterproductive. I mean, he's not doing anything to help the public's perception of America. So I would close it. I would personally close it. I'd send everybody back to their country and I would deal with anybody else that tries to come and attack me. That's it. Lou: Have you gotten a more negative view? I know you grew up mostly in Pakistan and you've had a really incredible range of experiences with the U.S., what is your perspective now? You're living in Canada. You've got this long history with, you know, in your life. What does America seem like to you? - I mean, I guess I view America now, before I used to view America as a member of a society that lived in Afghanistan and as everybody else viewed them. And then I worked for the CIA and for a fairly brief period I had this notion that here's the fight for freedom and rights and all things good. And then the process of peeling started happening and I started seeing the true colors of the people I was working for. I realize that there is a lot of good people in America. A lot of the regular people are very nice people, hardworking people that wanna go to work, feed their family, live a good life and that's it. But I feel like a lot of the American like policies are just, I don't know, I mean, I feel like they're very ignorant. Now I have this view of the United States as a Canadian. We see a lot of the things you're doing, like, you know what Obama's doing with the Egyptian situation right now. In Guantanamo and the force feeding of the prisoners there. And the drone attacks. I mean these things, even if I'm not a person with some fanatic views that I'm gonna go, you know I would think, oh, they're doing this. I'm gonna go do something about it. I'm a person with all these ideas, and now I'm gonna give all these ideas that, look at this country, that's doing all this illegal stuff to all my friends and all my kids. So I mean, how we act, how we carry ourself, people are gonna react to that. I feel like America's one of the biggest examples in general, to other people around the world. So if they are a good example to people, they're a good example. If they're bad, then they're bad example. And right now, a lot of their decisions, their policies, their foreign policies are bad examples. Interviewer: Did you think Obama was gonna make a difference when he was elected? - I totally thought Obama was gonna make a difference. Just like I thought, my prime minister, Stephen Harper was gonna make a difference. And that's why I voted for him. Because who was before him was Liberal and I thought, okay, they didn't do anything. I might as well go vote for the Conservative. He'll do something, whatever he does. And look at how he turned out. And Obama is the same, I mean, had such high hope for him when he came in. One year, my brother's gonna be out. Guantanamo was gonna be closed. All this big talk And then what did Obama do? I mean, he came in, my brother was in there for another like four or five years before he got out. He had nothing to do with him getting out. The foreign policies of the United States, yes, they stopped like sending more armies and stuff, but they're not taking people back either. And now all these drone attacks everywhere around the world. And now all the spying on people and trying to control people's life, I mean, it's not getting better;. And I feel bad for Obama because it's not like he's like at any point thinking, okay, it needs to stop. Throwing the dirt out, maybe keep some of this dirt in here so I can climb outta this hole. I feel like they're just digging themselves deeper and deeper. - Lou? - That's good. Interviewer: So do you think Guantanamo will ever close down? - I don't think it will ever close down. Interviewer: How come? - I don't know because I mean, what are they gonna do with these people? They're not gonna take them to the States and they're not gonna send them back to their countries. Because especially now with the Arab Springs, what if you know, all of these countries have Arab Springs now and then as soon as they do, they release everybody. So what are we gonna do? No, we'll keep them here. We'll keep them here until they die. And so I think that's their policy. I mean, we all have a conflict with somebody in our life, as people, as normal human beings and in the beginning, there's anger and after a while, there's like, you know, you don't care anymore. And then, you know, maybe in a year, no matter how bad the fight was, in a year from then if you see them, you might say hi to them. But I don't think like, to keep, like it's like Guantanamo's like the bad taste in everybody's mouth, but by them not just closing it. I mean, if I was Obama personally, maybe like a month before the end of my presidency, because I'm never gonna get elected again anyway, right, what's the chances of somebody getting a third term after somebody else is elected, I'd close it. I'd be like, you know what? This is my last action. This is my legacy. I'll close down this place. I promised to close it down my first day. I'll close it. But I doubt that he will. Everybody in America is, you know, everybody in American politics anyway is worried about like, oh, if I'm not president I'm gonna be Congressman, if I'm not a Congressman then I'm gonna be running Enron, or if I'm not at Enron, I'm gonna be running this oil company or that one. And my image has to always be perfect. If I do something like that it ruins my chances of making millions and millions of dollars. Interviewer: How about some of the detainees coming to Canada? - Not with our current government, maybe a different government, yes, but not our current government. And some of the detainees have gone to Europe. They've gone to some of these countries and they're fine. I've always said, when I meet my friends in the media now, I always tell them, where's the Khadr family that you guys said was gonna come back to Canada and is gonna do something. Look at us, we're all normal people. We all got married. We all went on with our life. And Omar is the same. Everybody's like when he comes out, what if he does this? He's gonna be living in our neighborhood. There is people from our neighborhood, like from certain neighborhoods that are coming out and doing these protests because they don't want him to come out. They don't want him back in the community. And I'm telling them, this kid he's gonna come out, he's gonna go back with his life. What do you think? Everybody wants to go back to their life. That's all they want. Interviewer: And with his health issues that's even more of a problem for him anyway. - Well, hopefully now he's back in Canada, hopefully he can get better health than when he was there in Guantanamo. Yeah, better health care. Interviewer: Is he getting care while he's in Edmonton? - He is, but I mean, one of the things that my brother is uncomfortable with is getting naked and being searched naked. I was uncomfortable with it when I was in Guantanamo. They take off everything, they put their finger in inside you to check, and nobody wants to go through that experience. So there was a couple of appointments that he had to the doctor and he didn't wanna go because he's like I'm tired of this. Interviewer: We're almost done, I just was thinking though, did you know about the Canadian officials that came to visit him when he was in Guantanamo? You know, did you ever see those videos? - I saw the videos. I didn't know about it when I was there, but I did see the movie and the videos of it when I came back out. Interviewer: And did you have any thoughts about that? - Heartbreaking, I mean, it's devastating. He's a child look at how he's screaming for his mother. I can't watch it until now. Every time I watch it, it makes me cry. And I mean, you gotta always think, I mean, you know, Al-Qaeda did what they did and America did what they did. And we all have, there's a consequence for all our actions. There's a reaction. Interviewer: Johnny, did you have something? Johnny: I was curious, when you were approached by the CIA, actually working for the CIA, you talked about the work that they had you do, but I'm curious also what they asked you, what they wanted to know from you? I mean, particularly when you talked about your personal relationship with Osama. How did they inquire about that? - They asked me about the wedding, 'cause he was at my sister's wedding. And they asked me about the few incidents where I had seen him. And I told them, I've seen him here, I've seen him there. I saw him around the compound. I was too young to really have any conversation with him. Anything that I knew that it could help them with, I helped them with. And they just asked me. The big idea was in what was moving these people to do what they did? And I feel like even with the handlers when they were there they were asking me questions they didn't wanna hear the answers to. Or they had an answer in their head. All of them are doing this 'cause they're crazy, they're all crazy and they just, you know. No, these people have reasons behind their actions. Nobody wants to understand those reasons. Johnny: Do you believe that? - I don't believe any innocent person should be killed to be honest. But I believe that there's a lot of of oppression being done by the foreign policies of the United States and the Middle East that are causing a lot of people to do a lot of crazy things. And some of them are worse than some. Interviewer: And do you think Americans are aware of that? - I think the American politics are aware that of that. And I think that as much as they can they're making the American public unaware of that. Interviewer: Yeah, do you watch American media? - That wouldn't work, no. Would never work. Interviewer: Is there anything I didn't ask you that maybe you'd just like to share with us? We're hoping that maybe 50 years from now, people will watch these stories when Americans are finally ready to acknowledge what happened in Guantanamo. These stories will be important for them a generation or two from now. Is there something else maybe I didn't ask you, you'd like to just share with us. - I mean, you know, when I was working with, when I was working with my handlers, you know, I told them that, you know something I would like to do is I would like to have a camera on somebody or somebody's family member that was killed in the towers. A camera on them before, during, and after, to see who these people are. And then I would like to take that video and show it to people in Al-Qaeda that committed this. Show them that, you know, like these are people like me and you. These are innocent people. And then in the same time, I would like to show the Americans the normal day-to-day lives of some of these people. How they were raised, who they were and what they've become in the end. I mean, the biggest thing for us as humans is to try and understand each other. And that's the biggest problem we have is that we refuse to understand, we refuse to understand each other's views. We just see what we're doing. And we see that is correct. And we want everybody to do the same. And in the end, I mean, we get bigger and bigger as human beings. But I think our mentality sometime is just stuck in a small place. So I think people should open their eyes. Interviewer: That's a really good ending. We need to take 20 seconds of room tone before we shut down. Begin room tone. End room tone.