Ahmed, Ruhal - Interview master file
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Transcript
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Female | Yeah, we're good. | 0:05 |
Interviewer | Okay, we're good. | 0:05 |
We're ready to go. | 0:06 | |
Female | Yeah. | 0:07 |
Interviewer | Okay, okay. | 0:08 |
Okay, good afternoon. | 0:09 | |
We are very grateful to you | 0:11 | |
for participating in the Witness | 0:12 | |
to Guantanamo Project. | 0:14 | |
We invite you to speak of your experiences | 0:16 | |
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we are hoping | 0:19 | |
to collect your story and the story | 0:22 | |
of all the men who have been to Guantanamo | 0:24 | |
over the last seven and a half years. | 0:28 | |
We are creating an archive | 0:32 | |
of the stories that people in America | 0:33 | |
and the world will have a better understanding | 0:36 | |
of what you and the other men experienced. | 0:39 | |
Future generations must know what happened | 0:42 | |
and by telling your story, | 0:46 | |
you are contributing to history. | 0:48 | |
We appreciate your courage and your willingness | 0:50 | |
to speak to us. | 0:53 | |
If at any time you want to take a break, | 0:55 | |
just tell us and we'll take a break, | 0:57 | |
and if at any time you say something | 0:59 | |
you'd rather remove, just tell us | 1:00 | |
and we'll remove it. | 1:01 | |
So, we'd like to begin by just | 1:03 | |
some basic information, | 1:05 | |
just to have for the camera, including your name. | 1:06 | |
And some of the details I'll ask | 1:10 | |
is we'll do one on one, so your name? | 1:12 | |
- | My name is Ruhal Ahmed. | 1:16 |
Interviewer | Country of origin? | 1:18 |
- | UK. | 1:20 |
Interviewer | Hometown? | 1:21 |
- | Tipton. | 1:22 |
Interviewer | Birth date? | 1:23 |
- | 11, three 11, 81. | 1:25 |
- | (chuckles) Age? | 1:27 |
- | 27. | 1:29 |
Interviewer | Nationality? | 1:31 |
- | British. | 1:32 |
Interviewer | Languages? | 1:33 |
- | English, first language, second language, | 1:36 |
Bangoli where my mother and father | 1:38 | |
were originally from Bangladesh. | 1:40 | |
Third language Urdu, fourth language, Arabic, | 1:42 | |
and bits and bobs of different dialects | 1:46 | |
of Urdu, Punjabi, and a bit of... | 1:49 | |
My wife speaks a language | 1:54 | |
called Pothwari from Kashmir. | 1:55 | |
Interviewer | Your religion? | 2:01 |
- | Islam. | 2:02 |
Interviewer | Marital status? | 2:03 |
You married. | 2:06 | |
- | I'm married. | 2:06 |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 2:07 |
(Ruhal laughs) | ||
With a child? | 2:08 | |
- | Yeah, one daughter. | 2:09 |
Interviewer | One daughter, and your education? | 2:10 |
- | Till high school, GCSE's. | 2:15 |
Interviewer | And your place of residence | 2:19 |
before you were detained. | 2:21 | |
- | Tipton. | 2:24 |
Interviewer | And your current | 2:25 |
place of residence? | 2:26 | |
- | Is Tipton. | 2:26 |
Interviewer | Tipton, and the date of arrival | 2:27 |
to Guantanamo and your departure? | 2:29 | |
- | 14th of February, 2002, | 2:31 |
departure was 9th of April, 2004, | 2:35 | |
the 9th of the 7th, can't remember. | 2:41 | |
Interviewer | (chuckles) Okay, | 2:43 |
so we'd like to begin by asking you to describe | 2:46 | |
how it was with as many details | 2:49 | |
as you can remember from the time | 2:52 | |
you were first arrested, | 2:54 | |
to the time you were brought to Guantanamo. | 2:55 | |
- | Okay, okay. | 2:58 |
I was first handed over by the Northern Alliance | 3:01 | |
to the American special forces on | 3:03 | |
the 31st of December, 2002. | 3:06 | |
2001, sorry, in a place called Sheberghan, | 3:12 | |
which is in the North of Afghanistan. | 3:16 | |
When they first arrested me, | 3:19 | |
they strip searched me, | 3:20 | |
and they tied plastic ties around my hand, | 3:22 | |
my wrist and my ankles. | 3:27 | |
And then they put a sand bag | 3:28 | |
over my head, and taped. | 3:30 | |
Put masking tape around the top of the sand bag, | 3:31 | |
which is on the top of my eyes. | 3:34 | |
And they wrote something on it, | 3:35 | |
like V3, as a number to identify | 3:37 | |
which detainee is who. | 3:41 | |
And they sat me down along the wall amongst many | 3:44 | |
of the detainees then they, after about one hour, | 3:48 | |
they made us march and they threw us | 3:51 | |
onto the back of a truck. | 3:54 | |
And we were driven to the nearest airport, | 3:56 | |
which was about roughly an hour drive. | 3:59 | |
Then we were also put on a plane, | 4:02 | |
probably about 10:00 o'clock at night, | 4:03 | |
that same day. | 4:05 | |
And I was flown to Kandahar, | 4:06 | |
which was a makeshift prison run | 4:08 | |
by the Americans. | 4:12 | |
I stayed there for exactly six weeks in total, | 4:15 | |
so from the 1st of January 2002 to 14th, or 13th, | 4:19 | |
12, February 2002. | 4:23 | |
During that period, when I first got there, | 4:25 | |
they took us off the plane | 4:28 | |
and they tied ropes around our arms. | 4:31 | |
So, each individual had a rope around their arm, | 4:33 | |
and by the guy, the soldier in front | 4:35 | |
would pull that rope and everyone | 4:37 | |
would have to follow, like in a train | 4:38 | |
kind of direction. | 4:41 | |
And they made us walk around | 4:43 | |
for what seemed to me, they made us walk around | 4:44 | |
in a circle for many hours. | 4:46 | |
The reason I think they did that | 4:49 | |
to make us, disorientate us. | 4:50 | |
At the same time, they had dogs around | 4:53 | |
and there was barking. | 4:55 | |
We still was hooded. | 4:56 | |
And it was nice cause we could see, | 4:59 | |
just if you look down from the hood, | 5:01 | |
we could see down to our neck. | 5:03 | |
We could see it was dark, obviously. | 5:04 | |
And so, we walked around for many hours | 5:07 | |
and the dogs were barking and there was going... | 5:08 | |
Punching us, kicking us, and then | 5:10 | |
they would throw us to the floor, | 5:11 | |
and they would say to us, "Sleep or stay still." | 5:12 | |
Then after a couple of minutes, | 5:18 | |
maybe half an hour, they would get you up, | 5:20 | |
and make you walk around in a circle again. | 5:22 | |
And that continued to happen for maybe, | 5:24 | |
four or five hours. | 5:26 | |
After that, they took us to this place. | 5:28 | |
They took the ropes out of our arms, | 5:30 | |
they made us kneel on our knees and obviously, | 5:33 | |
our hands were tied behind our back | 5:35 | |
with them plastic ties, our ankles | 5:37 | |
were also tied with plastic ties. | 5:39 | |
Sand bag over the head and we had | 5:40 | |
to stay kneeling, like in that position, | 5:41 | |
in a kneeling position on gravel. | 5:44 | |
I think it was about two hours | 5:48 | |
I had to stay in the position. | 5:49 | |
Then they came, two soldiers, | 5:52 | |
they lifted me, physically lifted me. | 5:55 | |
Lifted me up, they dragged me to a tent | 5:57 | |
where I was thrown to the floor, face down first. | 6:00 | |
And I think they got a Stanley knife, | 6:03 | |
they cut through my clothes, | 6:05 | |
stripped me naked again. | 6:06 | |
Took my hood off and they done | 6:08 | |
a cavity search on me. | 6:10 | |
They took me to another tent | 6:12 | |
where photographs were taken. | 6:15 | |
My DNA was also taken, a swab from my mouth. | 6:18 | |
Also, they took a sample, | 6:21 | |
a few strands | 6:25 | |
of my beard hair, and took photos, | 6:26 | |
and fingerprints, I think. | 6:29 | |
And then eventually, they took me | 6:30 | |
to it's like a barn, | 6:33 | |
similar type look, | 6:37 | |
it was like a metal hanger, | 6:37 | |
which was divided off with barbed wire | 6:41 | |
to make cells. | 6:43 | |
Interviewer | Mm. | 6:45 |
- | And in each cell, there was about, I think, | 6:46 |
10 people per cell. | 6:47 | |
And they threw me into the cell, still naked, | 6:49 | |
then they gave me some clothes to wear, | 6:52 | |
which were Pakistani clothes. | 6:53 | |
The Pakistani traditional clothes, | 6:56 | |
they gave us that. | 6:57 | |
So, I wore that and I went to sleep. | 6:58 | |
They told me to sleep. | 7:01 | |
They gave me a blanket, | 7:02 | |
which was kind of like A fleecy type blanket. | 7:03 | |
I went to sleep for the night. | 7:06 | |
I was not allowed, I was told basically | 7:08 | |
if I tried to move, | 7:10 | |
or tried to do anything stupid, | 7:11 | |
then I would have get shot because they had, | 7:13 | |
on the left and the right | 7:15 | |
they had two tower guards, | 7:16 | |
who were watching down. | 7:17 | |
We was not allowed to communicate or talk. | 7:19 | |
So, the night passed, and the next morning, | 7:23 | |
I was given a number. | 7:26 | |
I was also given a wristband on the first day | 7:27 | |
when I came. | 7:28 | |
My number was 102. | 7:29 | |
They call my number in the morning | 7:32 | |
and I was taken out from the... | 7:34 | |
From my cell, and the way the procedure is, | 7:35 | |
when they call your number, | 7:39 | |
you have to lie down on the floor | 7:40 | |
and you have to have your hands on your head. | 7:42 | |
As so, with your fingers interlocked | 7:45 | |
and your legs spread wide on the floor. | 7:48 | |
And two soldiers would run in, sorry, | 7:50 | |
three soldiers would rush in. | 7:53 | |
One would literally drop on top of your shoulders | 7:54 | |
so you couldn't move, | 7:57 | |
the other one would grab your arm. | 7:58 | |
Two of them grabbing one hand each. | 8:00 | |
They take one arm, put it behind you, | 8:02 | |
cuff that one and bring that one down again, | 8:04 | |
and cuff that. | 8:07 | |
Then they would drag you up, | 8:08 | |
put a sack over your head, | 8:09 | |
and they marched me off to a tent, | 8:10 | |
which was my first interrogation I had | 8:12 | |
with an American soldier. | 8:14 | |
I sat on the floor and he asked me | 8:16 | |
basic questions, what's my name? | 8:18 | |
Date of birth, so-and-so, | 8:20 | |
why I was in Afghanistan, | 8:22 | |
how I was captured. | 8:23 | |
And any contact details if I wanted | 8:26 | |
to tell anybody that I was in that place. | 8:27 | |
He asked me if I wanted to inform anybody, | 8:33 | |
I said, "Inform the home office." | 8:34 | |
And then he said, he said to me | 8:37 | |
that he will speak to me later again. | 8:39 | |
So, then they took me to a different... | 8:41 | |
Instead of taking me back to the hangar, | 8:43 | |
they took me to the tents, | 8:45 | |
which was the... | 8:49 | |
They had tents erected and there was three tents, | 8:51 | |
and it was barb wired off. | 8:54 | |
So, it's like a makeshift prison, | 8:56 | |
if you wanna call it. | 8:58 | |
In each tent they had | 8:59 | |
about 20 detainees sleeping, or staying, | 9:00 | |
but obviously the three tents were within | 9:04 | |
the same boundary. | 9:06 | |
Later on, there was all made single one tent, | 9:07 | |
so 20 people per cage, you can call it. | 9:12 | |
Then they stripped my clothes again | 9:16 | |
and they gave me the blue boiler suit. | 9:17 | |
And then, I stayed there | 9:22 | |
for six weeks. | 9:26 | |
Obviously, in that condition in Guantanamo. | 9:28 | |
Kandahar was a very odd place you can call it | 9:31 | |
because in the day, temperatures will reach, | 9:35 | |
probably 45 to 50 degrees. | 9:38 | |
So, it'd be extremely hot | 9:40 | |
and we had to obviously sit outside, | 9:42 | |
we couldn't sit in the tent. | 9:43 | |
And the flaps of the tent, | 9:44 | |
the canvas on the side were always rolled up. | 9:46 | |
We were not allowed to bring them down | 9:48 | |
because they wanted to see us, keep an eye on us. | 9:50 | |
Even throughout the day, | 9:53 | |
we were not allowed to move. | 9:54 | |
We were not allowed to talk to nobody. | 9:56 | |
Food was given three times a day, | 9:59 | |
but it was a limited amount of food. | 10:03 | |
We had MRE's to eat, which our meal ready | 10:05 | |
to eat military food. | 10:08 | |
And they would literally empty everything out | 10:10 | |
and just give us the main meal. | 10:12 | |
So, you know like you have the main meal, | 10:14 | |
you have a dessert, you have crackers. | 10:16 | |
You have peanut butter, you have | 10:18 | |
a few more side things. | 10:21 | |
Drinks, and so-and-so, | 10:23 | |
but they will take everything out, | 10:24 | |
and to give you the main packet, | 10:26 | |
the actual main dinner. | 10:27 | |
So, as you can imagine, it's not enough | 10:29 | |
for us to eat, but it was enough | 10:32 | |
for us to go on | 10:36 | |
for the next meal. | 10:37 | |
It was just about enough. | 10:38 | |
And we were taken to interrogation | 10:42 | |
on a regular basis, and it was the same method, | 10:46 | |
the way they would take you out. | 10:48 | |
Two, three soldiers come in, | 10:49 | |
one literally jumps on top of you, | 10:50 | |
another two un-cuff you, and they put | 10:53 | |
a sand bag over your head, push you back down. | 10:55 | |
Then they would march you off | 10:57 | |
to your interrogation. | 10:58 | |
Now, interrogation, it would vary | 11:00 | |
on who the interrogator was, | 11:03 | |
in terms of how harsh you would get treated, | 11:05 | |
or how good you get treated. | 11:07 | |
If there's a good treatment, that means | 11:09 | |
you get a chair, they would un-cuff your hands, | 11:11 | |
put it in the front, un-cuff your... | 11:13 | |
Cuff your hands forward, or sometimes, | 11:17 | |
they wouldn't cuff your hands. | 11:19 | |
It depends on the person | 11:21 | |
who was interrogating you. | 11:22 | |
If he was a bad guy, then they would make | 11:24 | |
us sit on the floor and kneel on the floor, | 11:27 | |
with your handcuffs, hands tied behind the back. | 11:28 | |
And there always will be a soldier | 11:30 | |
with a M16, or a nine millimeter pointing towards | 11:33 | |
you while you getting interrogated. | 11:37 | |
So, you're always being interrogated at gunpoint. | 11:39 | |
The interrogation method would always save... | 11:43 | |
Always repetitive, it was always, | 11:45 | |
what's your name? | 11:48 | |
Where you from? | 11:49 | |
Even though you've said about 10 times before, | 11:49 | |
they would always comment and say the same thing. | 11:52 | |
And it seemed to me that never actually, | 11:54 | |
seemed to share the files. | 11:55 | |
Which was quite bizarre, | 11:57 | |
especially when you in that, | 11:59 | |
and if you mean intelligence officer, | 12:00 | |
you would expect to share your information | 12:03 | |
with your colleagues, or whoever they are. | 12:04 | |
But obviously, that wasn't the case. | 12:08 | |
And worst case scenario is, | 12:13 | |
you would get beaten up, physically punch, | 12:14 | |
punching, they would punch you in your nose. | 12:18 | |
Interviewer | Why would they beat you up? | 12:20 |
- | Well, main reason is because you're not... | 12:23 |
They think that you're not being cooperative. | 12:25 | |
You're not cooperating with them. | 12:27 | |
You're not giving them as enough information | 12:29 | |
as they think that you need to give. | 12:32 | |
They think you're lying, | 12:34 | |
or you withheld the information | 12:35 | |
about Bin Laden, or Al-Quada, or the Taliban. | 12:38 | |
And so-and-so, that was the reason basically | 12:42 | |
why you would get beaten up. | 12:43 | |
(chuckles) It was if they didn't like | 12:45 | |
the way you looked, or if you was cocky, | 12:46 | |
or if you were arrogant in terms | 12:48 | |
of how you reply, how you talk to them. | 12:49 | |
Then that would give them that reason | 12:51 | |
to come and attack you | 12:52 | |
in whatever way they wanted. | 12:54 | |
In total, I thin, in Kandahar, | 12:58 | |
I went to interrogation maybe five times. | 12:59 | |
Four times it was with the Americans, | 13:01 | |
and once with the FBI, three times | 13:05 | |
with the military intelligence. | 13:06 | |
And I think once with the home office, | 13:08 | |
the British home office, | 13:09 | |
there was a guy who came over on the day | 13:12 | |
I was actually flying out. | 13:15 | |
He came to visit me. | 13:16 | |
And the conditions inside the cages, | 13:18 | |
obviously in the daytime, it's extremely hot. | 13:21 | |
In the night, it would be extremely cold. | 13:23 | |
They used to give us... | 13:25 | |
The only good thing they did for us | 13:26 | |
was they gave us enough water. | 13:28 | |
They would actually force us to drink the water, | 13:30 | |
and they used to give us 1.5 liter bottle | 13:33 | |
per meal time. | 13:35 | |
So, in the morning we had to stand in front | 13:37 | |
of the soldier and drink the whole 1.5 liter | 13:39 | |
of water in one go. | 13:41 | |
Otherwise you get punished. | 13:43 | |
So, that's the only good thing they did. | 13:44 | |
So, that we didn't dehydrate. | 13:47 | |
Other than that, they would | 13:51 | |
do random cell search, | 13:53 | |
which is as they call shake down. | 13:54 | |
And where everybody had to go | 13:56 | |
to the back of the tents, and obviously, | 13:57 | |
you kneel down with your hands on your head | 14:01 | |
and on the other side of the barbed wire, | 14:03 | |
they would have two guys | 14:05 | |
with M16's pointed towards you. | 14:06 | |
Because from the other side, from the door, | 14:09 | |
from the main entrance you had | 14:11 | |
about four, or five MP's coming in | 14:13 | |
without any weapons. | 14:17 | |
Because there was about 20 or 60 per cage, | 14:18 | |
so they couldn't take that risk | 14:23 | |
of bringing weapons in just | 14:25 | |
in case someone jumps out and takes the weapon, | 14:26 | |
so and so. | 14:28 | |
So, we had to go out the back, | 14:29 | |
and they would come in, they would do | 14:30 | |
a cell search. | 14:31 | |
They would throw the Quran on many occasions, | 14:32 | |
in the toilet. | 14:35 | |
The total facility was basically, | 14:37 | |
you had a bucket, just a normal steel bucket, | 14:39 | |
and it was open air. | 14:42 | |
And you had to do your business | 14:44 | |
in front of everybody. | 14:46 | |
To urinate, they actually dug a massive... | 14:48 | |
For every cage, | 14:51 | |
or tent you can call, | 14:55 | |
they had dug, obviously before | 14:57 | |
they actually erected this make shift prison, | 14:58 | |
make shift things. | 15:00 | |
They actually dug the ground, | 15:02 | |
and it's like a soak away. | 15:05 | |
When you have an extension, | 15:06 | |
they have a soak away, and the same thing. | 15:07 | |
They had a soak away, and they had like | 15:09 | |
a circle mesh where you urinate in. | 15:11 | |
So, obviously when you urinate, | 15:14 | |
you were taken the thing. | 15:15 | |
You're there and you have female soldiers | 15:18 | |
walking up and down, obviously looking at you. | 15:20 | |
And one, especially when you're urinating, | 15:23 | |
they wanna look, and they would stop. | 15:25 | |
Even the men, they would stop | 15:26 | |
and they would look, and I think they did that | 15:28 | |
to actually humiliate us. | 15:30 | |
It was not because they was being pervs, | 15:31 | |
or they could be, I don't know, | 15:34 | |
but it seemed to me, they were doing it | 15:36 | |
to kind of degrade us. | 15:37 | |
Even when we have to go for a number two, | 15:39 | |
if you can call it. | 15:41 | |
They would actually stand and look at you, | 15:43 | |
and it was very difficult to... | 15:44 | |
When you're on the toilet, | 15:46 | |
it's kind of impossible when you know | 15:48 | |
someone's watching you, | 15:50 | |
it's very hard to relieve yourself. | 15:52 | |
It doesn't come. | 15:53 | |
Interviewer | Right. | 15:55 |
- | And instead of getting relief out of it, | 15:56 |
you get pains because you can't go. | 15:58 | |
And that would be the case | 16:00 | |
that happened throughout six weeks. | 16:01 | |
And we complained about it, and they said, | 16:03 | |
"Well, it's our procedure. | 16:04 | |
We have to see what exactly you are doing." | 16:05 | |
So, if we're taking a wee, | 16:06 | |
and are you gonna watch us? | 16:08 | |
So, it was just something they did | 16:11 | |
to kind of humiliate us basically. | 16:13 | |
We wasn't given any kind of insulation, | 16:18 | |
cause obviously the ground was not... | 16:20 | |
It was not grass, it was just like rubble, | 16:23 | |
you can call it. | 16:25 | |
Like normal turf, it was like bricks, and glass, | 16:27 | |
and so and so. | 16:31 | |
So, obviously, we was not given any kind | 16:32 | |
of insulation mats to put down, | 16:33 | |
or a sheet to put down to sleep on top of. | 16:35 | |
So, we had to sleep on the ground, basically. | 16:37 | |
We was not given no pillows, obviously. | 16:41 | |
As they would say, "It's not boot camp." | 16:42 | |
On many occasions, they would say that, | 16:46 | |
and if you wanted anything | 16:47 | |
they would say it's not boot camp. | 16:49 | |
That was the answer for everything. | 16:50 | |
They gave us blankets, which | 16:53 | |
was like made of fleece, it was a fleecy blanket. | 16:54 | |
We had about two of them each, | 16:57 | |
but Kandahar was extremely cold cause the water | 16:58 | |
would actually freeze up overnight. | 17:03 | |
That's how cold it was. | 17:05 | |
So, you can just imagine. | 17:05 | |
Temperature was actually dropped below zero. | 17:07 | |
So, it was impossible to sleep in the night | 17:10 | |
because it's too cold, and your feet | 17:13 | |
are freezing, your hands are freezing. | 17:14 | |
You're freezing yourself, cause we had | 17:15 | |
a thin boiler suit, we didn't have no long johns, | 17:16 | |
or any thermal underwear, you can call it. | 17:19 | |
So, it's impossible to sleep in the night | 17:24 | |
and it's impossible to sleep in the day | 17:27 | |
because it's too hot, and we wasn't actually | 17:29 | |
allowed to sleep in the day. | 17:30 | |
Cause they would come throughout the day, | 17:31 | |
every two, three hours, they would come | 17:34 | |
and do something called a headcount, | 17:35 | |
which they would come and they would shout out, | 17:36 | |
"Headcount, headcount," and we all had to run | 17:38 | |
to the front of the tent. | 17:41 | |
And we had to stand in a line, and we had to show | 17:43 | |
them our wristbands with the number, | 17:45 | |
and he would mark off 102 present, | 17:48 | |
601 is present, and they would call your number | 17:51 | |
and you have to say yes. | 17:53 | |
It's like being in school again, | 17:54 | |
and they would do that every three hours. | 17:56 | |
They would kind of do that, | 17:57 | |
which was kind of ridiculous, | 17:58 | |
because they have shift change three times. | 18:00 | |
So, ideally they need to do it three times | 18:02 | |
because it's a new shift and the shift stays on | 18:04 | |
for eight hours, 24 hours is free. | 18:06 | |
So, I think it was done | 18:09 | |
because to make us more weak and less drowsy. | 18:11 | |
So, we don't... | 18:15 | |
One of the reasons they gave us is like, | 18:16 | |
we don't want you to get strong. | 18:17 | |
The reason we wasn't giving enough food, | 18:18 | |
they didn't want us to have any energy in us, | 18:20 | |
so we don't attack them. | 18:23 | |
They wanted to keep us tired and dehy... | 18:24 | |
Not dehydrated, but very tired and fragile. | 18:27 | |
You know what I mean? | 18:30 | |
They wouldn't alow us to exercise | 18:31 | |
because they said to us, "If you exercise, | 18:32 | |
you can get stronger, and you don't want you-" | 18:34 | |
Interviewer | They told you that? | 18:35 |
- | Yeah, we was not allowed to exercise. | 18:36 |
So, they didn't want us to get strong | 18:38 | |
and overpower them in any way. | 18:40 | |
Even, I mean, if the one guy tries something, | 18:42 | |
they can't afford to take that risk. | 18:46 | |
Even if it's one person, | 18:47 | |
even though we wouldn't get nowhere. (chuckles) | 18:49 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 18:51 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 18:52 | |
But it's something that they said | 18:53 | |
that we don't want you to get strong | 18:53 | |
so that we was not allowed to do certain things | 18:54 | |
to kill our time, to pass our time. | 18:56 | |
So, that was for the first... | 19:00 | |
That was my six weeks in Guantanamo. | 19:03 | |
I was actually not given any- | 19:05 | |
Female | I'm just gonna do | 19:07 |
one thing before, I'm sorry. | 19:07 | |
I'm getting, it's great... | 19:09 | |
We're rolling. Yeah, it's fine. | 19:10 | |
- | So, I stayed there for six weeks | 19:11 |
and I was never actually given any reason | 19:15 | |
why I was arrested in the first place, | 19:17 | |
or I was handed over by the Northern Alliance | 19:19 | |
to the Americans. | 19:21 | |
And I wasn't actually given any reason whatsoever, | 19:23 | |
why I was being detained. | 19:26 | |
Interviewer | When you met with the Americans | 19:27 |
and then you said you met with the Brits. | 19:29 | |
Did the Brits do anything differently | 19:32 | |
from the Americans in terms of the interrogation? | 19:34 | |
- | Well, the actual day I was leaving, | 19:37 |
just before about maybe 20 minutes | 19:40 | |
before I boarded the plane, the Brit came, | 19:41 | |
and I think he was from the foreign office. | 19:44 | |
And he didn't really say much, | 19:46 | |
he just said that... | 19:48 | |
He took my name and my details, and he said, | 19:50 | |
We will notify your family of your whereabouts. | 19:52 | |
And he just said that... | 19:55 | |
I asked him where am I going | 19:58 | |
because I was in Cuba because some | 19:59 | |
of the soldiers told me that maybe you're moving | 20:02 | |
over to Cuba, and maybe not. | 20:05 | |
So, when they put me in the orange boiler suit, | 20:07 | |
I kind of had an idea. | 20:08 | |
Even though I never knew, | 20:09 | |
never heard of Cuba in my life, I never knew, | 20:10 | |
never heard of it. | 20:12 | |
So, I thought actually Cuba is probably a state | 20:15 | |
of the United States. | 20:19 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 20:19 | |
That's what I thought, maybe somewhere close by. | 20:20 | |
Obviously, it is close by to Florida, | 20:23 | |
but I never actually knew Cuba. | 20:24 | |
So, the day I was going, | 20:31 | |
just about 20 minutes before I boarded, | 20:32 | |
he came, sat me down, and he just spoke to me. | 20:33 | |
He said, your name and so and so. | 20:36 | |
He said, "I'm from the foreign office, | 20:37 | |
how are you?" | 20:39 | |
Is your health okay?" | 20:40 | |
I said, "Yeah, how do I look? Do I look fine?" | 20:40 | |
And he said, "Well, I have to ask." | 20:42 | |
What a stupid question to ask. | 20:44 | |
I'm tied up like an animal and you're asking me | 20:46 | |
how am I, how am I doing? (chuckles) | 20:48 | |
It's like it's a joke. | 20:49 | |
And he said to me, | 20:51 | |
"Basically, we'll notify your family," | 20:53 | |
and I asked him, "Where am I being taken? | 20:55 | |
Am I going back to the UK?" | 20:58 | |
He said, "I don't know. | 20:59 | |
I can't give you that kind of information." | 21:00 | |
I said, "Well, what did you come for? | 21:03 | |
You shouldn't have even bothered coming. | 21:05 | |
So, basically the day I was taken to Guan, | 21:06 | |
well on the plane. | 21:11 | |
They took me out my cell, | 21:12 | |
they marched me to this tent. | 21:14 | |
They stripped my clothes, | 21:16 | |
and by the time we had... | 21:17 | |
I had long hair at the time, and obviously, | 21:18 | |
my beard had grown. | 21:21 | |
Excuse me, and obviously being in that condition, | 21:23 | |
I mean, prior to being arrested by the Americans, | 21:25 | |
I was obviously imprisoned in Sheboygan | 21:28 | |
for a month. | 21:30 | |
And it was not even not very hygienic. | 21:30 | |
It was very unhygienic and we had head lice | 21:33 | |
and body lice, so everybody had lice in the camp. | 21:36 | |
And so, they stripped me down completely, | 21:40 | |
they shaved my hair, they put the lice kind | 21:43 | |
of medicine on my hair and my armpits, | 21:47 | |
and on my private parts, just to kill | 21:49 | |
all the lice. | 21:51 | |
On my chest, wherever I had hair, really, | 21:51 | |
all over my body. | 21:53 | |
They washed me down with this kind of a watery... | 21:54 | |
Interviewer | Solution. | 21:58 |
- | Solution to kill the lice. | 21:59 |
Then they took me to a different room | 22:00 | |
and they gave me the orange boiler suit, | 22:01 | |
which I wore. | 22:05 | |
They gave me a blue jacket and they put goggles | 22:07 | |
on my eyes. | 22:09 | |
You had ear... | 22:10 | |
And they put a wooly cap as well, | 22:11 | |
and the ear muffs, and they put mittens | 22:13 | |
on my hands as well. | 22:16 | |
Then they cuffed my hands together, | 22:17 | |
and usually the cuffs have slack in it, | 22:19 | |
but they had these like black things | 22:22 | |
they put in the middle, so that you can't | 22:23 | |
actually move your hands. | 22:24 | |
It was like this extra piece that comes with it. | 22:26 | |
So, then obviously a three piece, | 22:28 | |
as they call it, a three-piece suit. | 22:32 | |
So, then a chain goes around your back, | 22:33 | |
padlocked and a chain from here, where your... | 22:35 | |
Interviewer | A belly chain thing. | 22:39 |
- | Yeah, a belly chain thing from there, | 22:40 |
there's like a circle ring. | 22:41 | |
Interviewer | Ring. | 22:42 |
- | And another piece goes down to your leg, | 22:43 |
and then it's like leg irons, like shackles. | 22:45 | |
And they put the gloves on | 22:49 | |
and they put masking tape, no duck tape | 22:51 | |
around the gloves so we can't take | 22:54 | |
our gloves off. | 22:55 | |
Then they took me to a different tent | 22:57 | |
from what I presumed. | 22:58 | |
It was a tent and I had to sit down | 23:00 | |
with my legs crossed for maybe like seven hours. | 23:02 | |
And obviously, it was painful. | 23:05 | |
Sitting there with your legs crossed for ages, | 23:06 | |
and the shackles are kind of digging | 23:09 | |
into your legs, and it's uncomfortable | 23:11 | |
sitting there for so many hours, you can't move. | 23:12 | |
Then about, it was daytime when they took | 23:15 | |
me out my cage, out my tent. | 23:18 | |
Before I boarded the plane, | 23:20 | |
obviously got annoyed, | 23:21 | |
so I was there for many hours. | 23:22 | |
They gave us a piece of bread to eat before, | 23:24 | |
just before we boarded the plane. | 23:26 | |
Then obviously, we all got up | 23:27 | |
and they put them... | 23:29 | |
They put the rope around our arms again, | 23:31 | |
dragged us, kind of marched us out | 23:32 | |
to the runway. | 23:34 | |
Put us on the plane. | 23:36 | |
I could hear the plane engines were running | 23:37 | |
when we was on the plane. | 23:39 | |
Sat down and they took the ropes off. | 23:40 | |
So, we sat down individually, and I was sitting | 23:42 | |
against the wall of the plane, | 23:44 | |
and I could feel that the other detainees | 23:46 | |
were sitting in a line. | 23:47 | |
And I could kind of make out because the goggles | 23:50 | |
were obviously on, I could see underneath here, | 23:54 | |
and through my nose. | 23:56 | |
So, if I done that kind of thing, | 23:58 | |
I could see the people round me. | 24:00 | |
I could see the soldiers feet and so-and-so. | 24:02 | |
So, I knew that it was all sitting | 24:05 | |
on the wall of the plane. | 24:06 | |
And they tied us down. | 24:09 | |
They padlocked my chain to the floor. | 24:10 | |
So, I couldn't lift my knees up, and I was... | 24:13 | |
I think there was strap around my chest | 24:17 | |
to hold me down to the wall of the plane | 24:20 | |
so I couldn't come forward. | 24:23 | |
Then basically, we set off, we flew off, | 24:26 | |
and obviously on the journey, | 24:29 | |
they offered us peanut butter sandwich, | 24:32 | |
which I could smell, which my mouth | 24:34 | |
was watering, but obviously couldn't eat it. | 24:36 | |
Obviously, I had a mask as well. | 24:37 | |
They gave me a mask and but just in case | 24:39 | |
because they thought people have got TB. | 24:41 | |
So, it doesn't spread. | 24:43 | |
Even though I never had TB, | 24:45 | |
but it was just a precaution that they took. | 24:47 | |
Some of the detainees did have TB, | 24:49 | |
but it was just a precaution. | 24:52 | |
Obviously, I could see through the bridge | 24:54 | |
of my nose, I could see straight down, | 24:57 | |
and they came to my ear. | 24:59 | |
This woman came to my ear | 25:01 | |
and she lifted my ear muffs. | 25:02 | |
And she said to me, | 25:03 | |
"I wanna place a peanut butter sandwich | 25:06 | |
on your hand, so eat it." | 25:07 | |
So, obviously I'm tied down from my chest. | 25:09 | |
My hands are tied here, which I can't lift. | 25:11 | |
I can't even go forward. | 25:14 | |
So, in between my gloves, she puts | 25:15 | |
this peanut butter sandwich | 25:16 | |
and my mouth's watering. (laughs) | 25:18 | |
Cause obviously, I was starving, | 25:20 | |
and the smell of the peanut butter sandwich | 25:21 | |
is like pfft, when you haven't had food for... | 25:23 | |
Decent food, even it's only | 25:25 | |
a peanut butter sandwich, | 25:27 | |
it's not nothing delicious, or exotic | 25:28 | |
you could say. (chuckles) | 25:31 | |
So, obviously, I'm there and I'm looking down, | 25:32 | |
and I'm thinking, how am I supposed to eat that? | 25:33 | |
(chuckles) And I'm there for maybe half an hour | 25:36 | |
trying to eat it. | 25:38 | |
I'm trying everything, coming forward, | 25:39 | |
trying to lift my arms up. | 25:42 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
And I'm thinking, damn. | 25:43 | |
Things you have to do to eat your food. | 25:46 | |
So, I'm there and basically, she came | 25:48 | |
to my ear again and she lifted my muffs | 25:50 | |
and she goes, "Don't you wanna eat it?" | 25:51 | |
I said, "Well, how am I supposed to eat it?" | 25:52 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 25:54 | |
She goes, "What do you mean? | 25:55 | |
With your hands and your mouth." | 25:56 | |
And I thought, there's no point explaining. | 25:57 | |
So, she took the sandwich, | 25:59 | |
threw it in the bin, cause everybody | 26:00 | |
had the sandwiches, and I think, they threw | 26:03 | |
everybody's in the bin because nobody | 26:04 | |
could eat it. | 26:05 | |
Then they came and they put an apple. | 26:06 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 26:08 | |
And I thought, how ridiculous, and how... | 26:09 | |
You guys must be thick, or stupid, | 26:14 | |
or something like that. | 26:16 | |
And I just thought damn, | 26:18 | |
I'm missing out on my apple. | 26:22 | |
I missed out on my peanut butter sandwich, | 26:24 | |
and now I'm missing out. | 26:25 | |
And so, then they took the apple, | 26:26 | |
threw that away obviously. | 26:28 | |
And they gave a glass of water, and I thought, | 26:29 | |
are you having a laugh? | 26:33 | |
Is this supposed to be funny? | 26:35 | |
And there was... | 26:36 | |
I could hear, sometimes because the ear muffs | 26:38 | |
obviously, cause you know with your shoulder, | 26:40 | |
they would move out. | 26:42 | |
So, I could hear things, | 26:43 | |
and they were saying like, | 26:45 | |
"Aren't they eating? No one's eating." | 26:46 | |
And I thought, you stupid idiots, | 26:49 | |
and eventually, obviously before | 26:52 | |
we boarded the plane they gave us food. | 26:53 | |
So, they opened only one arm so we ate | 26:55 | |
a piece of bread, which was about this big. | 26:59 | |
In Afghanistan, you get like a... | 27:00 | |
Do you know what naan bread is? | 27:01 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 27:03 |
- | Like a pita bread, but it's about this big. | 27:04 |
It's actually this big, that thick, | 27:05 | |
and that wide. | 27:07 | |
So, it's a huge amount of bread. | 27:08 | |
So, I ate that and obviously, it was okay, | 27:10 | |
do you know what I mean? | 27:14 | |
And they gave us water, | 27:15 | |
but then we landed somewhere. | 27:17 | |
I dunno where we landed. | 27:19 | |
We landed into... | 27:20 | |
Considering it was February. | 27:22 | |
So, obviously if it was the European countries | 27:23 | |
it would be cold because it'd be snowing, | 27:25 | |
and so on, and so on, but where I landed, | 27:27 | |
it was extremely hot. | 27:28 | |
It was actually very hot, | 27:30 | |
because when we come off the plane | 27:31 | |
to get onto another plane, | 27:34 | |
I don't know if we actually got | 27:35 | |
onto another plane, or if it was like just | 27:36 | |
to make us feel that we were changing planes. | 27:38 | |
We got off, we walked a bit, | 27:40 | |
we went around in a few circles, | 27:43 | |
and we went back on a plane. | 27:44 | |
So, I don't know if it was the same plane, | 27:46 | |
or it was a different plane, | 27:47 | |
but it was extremely hot. | 27:49 | |
And it was actually that hot that, | 27:50 | |
have you actually been to Dubai? | 27:52 | |
Have you been to a Saudi country? | 27:54 | |
Have you been to ever, a hot country, | 27:55 | |
where you get off the plane and you can see | 27:57 | |
like the steam go up? | 27:59 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 28:02 | |
It's you know like water when it evaporates, | 28:02 | |
you can actually see it? | 28:05 | |
That's how it was, it was that hot. | 28:06 | |
So, February that hot, | 28:08 | |
the only country I can think of, | 28:10 | |
it's gotta be in the Gulf, somewhere in the Gulf, | 28:12 | |
it has to be. | 28:14 | |
So, we got onto another plane. | 28:15 | |
Obviously, during that period, | 28:17 | |
when they took us from one plane | 28:18 | |
to another plane, if there was another plane. | 28:19 | |
Obviously we've got a three-piece, | 28:22 | |
we're walking, then they would stop you. | 28:23 | |
And what the soldier would do, | 28:25 | |
there were two of them. | 28:27 | |
One on this shoulder and one on | 28:28 | |
that shoulder holding you. | 28:29 | |
One of them would kick from behind. | 28:31 | |
He would kick the in part, inside of your leg, | 28:33 | |
so you kind of spread your legs across. | 28:36 | |
So, the chain on your feet, the shackles | 28:39 | |
are actually stretched, not got a slack in it, | 28:44 | |
so obviously, it's stretched. | 28:48 | |
And what he does, from behind, | 28:49 | |
he like stamps on it. | 28:50 | |
So, obviously you've got your feet spread apart, | 28:53 | |
the chain there has gone off slack. | 28:57 | |
So, it's like, there's no slack in it. | 28:59 | |
So, you can imagine if someone's from behind | 29:00 | |
smacks it from the middle and yanks you back. | 29:02 | |
The pressure of the cuffs pushes down | 29:05 | |
and it cuts you. | 29:08 | |
And they kept on doing that | 29:10 | |
every time we stopped, and it was like... | 29:11 | |
I don't really cry, do you know what I mean? | 29:13 | |
But that day I cried. (chuckles) | 29:15 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 29:17 | |
I was in tears, man. | 29:18 | |
I couldn't hack the pain | 29:19 | |
because it was cutting my leg, | 29:19 | |
and it was like, agonizing. | 29:21 | |
And what they did, the cuffs, you could either | 29:22 | |
have them loose, or you could have them | 29:25 | |
really, really tight. | 29:26 | |
They had them really, really tight, | 29:27 | |
so obviously, if it's really tight on them, | 29:29 | |
they keep on doing that, the more pain I feel. | 29:31 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 29:33 | |
And obviously, if the cuff actually had slack, | 29:34 | |
then maybe I would feel no pain whatsoever. | 29:37 | |
So, I got to another plane, same method | 29:40 | |
they tied me down, flew. | 29:41 | |
By that time I needed to go to the toilet, | 29:43 | |
and I actually had to go for a number two, | 29:46 | |
and number one. | 29:48 | |
So, I've got there and I'm saying, | 29:49 | |
"Excuse me, excuse me." | 29:52 | |
One guy, I think it was a woman who came over, | 29:54 | |
she opened my... | 29:57 | |
She removed my muffs and she goes, | 29:58 | |
"What do you want?" | 29:59 | |
I said, I need to go to the bathroom. | 30:00 | |
She goes, "Can't you hold it?" | 30:01 | |
I go, "No, I need to go." | 30:02 | |
She goes, "Okay." | 30:04 | |
So, she took the padlock off, got me up, | 30:05 | |
went to the bathroom. | 30:08 | |
She just pulled my pants down, | 30:10 | |
do you know what I mean? | 30:12 | |
I was like, okay. | 30:13 | |
And now she goes, "Go." | 30:15 | |
So, I turned around, sat down, | 30:16 | |
I'm sitting there for maybe half an hour | 30:18 | |
and I could see her feet. | 30:20 | |
I could see her shoes, and I'm thinking like, | 30:22 | |
okay, you can go now, do you know what I mean? | 30:25 | |
Or at least turn around so I can see the heel, | 30:28 | |
you know your heels, but she just stood there, | 30:30 | |
and obviously just looking. | 30:33 | |
And I couldn't relieve myself, | 30:34 | |
and it was actually, | 30:35 | |
I was more in pain than anything. | 30:36 | |
And I was there for maybe half an hour, | 30:39 | |
and at the end, I thought, you know what? | 30:40 | |
Forget it, there's no going. | 30:42 | |
So, I went back, sat back down. | 30:43 | |
She goes, "Did you go?" | 30:45 | |
I said, "No, I couldn't go." | 30:46 | |
She goes, "Why?" | 30:47 | |
I said, "Well, you were standing there." | 30:48 | |
She goes, "Oh, what's wrong with that?" | 30:49 | |
I was thinking, yeah why... | 30:51 | |
In my mind I was thinking, yeah, | 30:51 | |
why don't you sit down, half naked | 30:52 | |
and let me look at you and say, "Go on." | 30:54 | |
See how uncomfortable you find it. | 30:58 | |
And I sat back down after another half an hour, | 31:00 | |
I was in pain, my stomach was hurting. | 31:02 | |
I needed to go really, really desperately now, | 31:04 | |
especially like for a wee, I was dying. | 31:07 | |
I could feel like my bladder, | 31:09 | |
I was about to shoot, it was about to come. | 31:11 | |
I thought, I need to go. | 31:13 | |
And they took me off again, and I just sat there, | 31:15 | |
and it took me another half an hour, | 31:18 | |
but this time I just closed my eyes, | 31:19 | |
just tried to imagine | 31:21 | |
she's not there. | 31:22 | |
And eventually, I relieved myself. | 31:23 | |
Just done a wee really, I mean, | 31:27 | |
I don't do nothing else, I hold all of it in, | 31:28 | |
but I just done a wee. | 31:31 | |
And I got up, and she'd said to me turnaround, | 31:32 | |
and I thought maybe she wants to put | 31:34 | |
my trousers up. | 31:35 | |
So, I turned around, | 31:36 | |
and she kind of wiped my ass for me, | 31:37 | |
which like, shocked me. | 31:40 | |
I was like, ugh! Don't do that. | 31:41 | |
She goes, "What?" | 31:45 | |
I go, "I haven't done a poop." | 31:45 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 31:48 | |
And it's like, embarrassing. | 31:48 | |
I felt so embarrassed. | 31:50 | |
It's like madness and I thought, yeah, | 31:52 | |
things you gotta do for your job, hey? (chuckles) | 31:56 | |
Just absolutely horrendous, | 32:00 | |
so then I sat back down and obviously, | 32:01 | |
I was thinking, fine, what just happened? | 32:04 | |
I was going over my head what's happened. | 32:07 | |
That's something I gotta tell my family one day | 32:09 | |
when I get home, (chuckle) all my friends. | 32:11 | |
And obviously, I flew, | 32:13 | |
I think it was a day or two, a day and a half. | 32:15 | |
Got to my destination, landed in Guantanamo, | 32:18 | |
obviously, on the other side of the bay. | 32:21 | |
We was marched off individually, | 32:24 | |
and we was thrown onto a truck. | 32:25 | |
On this truck, we was told... | 32:29 | |
It was an open back truck. | 32:31 | |
I could see, I could sense | 32:33 | |
that it's like the truck, the back part | 32:35 | |
it was actually open. | 32:37 | |
You know the military trucks? | 32:38 | |
They have the open back trucks | 32:39 | |
and you can see all the people inside. | 32:41 | |
It was like one of them trucks. | 32:41 | |
We sat down and we was told to sit | 32:43 | |
with our legs crossed, lent forward | 32:45 | |
with our hands on our left knee. | 32:47 | |
So, our hands like that, we had to lean forward, | 32:49 | |
and put it on our left knee. | 32:51 | |
And so, you got your legs crossed. | 32:53 | |
So, we driving, and obviously when you driving | 32:55 | |
it moves, the vehicle moves, | 32:56 | |
bumps and blah, blah, blah. | 32:58 | |
And eventually, it was only like about, | 33:00 | |
from what I remember, | 33:02 | |
I think it was about 10 minutes to dock. | 33:03 | |
I think there's a dock there and you have | 33:06 | |
to cross the channel, or the river, | 33:07 | |
whatever it is. | 33:09 | |
So, we go on this ferry, we drove onto a ferry, | 33:10 | |
and obviously, you're on the sea now. | 33:13 | |
So, the sea moves about with the water. | 33:15 | |
We was told not to move, we couldn't move. | 33:18 | |
Couldn't move a muscle, so every time | 33:19 | |
the sea moved, or the boat moved, it was rocking. | 33:21 | |
So, the guy kicked me in my thigh, | 33:23 | |
like as he's kicking a football,. | 33:26 | |
And he kicked me that hard for about, | 33:28 | |
I would say he must have kicked me about 30 times | 33:32 | |
on that same spot. | 33:34 | |
And again as I... | 33:37 | |
I don't really cry in my life, | 33:38 | |
but that was like I broke down | 33:40 | |
and I couldn't hack the pain. | 33:42 | |
I was in tears, I was like, tears were running. | 33:44 | |
There was like a river. (chuckles) | 33:46 | |
Do you know? | 33:49 | |
And it was that bad, I couldn't... | 33:50 | |
And the thing what it was, | 33:51 | |
the reason I was getting kicked | 33:52 | |
more than anybody, because what happened was, | 33:53 | |
my hands were on my left knee. | 33:55 | |
And you know, like when you're in that state? | 33:57 | |
You forget things, | 34:00 | |
sometimes you kind of just don't pay attention. | 34:01 | |
I brought my hand back to the middle | 34:04 | |
and I sat up straight. | 34:06 | |
A guy goes, comes to my ear, | 34:07 | |
and by that time they took the muffs off. | 34:09 | |
They took our jackets off as well. | 34:11 | |
They got a (indistinct), took our jackets off | 34:13 | |
when we got to Guantanamo, but so, | 34:14 | |
we still had the goggles. | 34:17 | |
No, we had them off soon, all right? | 34:19 | |
They took our wooly caps off. | 34:21 | |
We had a wooly cap, they took that off, | 34:22 | |
put the muffs back on. | 34:23 | |
The guy came, took my muff off, | 34:25 | |
and he said to me, "Put your hands | 34:26 | |
on your left knee." | 34:29 | |
I just instantly went like that, | 34:30 | |
because obviously I understand him. | 34:32 | |
Majority of them, actually, all of them | 34:34 | |
never understood him. | 34:35 | |
So, they was having difficulties telling them | 34:36 | |
what a left knee is and put their hands. | 34:38 | |
So, obviously, when he told me, I moved | 34:40 | |
as he told me. | 34:41 | |
So, he thought, well, hold on, | 34:42 | |
this guy understood me. | 34:43 | |
So, he goes, | 34:44 | |
"Oh, this motherfucker speaks English, | 34:45 | |
and he understands." | 34:47 | |
So, what they did, they got like a chalk, | 34:48 | |
and they wrote on my back, English. | 34:51 | |
Interviewer | How do you know | 34:55 |
that the word English was written on your back? | 34:56 | |
- | Because you know like when I was walking, | 34:57 |
so I could hear some of the soldiers. | 35:00 | |
What has he got English written on his back for? | 35:02 | |
Why has he got English on his back for? | 35:04 | |
And basically, it was telling the other soldiers, | 35:06 | |
this guy speaks English. | 35:07 | |
Not that I was from England. | 35:09 | |
They just thought, they just knew | 35:10 | |
I spoke English. | 35:11 | |
So, when he said to me, "Turn, put your hands | 35:12 | |
on your left knee." | 35:16 | |
I just moved it. | 35:17 | |
He obviously, he goes, | 35:18 | |
"Oh, this motherfucker speaks English | 35:18 | |
and understands it." | 35:20 | |
And he kicked me every time I moved, | 35:21 | |
every time the boat moved, obviously | 35:22 | |
I was going left and right (chuckles) | 35:24 | |
with the boat rocking. | 35:25 | |
And then he kept on kicking me on my left knee, | 35:27 | |
on my left thigh. | 35:29 | |
And then, when I got off, | 35:31 | |
I couldn't put any pressure on my leg. | 35:32 | |
It was swollen to the extent that I... | 35:34 | |
It was like, black, and when I went to the... | 35:37 | |
When I went to my cage, | 35:39 | |
or when I went to the tent, | 35:40 | |
when they stripped me again, | 35:41 | |
my leg was like swollen, | 35:43 | |
and it was all black, blue and purple. | 35:44 | |
And they said to me, "What happened to your leg?" | 35:46 | |
So, what do you mean what happened to my leg? | 35:49 | |
Why don't you ask your soldier who kicked | 35:50 | |
me about 30 times? | 35:51 | |
That's what happened to my leg. | 35:52 | |
And he goes, "Why did he kick you?" | 35:53 | |
I go, "Ask him, I don't know why he kicked me." | 35:55 | |
I was not moving. | 35:58 | |
I was moving because the boat was moving. | 35:59 | |
I was going along with the boat. | 36:00 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 36:02 | |
And nothing happened about that anyway. | 36:04 | |
So, we got off in the... | 36:05 | |
Then we got off the ferry. | 36:10 | |
We drove into the camp, | 36:12 | |
the gates opened obviously, | 36:14 | |
I could hear the gates open up, | 36:15 | |
padlocks, and blah, blah, chains. | 36:16 | |
We drove in, they dragged us off one by one, | 36:17 | |
and the pictures that was first, | 36:19 | |
I think released of Guantanamo, | 36:21 | |
you know when they got them like detainees | 36:22 | |
who was sitting down with their hands like that | 36:25 | |
with the masks. | 36:27 | |
That's how we was put, | 36:28 | |
and I was there for maybe two hours probably. | 36:30 | |
It was really hot, dehydrating. | 36:34 | |
We was not obviously given any water | 36:36 | |
because we was given water, | 36:38 | |
but we couldn't drink it. | 36:39 | |
So, according to them, we all refused | 36:41 | |
to drink water. (chuckles) | 36:42 | |
So, obviously we was all dehydrating. | 36:43 | |
God, it was extremely hot, dehydrated more. | 36:45 | |
Obviously, when they get off, they kind of... | 36:48 | |
Excuse me, they punch you, kick you, | 36:50 | |
and so on and so, put us down. | 36:51 | |
Then, I think, they was taking everybody one | 36:53 | |
by one individually in a rota, | 36:55 | |
and it was my turn. | 36:58 | |
They took me... | 36:59 | |
First, they took me to the showers. | 37:00 | |
They got a Stanley knife. | 37:01 | |
They cut my clothes off, took my goggles off. | 37:03 | |
Sorry, took my ear muffs off, but left | 37:06 | |
my goggles on. | 37:08 | |
Still had my cuffs on and basically, | 37:10 | |
I was literally naked, | 37:12 | |
and they took me to the shower. | 37:13 | |
And the one guy moved, removed the goggles | 37:16 | |
to a certain extent. | 37:18 | |
He goes, "That's the shower, | 37:19 | |
here's a bar of soap, have a shower." | 37:20 | |
So, he put the goggles back down, | 37:22 | |
he opened the tap of the shower. | 37:23 | |
And obviously, it was like | 37:26 | |
a really powerful shower. | 37:27 | |
It's like I was having a shower, | 37:28 | |
you can call it, but I had a soap in my hands, | 37:31 | |
and my hands were tied. | 37:33 | |
And I said, (chuckles) "Excuse me, | 37:34 | |
can you un-cuff at least one of my hands | 37:35 | |
so I can put soap around me?" | 37:36 | |
Under my armpits and my private parts, and stuff. | 37:37 | |
I need to scrub, and he said, "No." | 37:39 | |
He said, "You should do it | 37:42 | |
with your hands cuffed." | 37:43 | |
I thought, okay, I just threw the soap | 37:44 | |
on the floor and just stood there like a twat, | 37:45 | |
under the cold water. | 37:47 | |
Then they took me back to a tent, | 37:49 | |
it was called the processing tent. | 37:52 | |
Went through the tent | 37:54 | |
and there was a lot of people there, | 37:55 | |
they had like it was generals, | 37:56 | |
and all the military high officials. | 37:58 | |
You could tell like it was... | 38:00 | |
They were all standing there. | 38:01 | |
And I got to the tent, | 38:03 | |
and the one guy goes to me, | 38:04 | |
oh he goes, "Arabic, Urdu, Pashto?" | 38:05 | |
Asking if you speak the language. | 38:08 | |
I said, "No, no." | 38:09 | |
And they all kind of looked at me, | 38:10 | |
like really funny, like what language | 38:11 | |
does he speak? (laughs) | 38:14 | |
Then I was like from some kind of alien, | 38:15 | |
and they said, "You translator?" | 38:18 | |
I said, "No, I speak English." | 38:20 | |
And they were all like, (gasps) | 38:21 | |
"He just spoke English." | 38:23 | |
It's like, yeah, you not the only ones | 38:24 | |
who speak English in this world. (chuckles) | 38:26 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 38:28 | |
So, I'm walking in the tent and they, | 38:29 | |
first of all, they took a swab again of my mouth, | 38:31 | |
took a few photos. | 38:35 | |
They took my fingerprints. | 38:37 | |
They never took any strand of my hair | 38:41 | |
because it was shaven before we got on the plane. | 38:42 | |
Then we was marched to the table, | 38:46 | |
cavity search, moved on. | 38:49 | |
I'm still in the cuffs. | 38:52 | |
Then they gave us a new set of a uniform | 38:53 | |
and the way we we wore them | 38:56 | |
is they took one leg off, one cuff, | 38:57 | |
one leg iron off, put one leg on. | 38:59 | |
Cuffed it back, took the other one off, | 39:02 | |
put the trousers on, cuffed it, | 39:04 | |
and same with the hands. | 39:05 | |
But it was not a full suit, it was actually | 39:07 | |
like trouser and a top, which was orange. | 39:08 | |
And by that time they took | 39:11 | |
my actual goggles off then. | 39:12 | |
So, I got to this other place, the guy sitting | 39:14 | |
on a table with some letters, and he asked me | 39:17 | |
to write a letter to my family. | 39:20 | |
He goes, "Do you wanna write a letter | 39:21 | |
to your family?" | 39:22 | |
I said, "Yeah, I wouldn't mind to write | 39:23 | |
a letter, but how?" | 39:24 | |
He goes, "With you hands, here's the pen." | 39:25 | |
I said, "Well, my hands are cuffed, | 39:27 | |
how am I supposed to write a letter | 39:28 | |
with my hands cuffed?" | 39:29 | |
And obviously, I was tied like this, | 39:30 | |
so how am I supposed to write a letter? | 39:30 | |
And he said, "Well, you'll have to do it." | 39:33 | |
I was like, I go, | 39:34 | |
"Can I write a letter later on?" | 39:36 | |
And he goes, "Yeah, you're better (indistinct), | 39:37 | |
leave it then." | 39:39 | |
And I think, majority of the detainees, | 39:39 | |
I think all of them, | 39:41 | |
they've actually wrote a letter | 39:42 | |
when they first got in, | 39:43 | |
which is literally impossible. | 39:44 | |
Then they had like a camp rule list on a board | 39:45 | |
and I think, there's like 15, 20 rules, | 39:49 | |
or 10 rules that you had to abide by, | 39:52 | |
and I had to go and read them. | 39:55 | |
And he said, "Read them." | 39:56 | |
He goes, "Do you want me to explain to you?" | 39:57 | |
I go, "Nah, no, I can read them myself." | 39:58 | |
I read it, then I was marched to my... | 40:00 | |
Where I was in the alpha block in Camp X-ray. | 40:04 | |
I was in Camp X-ray, block alpha, | 40:07 | |
it was alpha, charlie basically. | 40:14 | |
Block Alpha, row charlie, six. | 40:15 | |
So, that was my cell I went to. | 40:19 | |
And obviously, the way they take you, | 40:21 | |
you're still cuffed, and what they do, | 40:23 | |
they actually push your head down, | 40:24 | |
so you're walking like that. | 40:26 | |
So, you can't see up because someone's | 40:28 | |
got their hands on the head, | 40:29 | |
cause they don't want you to see the layout | 40:30 | |
of the camp, just in case you plan | 40:31 | |
to escapee. (chuckles) | 40:33 | |
So, I feel like a film. | 40:35 | |
Then we was marched to the... | 40:38 | |
I was taken to my cage, thrown in there. | 40:40 | |
I was made to kneel down at the back | 40:43 | |
of the fence. | 40:46 | |
So, my head, my forehead is pushed | 40:46 | |
against the fence. | 40:49 | |
My hands are cuffed. | 40:50 | |
One guy comes around the back, | 40:51 | |
there's three of them. | 40:52 | |
One's holding me from the shoulder, | 40:53 | |
the other holds me from my elbow, | 40:55 | |
the other, he was un-cuffing one of my cuffs. | 40:57 | |
First of all, I think the un-cuff your leg irons, | 41:00 | |
then they throw the leg irons underneath you. | 41:04 | |
So, you're on your knees, right? | 41:06 | |
Hands like that, on your knees, | 41:07 | |
they un-cuff your leg irons, | 41:09 | |
throw them in the front. | 41:10 | |
The other guy comes from behind, | 41:11 | |
puts his hands behind my legs, | 41:13 | |
picks the cuffs up. | 41:15 | |
So, he's got em in his hand. | 41:15 | |
He un-cuffs one hand, grabs the cuff. | 41:18 | |
Then the other guy grabs your hand, | 41:20 | |
places it on top of your head. | 41:23 | |
He places his hand on top of your hand | 41:24 | |
so you can't move it. | 41:25 | |
Then the other guy goes around, | 41:27 | |
un-cuffs the other hand, takes the hands away, | 41:28 | |
throws them out the door | 41:30 | |
so you don't get hold of the other guys, | 41:31 | |
so you can still use them as a weapon. | 41:33 | |
Then the other guy puts your hands, | 41:35 | |
and he tells you to interlock your fingers | 41:36 | |
and they hold your fingers | 41:38 | |
together, really tight. | 41:39 | |
Then as he's holding you, | 41:41 | |
and he's got you by your... | 41:42 | |
In between your shoulder, | 41:44 | |
pressed against the fence. | 41:45 | |
One leaves, second leaves, and when they got | 41:47 | |
the padlock ready, about to shut the door, | 41:49 | |
he pushes you and exits out. | 41:51 | |
And it's like any small cages, | 41:54 | |
like about three meters by three meters, | 41:56 | |
maybe four by four, something like that. | 41:58 | |
So, it's quite like... | 42:01 | |
It's like a drama scene, I think. (chuckles) | 42:02 | |
The way they do things. | 42:06 | |
Then they locked the door, and I got up, | 42:08 | |
and they told me to come | 42:10 | |
to the front (indistinct). | 42:11 | |
In my cell, there was two buckets, | 42:13 | |
one to drink water. | 42:14 | |
And he told me the order they have to be in. | 42:15 | |
So, you've got a bucket and a bucket. | 42:18 | |
Then you have your slippers. | 42:20 | |
Then you have a toothbrush, | 42:21 | |
toothpaste, soap, shampoo, | 42:22 | |
and then your canteen to drink water out of. | 42:25 | |
There's a particular order you gotta put em in. | 42:29 | |
In one bucket, there's water to wash, | 42:32 | |
or to drink before you wash. | 42:34 | |
You take the fresh water, put it in the canteen. | 42:36 | |
Then they got a small hand towel, | 42:38 | |
which you can use to put in the canteen | 42:40 | |
like at the top, so nothing goes inside, | 42:44 | |
cause there was no top given. | 42:46 | |
So, we used that as like a stopper, | 42:48 | |
you can call it. | 42:49 | |
The other bucket was to urinate | 42:52 | |
and defecate in really. | 42:53 | |
And obviously, there was no privacy, again, | 42:55 | |
we had to go in front of everybody. | 42:57 | |
And as you have seen, like the cages | 42:59 | |
were made of fence. | 43:01 | |
Like, you know when you go to play tennis? | 43:05 | |
A tennis court, the sides, | 43:06 | |
exactly the same material. | 43:09 | |
Even the roof was built with that. | 43:10 | |
Then on top of that, | 43:12 | |
they had another roof that was built. | 43:13 | |
That was made of a wood, | 43:15 | |
but it was like just putting, | 43:17 | |
for example, building a... | 43:19 | |
It was like building a room | 43:23 | |
with a cage obviously, with metal. | 43:26 | |
Then they have this roof literally | 43:28 | |
the same size of the cage. | 43:30 | |
So, when you it rained obviously, | 43:32 | |
the rain never falls straight does it? | 43:34 | |
It always falls at an angle, | 43:35 | |
depending on which way the wind blows. | 43:37 | |
Sometimes it does fall straight | 43:39 | |
if there's no wind at all, | 43:40 | |
but 99.9% of the time, | 43:41 | |
it always falls at an angle. | 43:42 | |
So, if the roof is exactly | 43:44 | |
the same size (chuckles) of this cage, | 43:45 | |
and the cage is made of mesh, | 43:47 | |
which is like open air. | 43:49 | |
Obviously, you can get water in your tent. | 43:51 | |
So, I didn't see the purpose of that roof. | 43:53 | |
So, when it rained, | 43:55 | |
it would come straight in your cell, | 43:57 | |
and you would get wet. | 43:59 | |
The only thing was the floor | 44:00 | |
was made of concrete. | 44:01 | |
We was given an insulation mat to sleep on. | 44:02 | |
We was given one sheet, two blankets, | 44:05 | |
like a thin, furry fleecy, kind of type blanket. | 44:09 | |
And we was given two towels to start off with. | 44:15 | |
When we first got there, | 44:19 | |
basically we couldn't talk to nobody. | 44:20 | |
I was more isolated because majority | 44:22 | |
of the people in my block | 44:23 | |
were actually Arabs. | 44:28 | |
So, I couldn't speak Arabic at the time. | 44:29 | |
So, I was kind of more isolated | 44:31 | |
than anybody, even though we was not allowed | 44:33 | |
to talk to nobody, anyway, but later on | 44:34 | |
that ban was lifted. | 44:36 | |
And we was allowed to talk, | 44:37 | |
I couldn't communicate anyway. | 44:38 | |
So, obviously that was basically, | 44:40 | |
and the size was about three by three meters, | 44:43 | |
probably four by four max, five I would say. | 44:47 | |
Square like- | 44:51 | |
Interviewer | Can I go back | 44:53 |
to something earlier, before we go into it? | 44:54 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 44:56 |
Interviewer | Did you know if you... | 44:57 |
When the Americans took you, who was holding you | 44:58 | |
before the Americans took you? | 45:01 | |
Who was holding you? | 45:03 | |
- | The Northern Alliance, general (indistinct). | 45:04 |
Interviewer | And do you know if they... | 45:07 |
Americans paid money for you. | 45:08 | |
- | From what we've heard when we was actually | 45:10 |
being handed over, who was actually paid, | 45:12 | |
they paid them $35,000 for a person | 45:14 | |
who spoke English. | 45:17 | |
So, basically the Arabs, and the English speaking, | 45:18 | |
European people had more value than (chuckles) | 45:21 | |
the Afghani and Pakistani's, cause we got... | 45:24 | |
I got paid $35,000 for me, that was my price. | 45:26 | |
And for the Pakistanis and the Afghanis, | 45:31 | |
they got paid 5,000. | 45:33 | |
Interviewer | Hmm. | 45:35 |
- | So... | 45:36 |
Interviewer | And when you went to Kandahar, | 45:37 |
did you ever see a doctor there at all? | 45:38 | |
- | There was medics there, but they was | 45:41 |
kind of a waste of time. | 45:42 | |
Interviewer | Why? | 45:44 |
- | They was there for nothing | |
because some of them, | 45:45 | |
some of the detainees had frostbite. | 45:47 | |
Frostbite on the toes and that could be cured. | 45:50 | |
All they need is antibiotics, and so, and so, | 45:53 | |
and it would sort it out, | 45:55 | |
but they were refused medication whatsoever. | 45:56 | |
So, obviously when you've got frostbite, | 46:00 | |
it gets infected and it goes... | 46:02 | |
Start getting black, and eventually it dies, | 46:03 | |
your toe dies so it has to be amputated. | 46:05 | |
So they, you know- | 46:07 | |
Interviewer | What did the doctors do? | 46:08 |
Were the doctors called to that? | 46:09 | |
- | All the doctors did if someone was injured, | 46:13 |
I mean, heavily injured it's like, | 46:14 | |
heavily injured if they got bullet wounds, | 46:16 | |
or shot bullet wounds, then they... | 46:18 | |
Even then I don't think they treated them. | 46:20 | |
They just poured iodine on top of that wound, | 46:21 | |
and whacked a bit of bandage on it, that's it. | 46:24 | |
Oh, and they gave... | 46:27 | |
They used to always give constipation tablets | 46:28 | |
because (indistinct) cause they make | 46:30 | |
you constipated really bad. | 46:33 | |
So, you don't go to the toilet for like, | 46:34 | |
three, four days (chuckles) sometimes. | 46:36 | |
So, eventually you start | 46:37 | |
getting cramps and stuff. | 46:38 | |
So, they would give you... | 46:39 | |
There's a small, very small tablet, | 46:42 | |
which was quite effective. | 46:43 | |
That's the only thing they would give you, | 46:46 | |
but just to go toilet. (chuckles) | 46:46 | |
Interviewer | And when you had | 46:49 |
your interrogations in Kandahar, | 46:50 | |
did you ever get beaten for not answering, | 46:54 | |
or did you get beaten for any... | 46:56 | |
Or any other violence done to you | 46:58 | |
during that time? | 47:00 | |
- | Majority of the time you would get beaten up | 47:02 |
because you're not talking, or if they thought | 47:03 | |
you're not giving... | 47:06 | |
You're not being truthful, | 47:07 | |
because we always maintained that we was innocent | 47:09 | |
from day one, until we got to Guantanamo. | 47:11 | |
So, we always said like. | 47:16 | |
We went on the trip to Pakistan and so-and-so, | 47:17 | |
and this is how we've got to Afghanistan. | 47:20 | |
And they always said, | 47:23 | |
"No, that what you saying now is just bullshit." | 47:24 | |
In other words, this is what we think | 47:28 | |
you were actually not... | 47:30 | |
They don't say think, this is what you went. | 47:31 | |
So, they actually were putting words in our mouth | 47:32 | |
and saying that we know that you | 47:35 | |
went for that reason. | 47:36 | |
You went to fight for the Taliban | 47:37 | |
because of 9/11 and because of the things | 47:38 | |
that were happening in Iraq. | 47:40 | |
You know all the ban on Saddam Hussein, | 47:42 | |
and all this mumbo jumbo I've never heard | 47:45 | |
of in my life. | 47:46 | |
I never knew Saddam Hussein was under sanctions. | 47:47 | |
I've never heard of Saddam Hussein | 47:50 | |
when I was young anyway. (chuckles) | 47:51 | |
I was not very politically | 47:52 | |
aware before Guantanamo. | 47:54 | |
So, the word sanction made no sense to me. | 47:58 | |
I was like, | 48:01 | |
"Well, what does that mean?" (chuckles) | 48:01 | |
So, they was like giving these reasons. | 48:02 | |
So, you felt as a Muslim, you felt angry | 48:05 | |
to go out, 9/11 happened and there | 48:07 | |
was another attack on a Muslim nation, | 48:09 | |
which is Afghanistan, and you felt | 48:11 | |
obliged to come and help | 48:13 | |
your fellow Muslim. | 48:14 | |
I was like, "I haven't got a clue | 48:15 | |
what you're talking about." | 48:17 | |
So, if you didn't say that, that was the reason | 48:18 | |
that they would beat you, or if they had somebody | 48:20 | |
that they thought, | 48:23 | |
who was also detained with you, | 48:24 | |
they thought that was somebody who they thought | 48:26 | |
that was linked to Al-Qaeda, or who was | 48:29 | |
very valuable to them. | 48:31 | |
And they was in the same tent, | 48:34 | |
and they would expect you to spy, | 48:35 | |
to listen out and to give information | 48:37 | |
in terms of what they're doing, | 48:39 | |
is the plan to escape? | 48:40 | |
Is the plan to kill somebody? | 48:41 | |
Interviewer | Would they ask | 48:43 |
you those questions? | 48:43 | |
- | Yeah, and they would say, "We want you | 48:44 |
to go in and be a spy, just listen out. | 48:45 | |
And if you ever hear anything tell the soldiers | 48:48 | |
that you wanna see the intel, | 48:50 | |
and we'll call you." | 48:52 | |
So, there was a lot of pressure from them | 48:54 | |
in terms of spying over the people, | 48:56 | |
but I always used to say, "First of all, | 48:58 | |
I'm not a spy for you because it's not my..." | 48:59 | |
It's not my job, do you know what I mean? | 49:01 | |
And why should I spy on the person | 49:02 | |
who's being treated the same as me? | 49:04 | |
Interviewer | Do you think you | 49:07 |
were treated better since you spoke English? | 49:08 | |
- | In Guantanamo, yeah. | 49:12 |
In Kandahar also, we was better off obviously, | 49:13 | |
than the Arab because we could understand | 49:15 | |
what's happening, even though we never | 49:18 | |
actually told anybody we was actually, | 49:19 | |
from the UK. | 49:21 | |
Because when you in that kind of situation, | 49:22 | |
you kind of, you wanna use that | 49:24 | |
to your advantage. | 49:25 | |
If you tell everybody you're from the UK, | 49:26 | |
then they don't... | 49:28 | |
They'll start talking in codes, | 49:29 | |
or they'll talk very quietly. | 49:30 | |
So, if you tell them | 49:32 | |
that you don't understand English, | 49:33 | |
and you act like an idiot, | 49:34 | |
they talk about things, they need to move you. | 49:36 | |
And basic things were known to us, | 49:39 | |
like when you watch military films, | 49:41 | |
like they use a 24 hour clock. | 49:43 | |
They used bird as a plane, chow, | 49:45 | |
and stuff like that, you know? | 49:48 | |
Certain words they used | 49:49 | |
to describe certain things. | 49:50 | |
So, obviously we had the understanding, | 49:52 | |
and we used it to our benefit | 49:53 | |
to know what's happening. | 49:56 | |
Who's coming, if more detainees are coming in. | 49:57 | |
So, we just kept quiet, | 49:59 | |
didn't say we spoke English. | 50:00 | |
Only the people who knew we spoke English | 50:01 | |
were a handful of military personnel, | 50:03 | |
and the interrogators, obviously, | 50:08 | |
because we told them we was from the UK. | 50:09 | |
But majority of them, we never told them. | 50:10 | |
So, when they would talk amongst themselves | 50:12 | |
about something that's happened in the camp, | 50:14 | |
we would just look at em like... | 50:16 | |
Interviewer | And when you say we, | 50:18 |
who are you talking about? | 50:19 | |
- | Me, Shafiq and Asif, | 50:20 |
because we was actually put together initially. | 50:21 | |
After two weeks, Asif was segregated from us. | 50:24 | |
He was sent to a different tent. | 50:26 | |
Interviewer | Why do you think? | 50:28 |
- | I dunno, it was just random. | 50:29 |
They would move, every day they would take five, | 50:30 | |
put them out, put 'em to a different tent | 50:33 | |
and bring five from another tent, | 50:35 | |
and just keep on moving around. | 50:36 | |
I think it's to make sure that you don't | 50:38 | |
get to know somebody and start planning, | 50:40 | |
because if you're there for seven months, | 50:42 | |
or a year with the same kind of people | 50:44 | |
all the time. | 50:46 | |
Then you can actually start planning something, | 50:47 | |
but if you actually move us around, 24 hours | 50:49 | |
around the clock, then you can't plan. | 50:51 | |
So, I think it was like military thinking. | 50:54 | |
Interviewer | So, when you got to Guantanamo, | 50:56 |
what was your first interrogation like? | 51:00 | |
Was it any different from what happened | 51:02 | |
in Kandahar, or was it- | 51:03 | |
- | It was actually more scary. | 51:04 |
To me, it seems like from a movie | 51:08 | |
where you would see a person | 51:10 | |
who was being imprisoned, | 51:12 | |
because when I first got into interrogating | 51:14 | |
in Guantanamo, when I walked in, | 51:18 | |
it was a fairly big room. | 51:19 | |
It was made of all, like wood, | 51:21 | |
and they had a massive table in the front. | 51:24 | |
And then they had this huge guy, bald guy, | 51:26 | |
and he was like, not just big, he was built. | 51:28 | |
Like really, really massive dude | 51:31 | |
and he was wearing his vest and he had | 51:34 | |
all his muscles were kind of popping out, | 51:36 | |
which he looked scary, and he had a stubble. | 51:37 | |
And a bald dude, and I thought, shit. | 51:40 | |
(chuckles) I'm in trouble. | 51:42 | |
And they had along the back of the room, | 51:43 | |
they had about 15 to 20 guys sitting, | 51:46 | |
and they looked like officers. | 51:50 | |
Sitting all there around, so they had a table, | 51:52 | |
as me and you are. | 51:54 | |
The guy's there, I'm here, and along that room | 51:56 | |
they had like about 15, 20 guys sitting. | 51:58 | |
And I was like, "What's happening here?" | 52:00 | |
It's like from a film. | 52:02 | |
I had a guy on my right, and a guy on the left | 52:04 | |
with the guns. | 52:09 | |
And one guy obviously standing outside, | 52:10 | |
and he was being very serious cause later on, | 52:13 | |
things became more relaxed for us | 52:17 | |
with the interrogation stuff. | 52:19 | |
But with this guy, he was like, down to business, | 52:21 | |
very serious, he looked the part. | 52:23 | |
I'm like, oof, I'm in trouble now. | 52:26 | |
And he asked me basic things, | 52:28 | |
"What school did you go to? | 52:29 | |
Where year was you born?" | 52:30 | |
From childhood to now, I had to give him | 52:33 | |
all the names of my family, people I know, | 52:35 | |
people who when I was, I went to school with. | 52:37 | |
Took all my information. | 52:41 | |
I was there for maybe six hours, | 52:42 | |
and all the other guys | 52:44 | |
were kind of, sitting there, but nothing... | 52:44 | |
I mean, I didn't get physically abused, | 52:46 | |
or nothing like that. | 52:48 | |
It was just like, he looked very serious. | 52:49 | |
It was like, | 52:50 | |
you're getting interrogated, basically. | 52:51 | |
And he was just taking notes. | 52:53 | |
That was my very first interrogation, | 52:55 | |
and obviously after that, I was seen | 52:56 | |
by the MI5 the next day. | 52:58 | |
Interviewer | By what? | 53:00 |
- | By the MI5. | 53:01 |
Interviewer | The MI5 came the next day? | 53:02 |
- | Yeah, dunno if it was the next day, | 53:04 |
they came the next day. | 53:04 | |
Interviewer | And what happened there? | 53:05 |
- | It was the same thing, it was like, | 53:06 |
they came and they said, we're basically the MI5. | 53:08 | |
I've obviously heard of the MI5, | 53:10 | |
so I knew what the MI5 was, and there was a guy | 53:11 | |
from the foreign office. | 53:13 | |
He introduced himself, and basically asked me | 53:16 | |
about my welfare, if I'm doing okay. | 53:18 | |
If I am okay because obviously, I had spoken | 53:21 | |
to his colleague before. | 53:23 | |
And he asked me (chuckles) if I'm okay | 53:24 | |
when I was like the way I was. | 53:25 | |
It's the same thing, I was still chained up | 53:28 | |
and he was asking, I said, "Yeah, fine," | 53:29 | |
because to me, I think I realized | 53:31 | |
that even if I say I'm not okay, | 53:33 | |
they'll say, "Okay." | 53:35 | |
So, there's nothing they can do for me. | 53:36 | |
So, there's no point of really complaining, | 53:38 | |
and even though we did complain | 53:40 | |
on many occasions, but after a while you think, | 53:41 | |
it's not worth complaining. | 53:43 | |
It's not actually worth saying anything to them. | 53:44 | |
And then my father actually went through | 53:46 | |
the same thing, date of birth, age, | 53:48 | |
who you know, where you're from, | 53:51 | |
background history basically. | 53:52 | |
And then they went back away for about two hours | 53:54 | |
and they bought me some Macky D's, | 53:57 | |
I had some dinner. | 53:58 | |
Stayed still, stayed in that interrogation room. | 53:59 | |
They came back they said, "Well, we've gone | 54:01 | |
over your story, and we think you've lied. | 54:03 | |
And this is the reason why we think | 54:05 | |
you came to Afghanistan. | 54:06 | |
We have your files that you was part | 54:08 | |
of this group, (indistinct) in the UK, | 54:10 | |
and all the other groups I've never heard | 54:12 | |
of in my life. | 54:13 | |
I was like, who's (indistinct), | 54:14 | |
and who's this group? | 54:15 | |
And they tried to link us with mosques and say, | 54:16 | |
we went on marches and all this madness. | 54:20 | |
I was like, "Nope, I haven't got a clue | 54:23 | |
what you're talking about." | 54:25 | |
And that went on for the two and a half years | 54:26 | |
I was there. | 54:29 | |
Interviewer | When the MI5, did they seem | 54:30 |
supportive of you? | 54:32 | |
- | No, they... | 54:34 |
I mean, we didn't get physically beaten | 54:35 | |
by the MI5, but obviously we got verbal abuse | 54:38 | |
from the MI5. | 54:41 | |
Interviewer | Was an American always present | 54:44 |
for the MI5, or were they- | 54:45 | |
- | No, sometimes yes, sometimes no. | 54:47 |
They would leave them to it, | 54:49 | |
but they always had... | 54:51 | |
They've got another room always... | 54:54 | |
How can I... | 54:56 | |
I think it's like a CCTV room, | 54:57 | |
which they monitor. | 54:58 | |
So, they got cameras and they got people, | 54:59 | |
and they can obviously hear | 55:01 | |
what you're talking about. | 55:02 | |
So, they've all... | 55:03 | |
Even though they're not present in that room, | 55:04 | |
they'll be in the next room | 55:05 | |
that they can hear you, and watch you | 55:06 | |
on the monitor. | 55:07 | |
Interviewer | When you said that | 55:08 |
it got better with the interrogations | 55:09 | |
with the Americans over time, | 55:11 | |
why would they get better? | 55:12 | |
What made them better? | 55:13 | |
- | I mean, it got better to a certain extent | 55:15 |
with certain interrogators. | 55:16 | |
It was like, when I first got there, | 55:21 | |
then I was handed over to this guy, | 55:23 | |
I would only see him. | 55:26 | |
This guy, I should say for, and he was | 55:28 | |
an American intelligence officer. | 55:29 | |
And he was in the military, cause he always used | 55:31 | |
to wear military clothes. | 55:33 | |
I dunno if it was like army, or Navy, | 55:34 | |
or whatever branch he's from. | 55:35 | |
I haven't got a clue, but he was actually | 55:38 | |
quite nice to me, and very friendly | 55:39 | |
every time I seen him, and I seen him | 55:41 | |
for maybe, like seven months. | 55:43 | |
So, every three, four weeks I would go | 55:44 | |
to see him, so I'd see him once a month. | 55:46 | |
I was in total seen him for about seven times, | 55:47 | |
and every time, even from the first time | 55:50 | |
I told him my story. | 55:51 | |
He actually never said to me I was lying. | 55:52 | |
He actually never said that, | 55:54 | |
this is what I think. | 55:56 | |
It seemed to me that he was actually | 55:57 | |
doing his job. | 55:58 | |
He's taking the information and going back, | 55:59 | |
researching what I'm saying, | 56:02 | |
if it's right or wrong. | 56:02 | |
And he's not trying to blame me for something | 56:04 | |
that he hasn't got enough evidence, | 56:05 | |
or any factual evidence against me. | 56:06 | |
So, it seemed quite genuine to me. | 56:09 | |
And he also used to bring me food all | 56:11 | |
the time without fail. | 56:13 | |
He would bring me Macky D's, bring me drinks. | 56:14 | |
He'd bring me pizza's, | 56:16 | |
and this is like the first stage of Guantanamo. | 56:17 | |
A lot of people were going through a lot of shit, | 56:20 | |
I kind of found it quite easy. | 56:23 | |
Also, he would have given me, in my cell, | 56:25 | |
I was probably one of the first detainees, | 56:27 | |
actually probably the first detainee | 56:29 | |
to actually get any kind of reading material. | 56:30 | |
He came and gave me a few books. | 56:33 | |
He gave me "Planet of the Apes." | 56:35 | |
He gave me, "The Flying Dutchman," | 56:37 | |
something like that. | 56:40 | |
Interviewer | So, why would he give it to you | 56:41 |
instead of the other Englishman? | 56:42 | |
- | I haven't got a clue. | 56:43 |
I think, because he was allocated to me. | 56:44 | |
At the beginning, you was allocated | 56:48 | |
a particular guy, who was interrogating you, | 56:50 | |
he's familiar with you. | 56:53 | |
He knows your story. | 56:54 | |
So, I think it's like getting to know the person | 56:55 | |
on an individual basis rather than, | 56:56 | |
you seeing me, then this guy sees me, | 56:59 | |
then this guy sees me. | 57:00 | |
Nobody's got a clue what that was going on. | 57:01 | |
So, I think, at the beginning, | 57:03 | |
that's how they try to do it. | 57:05 | |
But later on when he left, things changed. | 57:06 | |
I never seen one guy second time, | 57:09 | |
it was always changed. | 57:11 | |
So, he was fair and nice to me, | 57:14 | |
I dunno why he was nice to me, | 57:16 | |
but he was cool with me. | 57:17 | |
And he done a lot of things for me, | 57:19 | |
he gave me letters. | 57:20 | |
My family wrote letters to me, | 57:22 | |
and he actually brought the letters to me, | 57:24 | |
and he would come to my... | 57:25 | |
When I went to Guantanamo, I was actually moved | 57:28 | |
when we first went to Camp X-ray, | 57:31 | |
then the Camp Delta was built, | 57:33 | |
it was all transferred there. | 57:35 | |
I actually went to isolation for the first month. | 57:37 | |
Interviewer | Why is that? | 57:40 |
- | I haven't got a clue, but obviously, | 57:41 |
when I went there, I never knew | 57:42 | |
that was isolation. | 57:44 | |
I thought, this is the prison. | 57:45 | |
This is how everybody's in. | 57:46 | |
And all I knew I was actually in India block. | 57:47 | |
They call it I, so they used to call | 57:51 | |
it India block. | 57:52 | |
But after being in India block for three weeks, | 57:54 | |
one of the guys, one of the guy soldiers | 58:00 | |
I got to know quite well. | 58:01 | |
He asked me, he goes, "Why are you in isolation?" | 58:02 | |
So, this is isolation? | 58:04 | |
I thought this is the normal... | 58:06 | |
This is normal for everybody. | 58:08 | |
He's said, "No, this is isolation. | 58:09 | |
You've been isolated | 58:10 | |
because you've done something wrong. | 58:11 | |
You've either been in trouble, | 58:12 | |
or your interrogator has requested | 58:14 | |
for you to be isolated." | 58:18 | |
So, when I went to see my interrogator next week, | 58:19 | |
or a few days after, I asked him, | 58:22 | |
"So why am I in isolation?" | 58:23 | |
Cause I never knew, cause I don't know | 58:25 | |
if I was in isolation. | 58:27 | |
So, he actually got me out after a month, | 58:28 | |
he got me moved to camp... | 58:30 | |
Which was Camp Delta, | 58:32 | |
which was block C, Charlie block. | 58:33 | |
That's where he got me moved, | 58:36 | |
and that's when I realized, | 58:38 | |
so for one month I've been in isolation, | 58:39 | |
I never had a clue. | 58:42 | |
Interviewer | And he never explained | 58:43 |
to you why? | 58:44 | |
- | No. | |
He goes, "I dunno why you're there," | 58:44 | |
but for some reason he goes, "It's not me, | 58:46 | |
but you must have got in trouble." | 58:48 | |
I said, "No, I've never been in trouble. | 58:51 | |
I haven't swore, I haven't spat. | 58:52 | |
I haven't done anything." | 58:54 | |
So, I tried to find out, but obviously, | 58:55 | |
you're on a need to know basis in Guantanamo. | 58:56 | |
So, they tell you what you need to know. | 58:59 | |
So, then obviously, after the month | 59:01 | |
I was moved out. | 59:01 | |
Interviewer | Did you ever go | 59:03 |
back to isolation? | 59:04 | |
- | Oh, many times. (chuckles) | 59:05 |
Interviewer | Why did you go back other times? | 59:06 |
- | Once I got sent to isolation for two weeks | 59:08 |
for singing a song. (laughs) | 59:11 | |
Interviewer | Can you tell me what that was? | 59:13 |
- | It was a song that I think, | 59:15 |
I can't remember who sings it, but it goes... | 59:17 | |
I think actually, 2Pac sings it, and it goes | 59:21 | |
something down the line, | 59:23 | |
bow down when you come in my town, | 59:29 | |
bow down because I'm Westwood bound. | 59:31 | |
Something like that, that song, | 59:33 | |
but really, we'd actually changed | 59:34 | |
some of the words. | 59:36 | |
So, when this female woman, | 59:37 | |
who used to be a sergeant, we used to hate her. | 59:39 | |
Everybody used to hate her. | 59:42 | |
She used to be so bad, | 59:42 | |
So, when she used to walk on our block, | 59:43 | |
on her shift, I used to sing the song, | 59:46 | |
bow down when you come on the block, | 59:47 | |
bow down because I'm a detainee greater than you. | 59:49 | |
(chuckles) And because of that reason, | 59:52 | |
I got sent to isolation. | 59:53 | |
There's more to it, there's more lyrics to it, | 59:55 | |
I've just kind of forgot, it's been so long. | 59:57 | |
And she stood there and listened to me, | 59:59 | |
and she laughed. | 1:00:00 | |
She goes, "You find that funny?" | 1:00:01 | |
I said, "I find it very funny." | 1:00:04 | |
I go, "So, bow down." | 1:00:05 | |
And then she goes, "All right," she went back, | 1:00:06 | |
then the guards come to put me in isolation | 1:00:09 | |
for two weeks. (laughs) | 1:00:10 | |
So, it was funny. | 1:00:11 | |
Interviewer | Did you mind being in isolation? | 1:00:12 |
- | To be honest with you, in the beginning, | 1:00:15 |
if it's for two weeks, one day, two days, | 1:00:17 | |
it's fine cause it gives you time to reflect | 1:00:19 | |
and you're away from everybody. | 1:00:21 | |
So, you get to contemplate, to chill out, | 1:00:22 | |
relax, you're away from everybody. | 1:00:25 | |
You don't hear the screaming. | 1:00:27 | |
You don't hear the arguments. | 1:00:28 | |
So, you kind of have your... | 1:00:29 | |
You get to reflect on life. | 1:00:31 | |
So, in one way it's good only for two weeks, | 1:00:33 | |
probably I would say max, | 1:00:37 | |
but then another time I was in isolation | 1:00:38 | |
for about five months, continuous. | 1:00:39 | |
That was me, there was about four to five, | 1:00:42 | |
me, Shafiq and Asif was in isolation | 1:00:44 | |
for a very long period, because during | 1:00:48 | |
the end of my detention, in 2003 | 1:00:50 | |
when General Miller came, things had changed. | 1:00:51 | |
That's when things went worse. | 1:00:55 | |
We had the stress positions came out, | 1:00:57 | |
the strobe light, the music, | 1:01:01 | |
the frequent flyer program where you moved | 1:01:04 | |
every 15 minutes throughout the clock. | 1:01:07 | |
You had the sleep deprivation, obviously | 1:01:09 | |
it was just a single night. | 1:01:11 | |
Then you had the food deprivation. | 1:01:13 | |
If you're in isolation, you get a limited amount | 1:01:15 | |
of food, they would portion your food, | 1:01:17 | |
and you wouldn't get seconds. | 1:01:20 | |
Sometimes in other blocks | 1:01:20 | |
you would actually get seconds, | 1:01:22 | |
depending on who you were. | 1:01:22 | |
Not everybody gets seconds, only depending- | 1:01:25 | |
Interviewer | What do you mean by who you were? | 1:01:26 |
- | If you was a Brit, if you... | 1:01:28 |
Interviewer | If you were a Brit you got | 1:01:29 |
a second, but maybe if you were Arab, you didn't? | 1:01:30 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 1:01:33 |
No, well, obviously the Brits had more priority, | 1:01:33 | |
you can say in Guantanamo. | 1:01:36 | |
You can say that because our treatment wasn't | 1:01:38 | |
as worse compared to many of them, many people, | 1:01:41 | |
but at the same time, | 1:01:43 | |
depending on the individual, | 1:01:44 | |
how friendly the detainee was. | 1:01:46 | |
Because I know one Brit that everybody hated him | 1:01:48 | |
because he was quite upfront, very arrogant. | 1:01:51 | |
He just spit. | 1:01:54 | |
He used to throw urine. | 1:01:55 | |
He would throw feces at MP's. | 1:01:56 | |
So, obviously they're not gonna like him | 1:01:58 | |
because of that reason. | 1:01:59 | |
I never did that kind of thing | 1:02:00 | |
because I think it's not right | 1:02:01 | |
to spit on somebody. | 1:02:03 | |
Interviewer | What happened to him? | 1:02:04 |
- | Well, he was always also | 1:02:05 |
in isolation for many... | 1:02:07 | |
He spent, I think, most of his time over | 1:02:08 | |
probably one year, six months just in isolation. | 1:02:10 | |
Interviewer | Did he get earthed also? | 1:02:14 |
- | Yeah, he got earthed many times. | 1:02:15 |
I mean, we all got earthed, | 1:02:16 | |
but I think (chuckles) he got earthed... | 1:02:17 | |
You can't count the numbers, | 1:02:19 | |
that's how many times he got earthed. | 1:02:20 | |
Because anything used to happen, | 1:02:21 | |
he used to go mad. | 1:02:23 | |
Any little thing that he used | 1:02:25 | |
to go berserk, basically, and I was more cool, | 1:02:27 | |
relaxed, if something happened | 1:02:32 | |
I thought, this happened. | 1:02:33 | |
Aint nothing can do behind a cage. | 1:02:34 | |
I mean, if I was in front of the guy | 1:02:36 | |
and he did it, then it's a whole different story. | 1:02:37 | |
I can do something about it, but when you like, | 1:02:40 | |
a prisoner, there's no point sometimes | 1:02:42 | |
fighting, or restricting, | 1:02:46 | |
because they're always gonna win. | 1:02:47 | |
So, you kind of just go with the flow. | 1:02:49 | |
So, I used to get along, | 1:02:53 | |
I was one of the detainees probably, | 1:02:54 | |
who got on with a lot of guards, you can say. | 1:02:56 | |
Majority of the guards knew me, Asif and Shafiq. | 1:02:59 | |
We was actually quite well known throughout | 1:03:04 | |
the American soldiers. | 1:03:06 | |
We was known as the Three Kings of Guantanamo. | 1:03:08 | |
Interviewer | What does that mean? | 1:03:10 |
- | Towards the end of our release, | 1:03:12 |
we had more privileges than anybody. | 1:03:14 | |
We had extra things in our cell | 1:03:16 | |
that we were not allowed to have. | 1:03:18 | |
We had a tub of Gatorade, a whole tub of Gatorade | 1:03:19 | |
in our cell. | 1:03:23 | |
We used to have six meals instead of three meals. | 1:03:24 | |
We actually have double portions | 1:03:27 | |
on six meals. (chuckles) | 1:03:28 | |
So- | 1:03:29 | |
Interviewer | The Guards | |
would give you all this? | 1:03:30 | |
- | Yeah, we was actually given it | 1:03:31 |
because the interrogators wrote | 1:03:32 | |
that we were allowed to have it, | 1:03:34 | |
and that was because we was getting released. | 1:03:35 | |
So, it was like three months before | 1:03:37 | |
we got out, things changed. | 1:03:38 | |
Me, Asif and Shafiq, we used to go to watch | 1:03:40 | |
a film every Sunday without fail | 1:03:44 | |
for the three months before we left. | 1:03:46 | |
We used to go to this place called | 1:03:48 | |
the Love Shack, which is a fairly big room, | 1:03:49 | |
and they actually take and remove | 1:03:50 | |
all your shackles. | 1:03:51 | |
And there would be soldiers sitting | 1:03:53 | |
there with you. | 1:03:54 | |
So, we were sitting on the sofa, | 1:03:54 | |
and the soldiers actually sitting there, | 1:03:55 | |
and you'd be sitting next to a soldier, | 1:03:56 | |
which was kind of weird. | 1:03:58 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:04:00 | |
And they become very friendly with us. | 1:04:01 | |
We became friendly with them | 1:04:03 | |
and we would sit down, and even the soldiers | 1:04:04 | |
would sit down and we would watch TV together. | 1:04:05 | |
We would listen to the radio. | 1:04:08 | |
Sometimes they would leave the radio on | 1:04:09 | |
and we would listen to the radio, | 1:04:10 | |
and we'd watch TV. | 1:04:11 | |
We watched quite a few films there. | 1:04:12 | |
We watched James Bond with Halle Berry, | 1:04:14 | |
Tomorrow Never Dies, I think that one. | 1:04:17 | |
We must have watched about six, seven films. | 1:04:23 | |
I can't remember which ones, | 1:04:24 | |
but we watched quite a few in Guantanamo. | 1:04:26 | |
Interviewer | So, when you were there | 1:04:27 |
for five months in isolation, | 1:04:28 | |
why was that terrible? | 1:04:30 | |
- | That was because obviously, | 1:04:31 |
throughout my detention | 1:04:33 | |
I was accused of many things. | 1:04:35 | |
Of being part of... | 1:04:38 | |
First of all, you start off with you're | 1:04:39 | |
a member of the Taliban. | 1:04:41 | |
(indistinct) And slowly, slowly, | 1:04:42 | |
you move up the ranks. | 1:04:44 | |
You become a lieutenant, colonel, captain, | 1:04:45 | |
blah, blah, blah and eventually | 1:04:47 | |
in the general. (chuckles) | 1:04:48 | |
Then once they've gone through that phase | 1:04:49 | |
and they think, well, the Taliban doesn't | 1:04:50 | |
really mean much to us. | 1:04:53 | |
We wanna know if you're Al-Qaeda, | 1:04:54 | |
that's what we wanna get you on. | 1:04:56 | |
So, then you become like a full soldier | 1:04:58 | |
for Al-Qaeda, then you slowly move up | 1:04:59 | |
the ranks again. | 1:05:00 | |
Until you actually become Bin Laden's best man, | 1:05:02 | |
right hand man, or left hand man, | 1:05:05 | |
whatever you call it. | 1:05:07 | |
So, there was a period in 2003, | 1:05:08 | |
in I would say, | 1:05:13 | |
just when General Miller came in. | 1:05:18 | |
They had a video | 1:05:20 | |
and they had a photo of a video still photo. | 1:05:24 | |
And it was the pre-planning of 9/11 | 1:05:27 | |
in Afghanistan in 2000, in a place | 1:05:30 | |
called Terp Farms, | 1:05:33 | |
the film's actually called, Terp Farms. | 1:05:34 | |
That's the term the Americans use. | 1:05:36 | |
The footage was actually shown on CNN recently, | 1:05:38 | |
about a year ago. | 1:05:41 | |
So, they had this film, and obviously, | 1:05:43 | |
it's a very bad quality film. | 1:05:45 | |
They had a still, and they showed me a photo | 1:05:47 | |
where Mohamed Atta in 2000, was sitting | 1:05:49 | |
in Bin Laden's office on a podium giving | 1:05:52 | |
his talk, whatever he was saying, | 1:05:54 | |
and you got people, loads of people were sitting | 1:05:56 | |
on the floor. | 1:05:57 | |
The Taliban's there and there's Arabs there, | 1:05:59 | |
there's all kind of people there, | 1:06:01 | |
black, white, you name it, all there. | 1:06:02 | |
And Mohamed Atta's sitting there, | 1:06:04 | |
and just behind on the photo, | 1:06:05 | |
there's like three guys. | 1:06:07 | |
And one guy was wearing his Adidas fleece top, | 1:06:09 | |
which was obviously fake. | 1:06:13 | |
You could tell from a mile away it was fake. | 1:06:14 | |
In my interrogation, they asked me, | 1:06:16 | |
in my suitcase, what did I pack? | 1:06:17 | |
- | I said, "I packed thermals, | 1:06:19 |
I packed this and that, socks, blah, blah, blah." | 1:06:22 | |
I had tracksuit bottom, I had jeans, | 1:06:25 | |
and then when I said tracksuit bottoms, | 1:06:27 | |
they asked me, "What type?" | 1:06:29 | |
I said, "Adidas." | 1:06:31 | |
So, they pull this photo out, and they said, | 1:06:33 | |
because I said I was wearing Adidas, | 1:06:36 | |
they said that this person is me. | 1:06:38 | |
He didn't look nothing like me. | 1:06:40 | |
The guy had a massive beard, hee had long hair. | 1:06:41 | |
When I got to Pakistan in 2001, | 1:06:44 | |
I was clean shaven. | 1:06:47 | |
I didn't have a beard, I never had long hair | 1:06:48 | |
in my life, until after I came | 1:06:49 | |
off from Guantanamo. | 1:06:51 | |
So, they accused me of being that person | 1:06:52 | |
in that photo, they accused other two, | 1:06:53 | |
say next to the guy, to that particular guy, | 1:06:55 | |
to be Shafiq and Asif, (chuckles) | 1:06:58 | |
which didn't look nothing like us. | 1:07:00 | |
Like even if he gave the photo to my daughter, | 1:07:01 | |
and she will tell you that it's not her dad. | 1:07:05 | |
It was that blatant that you could see | 1:07:08 | |
that these people are not the three guys | 1:07:10 | |
who are in Guantanamo, | 1:07:12 | |
but they was like, adamant and they were saying, | 1:07:13 | |
"No, we know." | 1:07:14 | |
You had certain detainees in Guantanamo, | 1:07:16 | |
who kind of said, "Yeah, this guy was | 1:07:19 | |
in the Taliban training camp, (indistinct)." | 1:07:22 | |
Because a lot of people were stressed out, | 1:07:26 | |
or they thought if they grab some people | 1:07:29 | |
and make things up, they'll get better treatment, | 1:07:31 | |
do you know what I mean? | 1:07:33 | |
So, that was another part of the problem. | 1:07:34 | |
A lot of people were saying that we were there | 1:07:36 | |
because blah, blah, blah, X amount of reasons, | 1:07:38 | |
but obviously they we weren't there. | 1:07:40 | |
So, during that period, | 1:07:42 | |
that lasted for five months, four to five months | 1:07:44 | |
and we was isolated. | 1:07:46 | |
We were segregated from each other | 1:07:47 | |
and we was isolated for that period. | 1:07:48 | |
Interviewer | And how did | 1:07:51 |
you manage, handle that? | 1:07:52 | |
- | Obviously, isolation was difficult, | 1:07:54 |
it was extremely difficult | 1:07:55 | |
for the first two weeks. | 1:07:56 | |
I said, it's kind of, it's all right, | 1:07:57 | |
but after that it becomes a month, and then two, | 1:08:00 | |
and then three. | 1:08:03 | |
It kind of has an effect on you. | 1:08:03 | |
So, it gradually affects a person, seriously. | 1:08:06 | |
Interviewer | Did you know how long | 1:08:07 |
you would be there, or was it an ending | 1:08:10 | |
so you didn't know when they- | 1:08:12 | |
- | No, we wasn't told how long we'd be there, | 1:08:13 |
but it's difficult to cope with | 1:08:16 | |
because you can't see anybody. | 1:08:18 | |
You can't hear anybody, | 1:08:20 | |
and you can't speak to nobody, | 1:08:21 | |
and you're locked in a room on your own, | 1:08:23 | |
with your own thoughts, nothing to do, | 1:08:26 | |
nothing to watch. | 1:08:28 | |
Maybe if they gave me a TV, | 1:08:29 | |
I'll be flicking the TV all night long, | 1:08:30 | |
wat ching something. | 1:08:32 | |
At least it keeps the mind occupied. | 1:08:33 | |
When you got nothing except | 1:08:34 | |
for four walls, it's difficult. | 1:08:35 | |
Plus in the day it would be extremely hot | 1:08:38 | |
because the isolation blocks actually made | 1:08:39 | |
of four walls, and the floor and its roof | 1:08:41 | |
is actually made of mesh. | 1:08:44 | |
Not mesh, metal, like metal sheets. | 1:08:45 | |
So, they got AC built in, which obviously | 1:08:48 | |
they're supposed to put on in the daytime | 1:08:53 | |
so it keeps you cool, but they would turn it off. | 1:08:54 | |
And obviously, because of the heat, | 1:08:58 | |
it would get very humid, and it was very hot | 1:08:59 | |
and humid in Guantanamo. | 1:09:01 | |
So, obviously you can imagine, | 1:09:02 | |
like being in that box room, | 1:09:03 | |
it gets extremely hot. | 1:09:04 | |
And you start sweating, you can't... | 1:09:05 | |
I used to be literally naked in my room, | 1:09:07 | |
just like lay there and just put | 1:09:09 | |
a towel around me because it would be that hot | 1:09:11 | |
and you'd be sweating, dripping. | 1:09:13 | |
You know how you go for a run? (chuckles) | 1:09:15 | |
Yeah, and you'd be dripping, and you'd have sweat | 1:09:16 | |
dripping down your nose. | 1:09:19 | |
That's how you actually be sweating in Guantan, | 1:09:20 | |
just sitting there. | 1:09:22 | |
So, obviously when you mean like | 1:09:23 | |
in that isolation room, | 1:09:26 | |
you're sweating even more. | 1:09:27 | |
So, it's very difficult to cope with, | 1:09:29 | |
breathings hard, water's hot, it's difficult. | 1:09:31 | |
And in the night what they do, | 1:09:35 | |
because obviously the metal, it gets cold, | 1:09:36 | |
it gets a bit chilly in the night. | 1:09:38 | |
They would turn on the AC. | 1:09:39 | |
So, they will take away all your comfort items. | 1:09:42 | |
So, you've got no insulation mat to sleep on | 1:09:45 | |
because the bunk is metal, | 1:09:47 | |
and the whole floor's metal, everything's metal. | 1:09:49 | |
So, you gotta sleep on a metal that is cold, | 1:09:51 | |
and they put the AC on. | 1:09:54 | |
So, it's even colder. | 1:09:55 | |
So, you can't sleep. | 1:09:56 | |
So, in the day you don't have heat, | 1:09:58 | |
at night, (chuckles) you have cold. | 1:09:59 | |
So, it was like two extreme conditions | 1:10:01 | |
they would put you in | 1:10:03 | |
because you're in isolation, | 1:10:04 | |
and the food would be limited, | 1:10:06 | |
and so on and so on. | 1:10:07 | |
Interviewer | And would you be interrogated | 1:10:08 |
during those five minutes? | 1:10:09 | |
- | Yeah, they would take you out, | 1:10:09 |
and we went into interrogation | 1:10:10 | |
like every day, without fail. | 1:10:11 | |
Sometimes, two days, three days. | 1:10:12 | |
You would not sometimes... | 1:10:14 | |
I think that's when the harsh treatment started, | 1:10:15 | |
like with the stressed positions, loud music, | 1:10:17 | |
strobe light, dogs, beatings | 1:10:20 | |
that was happening for- | 1:10:23 | |
Interviewer | Could you describe | 1:10:24 |
some of that, kind of what that was like? | 1:10:25 | |
- | Well, stressed position | 1:10:26 |
is like in your three piece suit, | 1:10:29 | |
they don't un-cuff your hands. | 1:10:31 | |
You get a separate pair of cuffs, handcuffs. | 1:10:33 | |
They would cuff your leg irons to a hook | 1:10:35 | |
on the floor with a padlock. | 1:10:38 | |
Make you crouch, force your arms underneath | 1:10:39 | |
your calves, your knees, basically. | 1:10:46 | |
So, basically, your legs are like this | 1:10:48 | |
and you're literally tip toeing. | 1:10:50 | |
So, your hands and your feet are together | 1:10:52 | |
and obviously, that's there and you can't | 1:10:55 | |
actually put your feet flat | 1:10:58 | |
because the amount of... | 1:11:01 | |
There's not enough slack in the chains | 1:11:02 | |
and they would cuff with another set of cuffs, | 1:11:05 | |
cuff that into the hook. | 1:11:07 | |
They'd hook it in so you were in that position, | 1:11:09 | |
that's called the stress position. | 1:11:11 | |
And sometimes they would leave you there | 1:11:12 | |
two and a half days, probably three days. | 1:11:15 | |
Interviewer | For what purpose? | 1:11:16 |
- | Because there was that thought obviously | 1:11:18 |
that was bought out, and they wanted us | 1:11:20 | |
to admit to it and say that we was... | 1:11:21 | |
We knew about 9/11. | 1:11:24 | |
So, basically we was getting accused | 1:11:25 | |
of knowing of 9/11. | 1:11:28 | |
That was the allegation. | 1:11:30 | |
So, they wanted you to admit and give names, | 1:11:33 | |
how you planned it. (chuckles) | 1:11:36 | |
All this madness and it's something | 1:11:38 | |
that was beyond and over, | 1:11:40 | |
I think anybody in Guantanamo. | 1:11:42 | |
And they want you to admit to that, | 1:11:43 | |
and basically, you would be there | 1:11:47 | |
for sometimes 10 minutes, | 1:11:49 | |
sometimes half an hour, sometimes five hours. | 1:11:51 | |
It totally depends on who the interrogator was | 1:11:54 | |
because sometimes they would put you | 1:11:56 | |
in 10 minutes and they'd say, | 1:11:58 | |
"Okay, we have to go." | 1:11:59 | |
They'd let you go. | 1:12:00 | |
Sometimes they'd say, "Well, I have to go, | 1:12:01 | |
but I'm gonna leave you in that position | 1:12:02 | |
for X amount of days, and it's- | 1:12:03 | |
Interviewer | Could you describe | 1:12:06 |
any other abusive behavior there? | 1:12:07 | |
- | Well, at the same time they'd have | 1:12:09 |
the loud music, which was... | 1:12:11 | |
I mean, the rooms are very small, | 1:12:13 | |
and the loud music would be extremely loud. | 1:12:15 | |
Sometimes when you're in pain, | 1:12:19 | |
if you actually take your mind off the pain, | 1:12:21 | |
it kind of eases the pain, | 1:12:23 | |
but when you have extremely loud music | 1:12:24 | |
in your face, so loud that you can't even think. | 1:12:26 | |
Have you ever been to a club and you're there | 1:12:31 | |
for too long, and you think, | 1:12:33 | |
damn I need to get out of here. | 1:12:34 | |
It's kind of doing my head in, | 1:12:35 | |
and that's the situation you are put in, | 1:12:36 | |
cause for the first maybe four, or five hours | 1:12:40 | |
it's just music. | 1:12:44 | |
But later on, the music turns into | 1:12:46 | |
a screaming noise, | 1:12:48 | |
banging and just scratching noises, | 1:12:49 | |
and all you can hear is instruments, | 1:12:52 | |
individual instruments banging away. | 1:12:55 | |
And eventually it doesn't become music anymore, | 1:12:57 | |
it just becomes horrendously annoying | 1:12:58 | |
and frustrating. | 1:13:02 | |
Interviewer | Do you know | |
what kind of music it was? | 1:13:03 | |
- | First it was Eminem, they played Eminem to us | 1:13:04 |
on the first instance, and then obviously, | 1:13:06 | |
they realized it wasn't working. (chuckles) | 1:13:08 | |
So, but obviously, I never knew what the purpose | 1:13:09 | |
of music was at the time. | 1:13:11 | |
I kind of find it very odd. | 1:13:12 | |
I find it very odd when they first played it. | 1:13:14 | |
And I thought, why are they putting music on? | 1:13:17 | |
Especially they put Eminem. | 1:13:20 | |
I thought it was an error, | 1:13:22 | |
and it was probably for the soldiers. | 1:13:24 | |
You know, they've got... | 1:13:25 | |
They listen to it in their spare time | 1:13:26 | |
and they just pressed it by mistake, | 1:13:27 | |
and they've gone. | 1:13:29 | |
But the next time I went in, they actually changed | 1:13:31 | |
it to heavy metal, rock music, | 1:13:33 | |
which is obviously much worse. | 1:13:36 | |
I never classed rock music anyway, | 1:13:38 | |
it's not music to me. | 1:13:40 | |
It might be music to some wackos, | 1:13:41 | |
(chuckles) you can call them, | 1:13:44 | |
but it was like when you haven't got | 1:13:48 | |
that kind of taste in the music anyway, | 1:13:52 | |
it's annoying to hear. | 1:13:54 | |
But after six hours, or seven hours in a day, | 1:13:57 | |
it becomes extremely painful to your head, | 1:14:00 | |
and you feel like your head's gonna explode. | 1:14:03 | |
You start seeing things, | 1:14:05 | |
you start hallucinating things, | 1:14:07 | |
you start hallucinating. | 1:14:08 | |
The pain becomes unbearable, and I think | 1:14:09 | |
the psychological part of it is much worse | 1:14:13 | |
than the physical, because physical | 1:14:14 | |
you can always recover from physical pain. | 1:14:17 | |
Bruise, broken arm, you would always heal | 1:14:19 | |
no matter what, but when you | 1:14:21 | |
are scared psychologically, | 1:14:22 | |
once you've gone crazy, it's very rare | 1:14:24 | |
someone who goes mad that comes | 1:14:26 | |
back to normality. | 1:14:28 | |
It's literally, it's a miracle. | 1:14:29 | |
If it happens, it's a miracle. | 1:14:31 | |
I've got a friend, I've got a relative | 1:14:33 | |
who was fine until the age of 20. | 1:14:35 | |
And all of a sudden he went mad | 1:14:38 | |
because of drugs and loud music, | 1:14:39 | |
and to this day, | 1:14:42 | |
he's like 30 odd now, he's not there. | 1:14:43 | |
And that's what it does to you. | 1:14:47 | |
Once the mind is pushed past its limit, | 1:14:49 | |
you can't come back. | 1:14:52 | |
There's no jumping over that hurdle | 1:14:53 | |
and coming back to normality, but obviously | 1:14:54 | |
if you have a broken arm, | 1:14:56 | |
broken eye socket, broken nose, | 1:14:58 | |
it's always going to heal over time. | 1:14:59 | |
And maybe you'll never realize | 1:15:01 | |
that you almost broke it. | 1:15:04 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:15:06 | |
But once you've gone loopy | 1:15:07 | |
in the head, that's it, | 1:15:08 | |
and that's what their aim and goal were | 1:15:11 | |
because I think they got all the treatment | 1:15:14 | |
and techniques from the... | 1:15:18 | |
There was an experiment done | 1:15:21 | |
by an American professor. | 1:15:22 | |
Interviewer | Mm, right. | 1:15:24 |
- | Right, and obviously, they got them using | 1:15:25 |
that same tactics in Guantanamo. | 1:15:27 | |
They most were using it in (indistinct) | 1:15:29 | |
and they're using it in all around the world. | 1:15:32 | |
Interviewer | So, how long do you think | 1:15:35 |
you heard music at any one time? | 1:15:37 | |
Was it... | 1:15:39 | |
- | I think it was about two and a half days | 1:15:40 |
in that position for two and a half days. | 1:15:42 | |
Interviewer | And how do you cope? | 1:15:44 |
How did you handle it? | 1:15:45 | |
- | Well, this is the thing, | 1:15:46 |
a lot of people ask me this, | 1:15:47 | |
asked me this, how did we cope? | 1:15:48 | |
I think because I was young. | 1:15:48 | |
I was young, independent, not married, | 1:15:50 | |
no stress on my shoulders, no burden of family. | 1:15:52 | |
So, I was an individual on my own, | 1:15:55 | |
who aint give a shit about nobody. | 1:15:57 | |
Who aint need to stress about nobody | 1:15:59 | |
except for (chuckles) my own ass. | 1:16:00 | |
But for those people who were... | 1:16:02 | |
If you put yourself in the position, | 1:16:03 | |
you're old, you're more fragile, you can say. | 1:16:08 | |
Mentally probably when you reach a certain age, | 1:16:13 | |
you're more fragile physically, mentally. | 1:16:16 | |
You have family, you have a wife to worry about, | 1:16:19 | |
you have kids to worry about. | 1:16:21 | |
You have a mortgage to worry about. | 1:16:22 | |
You have all these other things to worry about. | 1:16:23 | |
Even though you're in prison you're gonna think, | 1:16:25 | |
how's my wife gonna cope? | 1:16:27 | |
Who's gonna pay my mortgage? | 1:16:28 | |
Is my wife coping okay? | 1:16:30 | |
Who was gonna pay for my school, | 1:16:32 | |
children's school tuition | 1:16:34 | |
and all these other things | 1:16:36 | |
that you might think about, | 1:16:37 | |
but I don't think about it | 1:16:38 | |
cause I don't need to think about it. | 1:16:39 | |
So, I think because of that reason, | 1:16:41 | |
I coped easier, and plus, I had two friends | 1:16:42 | |
who were not only friends | 1:16:45 | |
from the age of 18 or 19. | 1:16:46 | |
These friends were from childhood. | 1:16:48 | |
We went to kindergarten together. | 1:16:50 | |
So, we've known each | 1:16:53 | |
other from nappies. (chuckles) | 1:16:54 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:16:55 | |
So, we've seen each other grow up | 1:16:56 | |
for so many years, like 20 years. | 1:16:57 | |
And eventually, when you grow up with somebody | 1:16:59 | |
who you've known for 20 years. | 1:17:02 | |
They don't be friends, they be like your brother, | 1:17:04 | |
or part of the family because when you fall out, | 1:17:06 | |
it's like you're falling out with your family. | 1:17:10 | |
You feel the pain like you're going through. | 1:17:13 | |
And that's how it is, that's how close we are, | 1:17:16 | |
we're like brothers. | 1:17:17 | |
So, I had that backing. | 1:17:19 | |
You can say that when I used to be stressed | 1:17:21 | |
and I used to come back from interrogation, | 1:17:23 | |
I could talk to them, I could relate to them. | 1:17:25 | |
And I think the best thing was just | 1:17:26 | |
the way we are. | 1:17:29 | |
We used to make... | 1:17:30 | |
When I used to be treated in a bad way, | 1:17:32 | |
I used to get beaten up, they used to laugh. | 1:17:35 | |
I would be getting earthed and them | 1:17:37 | |
in the next cell, and them laughing at me | 1:17:39 | |
cause I'm getting beaten up. | 1:17:41 | |
And I think that was something that we all did, | 1:17:42 | |
when Shafiq got beaten up, I used to laugh. | 1:17:44 | |
I used to find it hilarious. | 1:17:45 | |
When we, for example, when we first got arrested | 1:17:47 | |
by the Northern Alliance, | 1:17:48 | |
obviously Asif was separated from us, | 1:17:50 | |
and Shafiq and me was together. | 1:17:53 | |
And the guy had a baton, like a baseball bat. | 1:17:55 | |
It was about this long and this thick, | 1:17:59 | |
and he come and whacked Asif's head. | 1:18:01 | |
He literally smacked him off his head | 1:18:03 | |
and off his back, and I found it very funny | 1:18:05 | |
cause the expression of his face when he got hit, | 1:18:08 | |
and I couldn't stop laughing. | 1:18:11 | |
So, the guy came and beat me up | 1:18:12 | |
and then Shafiq was laughing at me. | 1:18:14 | |
So, I think it's something that we did. | 1:18:16 | |
I think it was like immature, and probably | 1:18:18 | |
still today, like I had an accident | 1:18:21 | |
a few days ago. | 1:18:23 | |
And the first thing, he came, just by... | 1:18:24 | |
Off by chance, he was riving past where I smashed | 1:18:27 | |
just locally and I crashed, | 1:18:31 | |
and he was coming from shopping. | 1:18:32 | |
I went to Asda to buy something, | 1:18:34 | |
and he was going to Asda, | 1:18:35 | |
but I ain't seen him there. | 1:18:36 | |
So, I crashed and he drove behind me | 1:18:37 | |
and he's seen me, seen my van. | 1:18:39 | |
So, he stopped and he said... | 1:18:41 | |
He looked at me and he laughed at me. | 1:18:42 | |
The first thing a person would do is say, | 1:18:44 | |
are you okay? | 1:18:45 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:18:46 | |
Are you hurt? | 1:18:47 | |
He came with a guy and he's like, | 1:18:48 | |
he took the piss out of me, basically, | 1:18:49 | |
and he was laughing his head off. | 1:18:51 | |
And it's something that we still do. | 1:18:52 | |
It's something that that helped us | 1:18:54 | |
to cope with many things. | 1:18:57 | |
So, I would go to... | 1:18:59 | |
I'll come back drained, physically tired, | 1:19:00 | |
mentally strained and I would come back | 1:19:03 | |
and they would say, "He got bummed, didn't he." | 1:19:05 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 1:19:07 | |
(chuckles) Things like this, | 1:19:08 | |
and what it does actually, | 1:19:09 | |
it actually kind of forget what's happened | 1:19:11 | |
to you, and you find it funny. | 1:19:14 | |
You find what's happened to you | 1:19:16 | |
even though it's not funny in reality, | 1:19:17 | |
but you use that time and space | 1:19:19 | |
to make something very bad, | 1:19:23 | |
something very funny and very good, | 1:19:24 | |
and that's how we cope with it. | 1:19:26 | |
But many of the detainees, they didn't do that | 1:19:28 | |
because the fact, it was serious for them, | 1:19:30 | |
do you know what I mean? | 1:19:32 | |
Because they never knew anybody so close. | 1:19:33 | |
It was like, they only got to know the person | 1:19:35 | |
because they were in Guantanamo. | 1:19:37 | |
So no one would like... | 1:19:39 | |
I wouldn't say anything bad about it, | 1:19:40 | |
cause I don't know you. | 1:19:42 | |
If you fell over, I wouldn't laugh, | 1:19:43 | |
cause it's rude. | 1:19:45 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:19:46 | |
I would say, "Are you all right?" | 1:19:47 | |
I'd be like, concerned for you, I'm concerned. | 1:19:48 | |
V=But when you my friend, when you really, | 1:19:49 | |
really close and you fall off | 1:19:52 | |
and you break your leg, you just laugh. | 1:19:53 | |
Oh, that's funny, and that's somehow... | 1:19:54 | |
You yourself, you cut yourself, | 1:19:56 | |
you broke your leg, even though it's painful | 1:19:59 | |
because I'm laughing at you. | 1:20:01 | |
You find it funny. (chuckles) | 1:20:03 | |
And that's how humans are. | 1:20:04 | |
And we kind of used that to our advantage. | 1:20:05 | |
We used to always take the piss | 1:20:08 | |
when we had the cavity search, it was not nice, | 1:20:10 | |
it was the most horrible thing that could happen. | 1:20:15 | |
It was worse at the beatings, for sure, | 1:20:16 | |
because that's like... | 1:20:18 | |
(sighs) What I consider, | 1:20:19 | |
that's like going past the... | 1:20:22 | |
You're past the boundary, that's the limit. | 1:20:23 | |
Obviously at that time, it was like | 1:20:26 | |
very embarrassing, and very humiliating, | 1:20:27 | |
but later on, we just take the piss out | 1:20:29 | |
of each other. | 1:20:32 | |
Then we just say, "Oh, you got bummed over." | 1:20:33 | |
(chuckles) Do you know what I mean? | 1:20:35 | |
And we say things like, instead, you go, | 1:20:36 | |
"Yeah, you got two fingers, man." | 1:20:39 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:20:41 | |
Things like this and we used | 1:20:42 | |
to make something serious into very funny, | 1:20:43 | |
and that's how we coped. | 1:20:45 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:20:46 | |
We're immature, even though I'm 27, | 1:20:47 | |
we're still very immature. | 1:20:49 | |
And I think that's how we were all from day one. | 1:20:50 | |
When you go up with somebody, | 1:20:52 | |
no matter how old you are, | 1:20:54 | |
when you know that person | 1:20:55 | |
like so, so close, it's like your wife. | 1:20:56 | |
I've known her for 13 years now, | 1:20:57 | |
and everything that we do is like, | 1:21:01 | |
she might fall over, I might fall over. | 1:21:03 | |
Once I fell off from stairs, she laughed at me. | 1:21:05 | |
And usually someone would ask, oh you... | 1:21:08 | |
And very concerned, but first of all, | 1:21:10 | |
they laugh at you, then they show their concern, | 1:21:12 | |
and that's how it is with family. | 1:21:15 | |
And it's fairly normal, so | 1:21:16 | |
it's not like weird. | 1:21:18 | |
It's actually very normal. | 1:21:20 | |
Something happens with you | 1:21:22 | |
and your wife probably like, she laughs first, | 1:21:23 | |
and then she says, you all right though? | 1:21:24 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:21:26 | |
And that's how it is, and that's how we coped. | 1:21:27 | |
Interviewer | Were you aware | 1:21:29 |
that that was a way | 1:21:30 | |
of coping when that happening? | 1:21:31 | |
- | Yeah, we kind of realized. | 1:21:32 |
I mean, you kind of, you come out | 1:21:33 | |
and you're stressed out, and he takes the piss, | 1:21:35 | |
and you kind of forget that just literally, | 1:21:37 | |
five minutes ago you was in that place, | 1:21:40 | |
going through that shit, the harsh treatment | 1:21:43 | |
that you was going through. | 1:21:46 | |
Within five minutes, you kind of forget, | 1:21:47 | |
and you're back to normal, | 1:21:49 | |
but for other detainees, completely different. | 1:21:51 | |
As I say, you know people who were married | 1:21:53 | |
and people who were more older, | 1:21:55 | |
even maybe there was actually, | 1:21:56 | |
majority people who were old, | 1:21:57 | |
those were all married, they had families. | 1:21:58 | |
They would come back and they would | 1:22:00 | |
just not talk to you for days, | 1:22:02 | |
and they were just like, | 1:22:04 | |
look depressed, very depressed. | 1:22:04 | |
And they would just sleep all day, | 1:22:06 | |
and even if you tried to talk to them | 1:22:07 | |
they would say like, kind of leave me alone. | 1:22:08 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:22:11 | |
So, you don't know what to do | 1:22:12 | |
because you don't know that person personally, | 1:22:13 | |
you can't take the piss, you can't make a joke | 1:22:15 | |
about what just happened | 1:22:18 | |
because to them it's serious. | 1:22:20 | |
But for us, because we were so young, | 1:22:21 | |
I mean, I was probably one | 1:22:23 | |
of the youngest detainees there, | 1:22:24 | |
I mean, there's obviously younger than me. | 1:22:25 | |
There's like 13 year olds, but I think, | 1:22:27 | |
in the adults, I was the youngest. | 1:22:28 | |
I was 18. | 1:22:30 | |
I think no one I was 18 at the time. | 1:22:31 | |
There was all like 20, 21, and so-and-so. | 1:22:32 | |
So, I think that helped a lot. | 1:22:36 | |
And also I think, we obviously spoke English | 1:22:40 | |
and a lot of the detainees | 1:22:44 | |
couldn't accept the fact. | 1:22:48 | |
I think, one of the main thing is to cope | 1:22:50 | |
in situations like Guantanamo, or anywhere | 1:22:51 | |
if you're ever imprisoned for whatever reason. | 1:22:55 | |
I think, if you accept the fact that it's part | 1:22:58 | |
of your fate and it's meant to happen, | 1:23:02 | |
you can actually move on and live your life | 1:23:04 | |
in that situation. | 1:23:09 | |
But many detainees couldn't accept the fact | 1:23:10 | |
that it was happening to them. | 1:23:12 | |
They couldn't believe that they'd been arrested | 1:23:13 | |
and it's happening to them by the Americans. | 1:23:16 | |
they couldn't believe it. | 1:23:20 | |
It's like beyond their comprehension, they- | 1:23:20 | |
Interviewer | Why could you accept it? | 1:23:22 |
- | Because that's the way I am. | 1:23:24 |
I've always been like that. | 1:23:25 | |
I broke my arm, I've had a crash, it's fate. | 1:23:26 | |
It's meant to happen. | 1:23:28 | |
If I fall over and die today, | 1:23:30 | |
or something happens to my daughter. | 1:23:32 | |
Yeah, I'll be upset, | 1:23:34 | |
but I have to accept it's fate. | 1:23:35 | |
There's nothing I can do to prevent | 1:23:37 | |
it from happening. | 1:23:38 | |
I'm a Muslim. | 1:23:40 | |
I believe in my religion and I believe in fate. | 1:23:40 | |
I believe in destiny. | 1:23:42 | |
So, from what I've been taught, | 1:23:43 | |
I believe, God had written the time and day | 1:23:46 | |
for me to be born. | 1:23:50 | |
And he's also written my time of death to me | 1:23:51 | |
to depart from this world. | 1:23:54 | |
He's also written times, and dates, | 1:23:55 | |
and places where I wanna break my hand, | 1:23:56 | |
or break this, break that, | 1:23:58 | |
that's gonna happen to me, | 1:23:59 | |
I'm gonna have hardship in my life. | 1:24:00 | |
There's a verse in the Quran, for example, | 1:24:02 | |
when God says, "This life is a test for you | 1:24:04 | |
to see how faithful and how strong your belief | 1:24:07 | |
in Islam is. | 1:24:10 | |
So, for me, it was a test and a trial | 1:24:11 | |
and I accept it, but some people can't accept it. | 1:24:13 | |
And I think, when you are in denial of something | 1:24:16 | |
that's happening to you, | 1:24:19 | |
that's when it has an effect on | 1:24:21 | |
a person mentally. | 1:24:22 | |
When you actually accept it, okay, | 1:24:23 | |
it's happened to me, even though | 1:24:25 | |
it shouldn't happen to me, but you know what? | 1:24:27 | |
It's happened to me, fuck it. | 1:24:28 | |
That's how you look at it. | 1:24:31 | |
That's how I always tell people, | 1:24:32 | |
this is how you gotta look at it. | 1:24:34 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:24:35 | |
The more quicker you accept your fate | 1:24:36 | |
and what's happened to you, the more quicker | 1:24:38 | |
you can move on. | 1:24:40 | |
Rather than moaning and groaning, | 1:24:41 | |
oh, why is it happening to me, why? | 1:24:43 | |
You know, crying about it. | 1:24:45 | |
Then you feel depressed, you feel down, | 1:24:46 | |
and it has an effect on you mentally. | 1:24:48 | |
And I don't wanna be crazy like, | 1:24:50 | |
cause I was seeing people | 1:24:52 | |
who's committing suicide. | 1:24:53 | |
And I thought, I don't wanna put myself | 1:24:55 | |
in that position. | 1:24:56 | |
I don't wanna be one day taking my sheet, | 1:24:57 | |
ripping it, tying it, put it around | 1:24:59 | |
my neck and hanging. | 1:25:00 | |
No way. Do you know what I mean? | 1:25:01 | |
I don't wanna end my life, why should I? | 1:25:02 | |
Even if I have to live for the rest of my life | 1:25:04 | |
in prison, I'll live it, | 1:25:06 | |
but I'm not taking my own life, | 1:25:07 | |
because that's like you're giving up. | 1:25:09 | |
You gave up to the Americans | 1:25:11 | |
and therefore, you show them that they've won, | 1:25:13 | |
and something I don't wanna do is show them | 1:25:15 | |
that they was winning. | 1:25:18 | |
Even though I was a prisoner, | 1:25:20 | |
but I was a free man mentally, inside me, | 1:25:21 | |
spiritually, I was free. | 1:25:25 | |
And I mean, I would come to my cell | 1:25:26 | |
and we would laugh. | 1:25:27 | |
And the best thing about it was, | 1:25:28 | |
the soldiers could not comprehend, | 1:25:31 | |
or could not believe that we would come back | 1:25:34 | |
from such a bad treatment, and come back | 1:25:36 | |
to our cell and laugh. | 1:25:38 | |
They couldn't believe it. | 1:25:39 | |
They would say, "How do you do it?" | 1:25:40 | |
All your freedom has been taken away. | 1:25:42 | |
This is the worst place on earth, | 1:25:45 | |
how do you come back and smile? | 1:25:47 | |
How do you come back and pray? | 1:25:49 | |
And yet, the soldiers were having problems. | 1:25:51 | |
Some soldiers were taking their lives. | 1:25:55 | |
Some soldiers were finding it extremely hard | 1:25:57 | |
because they was in Guantanamo. | 1:25:59 | |
They would say to us, they would say, | 1:26:01 | |
you're in a the prison, | 1:26:02 | |
and we're in a bigger prison. | 1:26:04 | |
I mean, how ridiculous does that sound to me? | 1:26:06 | |
I would laugh. I would say, you joke? | 1:26:08 | |
I never told you to sign the piece | 1:26:10 | |
of pretty paper and come to the army. | 1:26:11 | |
It is out of your own will | 1:26:13 | |
you've joined the military. | 1:26:14 | |
Yeah, okay, it might not be your will | 1:26:16 | |
that you've been sent to Guantanamo, | 1:26:17 | |
but initially when you sign that paper | 1:26:19 | |
it means in the time of war, | 1:26:20 | |
they can send you wherever they want, | 1:26:21 | |
they can do. | 1:26:23 | |
So, you signed up knowingly that it can happen. | 1:26:24 | |
So, now you're crying, and some of them, | 1:26:28 | |
they would have this... | 1:26:30 | |
For the military, they had this thing | 1:26:32 | |
called combat stress team, which is like, | 1:26:34 | |
the soldiers would actually go every week | 1:26:38 | |
to this psych dude, | 1:26:40 | |
and they would talk about their problems. | 1:26:42 | |
Interviewer | Really? How do you know that? | 1:26:44 |
- | Because they would say to us, they got... | 1:26:45 |
We've got this scheme put in place | 1:26:47 | |
so our soldiers don't feel the pressure. | 1:26:50 | |
What pressure? | 1:26:53 | |
For me it's a joke, I mean, it's so ridiculous. | 1:26:55 | |
And some of them actually went, I mean, | 1:26:57 | |
one guy shot himself. | 1:26:59 | |
One American guy shot himself. | 1:27:01 | |
I think he was- | 1:27:02 | |
Interviewer | One guard shot himself? | 1:27:03 |
- | Yeah, I don't think he shot himself | 1:27:04 |
because he was stressed. | 1:27:04 | |
He got a Dear John letter. | 1:27:05 | |
Interviewer | He got a what? | 1:27:07 |
- | A Dear John letter. | 1:27:08 |
Interviewer | A Dear John letter? | 1:27:09 |
- | Yeah, basically his wife was having an affair | 1:27:11 |
and he was a marine, I think, and he shot himself | 1:27:13 | |
in his mouth, and he killed himself. | 1:27:17 | |
Interviewer | He killed himself? | 1:27:19 |
- | He killed himself in Guantanamo. | 1:27:20 |
Interviewer | How do you know this? | 1:27:21 |
- | Because the soldiers would come and tell us, | 1:27:21 |
they would say... | 1:27:23 | |
So, there was one soldier, who apparently got... | 1:27:24 | |
He was so stressed apparently, he just drowned. | 1:27:28 | |
He swam and swam, and swam, | 1:27:30 | |
and he took his own life, he just drowned. | 1:27:31 | |
They couldn't find his body. | 1:27:33 | |
There's two soldiers I know of who... | 1:27:34 | |
Interviewer | Who killed themselves? | 1:27:37 |
- | Who killed themselves, that according | 1:27:38 |
to the soldiers, the information we got, | 1:27:39 | |
we don't know if it's true, | 1:27:41 | |
if it's a fact or nothing, but even if it was, | 1:27:42 | |
would they make... | 1:27:44 | |
The army would tell you this to the public, | 1:27:45 | |
they wouldn't tell you that. | 1:27:47 | |
Interviewer | Right. | 1:27:48 |
- | They wouldn't tell you, but some | 1:27:49 |
of the soldiers would say "This has happened." | 1:27:50 | |
And we could see the stress. | 1:27:51 | |
Some of the soldiers would go... | 1:27:52 | |
There was one soldier we made him cry. | 1:27:54 | |
He was a Chinese guy. | 1:27:56 | |
We made him cry. | 1:27:58 | |
Interviewer | How? | 1:27:59 |
- | What it was, one of the... | 1:28:00 |
- | Do we just like... | 1:28:04 |
Interviewer | Just take a break. | 1:28:05 |
- | No, just I wanted- | 1:28:06 |
Interviewer | Oh. | |
- | Because she's making... | 1:28:07 |
Someone's making a noise. | 1:28:08 | |
Interviewer | Okay. | |
- | I just wanna (indistinct) interview. | 1:28:09 |
Interviewer | Okay, okay. | 1:28:10 |
- | Let me just see who it is. | 1:28:11 |
Shay, is that you? | 1:28:11 | |
Shay | Yeah. | 1:28:12 |
Ruhal | Oh, okay. | 1:28:13 |
Let me just close the door, so. | 1:28:15 | |
Interviewer | So, how you made someone cry. | 1:28:19 |
- | What it was, there was this guy | 1:28:20 |
who had just been recently released in Qatar. | 1:28:22 | |
Qatar? | 1:28:27 | |
Interviewer | Yeah, Kandahar, | 1:28:28 |
he hasn't been released. | 1:28:29 | |
- | No, no, no, in Qatar. | 1:28:30 |
Female | Qatar. | 1:28:31 |
Interviewer | Oh, in Qatar. | 1:28:32 |
- | Qatar, yeah. | |
Interviewer | Uh-huh. | 1:28:33 |
- | He came to the UK in about... | 1:28:34 |
His name is Jarula. | 1:28:35 | |
I dunno if you've interviewed him. | 1:28:37 | |
Maybe you probably will interview him. | 1:28:37 | |
He's got a severe case of... | 1:28:39 | |
You know when you get white patches on your skin? | 1:28:41 | |
When your pigment dies. | 1:28:43 | |
Interviewer | Right. | 1:28:43 |
- | He's got that all over his face. | 1:28:44 |
He's just been recently released. | 1:28:45 | |
He came to the UK about six months ago | 1:28:46 | |
to a (indistinct) event. | 1:28:48 | |
His name is Jarula. | 1:28:50 | |
He was next to my... | 1:28:53 | |
A few doors away from next to me, | 1:28:54 | |
and he got in trouble. | 1:28:55 | |
And when you get in trouble, | 1:28:57 | |
you have to give all your comfort items away. | 1:28:58 | |
So, what he did, he got peed off, | 1:29:00 | |
and we had toilets that were actually built | 1:29:02 | |
within the cell. | 1:29:05 | |
And them like latrines, you know like | 1:29:06 | |
the ones you have in | 1:29:09 | |
the Europe, Eastern countries, like Far East, | 1:29:11 | |
Pakistan, Bangladesh and stuff. | 1:29:14 | |
You sit down, you squat and he's old. | 1:29:16 | |
And what he did, he start flushing his blanket, | 1:29:19 | |
his towel, his sheet, his cups, his toothpaste. | 1:29:21 | |
He thought... | 1:29:25 | |
Cause what he does, he clogs it up. | 1:29:26 | |
And he's flushing it, | 1:29:27 | |
and they came and earthed him, took him out, | 1:29:28 | |
and one Chinese guy, | 1:29:30 | |
he got a black bag basically, a bin bag. | 1:29:31 | |
Put it on his arm and put his hand | 1:29:34 | |
down the toilet and pull everything out, | 1:29:35 | |
one by one. | 1:29:37 | |
So, what they did, everybody | 1:29:38 | |
who's seen that, they called... | 1:29:40 | |
They nicknamed him plunger. | 1:29:41 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 1:29:43 | |
(chuckles) So, they nicknamed him plunger. | 1:29:44 | |
So, every time he would come on the cell, | 1:29:45 | |
or block, and he was a very... | 1:29:47 | |
No one liked him, he was like arrogant, | 1:29:49 | |
he was like... | 1:29:51 | |
He was not one of the good soldiers, basically | 1:29:52 | |
and they would call him plunger. | 1:29:55 | |
So, every time we called him, | 1:29:56 | |
"Plunger, I need a cup." | 1:29:57 | |
And one day, he tried to cause trouble, | 1:29:59 | |
like some guys, soldiers would cause trouble | 1:30:02 | |
on purpose, do you know what I mean? | 1:30:07 | |
So, he was one of them who would cause trouble. | 1:30:09 | |
So, we start, everyone started chanting, | 1:30:10 | |
"Plunger, plunger," for about six hours, man. | 1:30:12 | |
Every time he walked passed, | 1:30:17 | |
plunger, plunger, plunger. | 1:30:18 | |
And then eventually, when he came to dinner time, | 1:30:19 | |
he gave out dinner that, and while | 1:30:21 | |
he was collecting the trash, every... | 1:30:24 | |
Because obviously, you're finished, | 1:30:27 | |
when we finished our dinner, | 1:30:28 | |
people used to sing songs and it's like time | 1:30:30 | |
to chill out for the detainees. | 1:30:33 | |
Talk and blah, bah, blah, relax, | 1:30:34 | |
cause it's just before we got to bed. | 1:30:36 | |
So, we will started saying, "Plunger," | 1:30:37 | |
for about 15, 20 minutes, | 1:30:39 | |
while he was collecting the trash. | 1:30:40 | |
We kept on saying it, and we was chanting, | 1:30:41 | |
and then the whole camp started | 1:30:44 | |
chanting this plunger. | 1:30:46 | |
And it's like from block to block, | 1:30:47 | |
and you could hear it throughout the actual camp. | 1:30:49 | |
Plunger, like you could hear it on the other side | 1:30:52 | |
where the other camps were, | 1:30:55 | |
even they were saying it. | 1:30:56 | |
And basically, we used to shout across | 1:30:57 | |
and say, this one soldier, who's an asshole, | 1:31:00 | |
we're trying to piss him off. | 1:31:02 | |
So, the whole camp was then employed. | 1:31:03 | |
Eventually, he's walking, he's got the black bag. | 1:31:04 | |
He threw the black bag, just threw it | 1:31:06 | |
in the air and stamped his feet like he's a baby. | 1:31:09 | |
He goes, "I've had enough. | 1:31:12 | |
I can't hack this," and he ran off. | 1:31:14 | |
He ran off the block, and he went home. | 1:31:16 | |
He just- | 1:31:20 | |
Interviewer | And you never saw him again? | 1:31:20 |
- | We seen him again later, about six weeks later. | 1:31:21 |
And he started, he cried, he was crying. | 1:31:24 | |
We got him so annoyed, he got so frustrated, | 1:31:25 | |
and he started crying. | 1:31:28 | |
I was like, and even the other soldiers | 1:31:29 | |
couldn't believe it, that we actually managed | 1:31:31 | |
to put so much pressure and stress on him | 1:31:34 | |
that we actually made him cry. | 1:31:37 | |
They couldn't believe it. | 1:31:38 | |
Interviewer | Do you know when that was? | 1:31:39 |
- | That was like in 2003, plunger. | 1:31:40 |
He was like a Chinese, he looked Chinese, | 1:31:43 | |
or he was like Cantonese, or something like that. | 1:31:45 | |
He was a chubby dude, no one liked him, plunger. | 1:31:48 | |
I think it was in the Pepsi patch, | 1:31:51 | |
they had patches, like with the military, | 1:31:53 | |
they have different part... | 1:31:56 | |
As they stay, they have a different patch, | 1:31:57 | |
and one is a Pepsi patch. | 1:31:59 | |
It's the Pepsi symbol. | 1:32:01 | |
Interviewer | Really? | 1:32:04 |
- | So, we used to call it the Pepsi patch. | 1:32:04 |
Then you have one with a cross. | 1:32:05 | |
Then you have nine, nine, four, | 1:32:07 | |
I think they were from New York. | 1:32:11 | |
Then you have Michigan. | 1:32:13 | |
They had all different like, they had palm tree, | 1:32:15 | |
and they have different patches. | 1:32:17 | |
So, we used to identify them by the patches. | 1:32:18 | |
So, the nine, four, and the Pepsi patch | 1:32:20 | |
were the worst patch that we had. | 1:32:22 | |
Then you had the Puerto Ricans were also there. | 1:32:24 | |
Interviewer | So, was it easy to communicate | 1:32:28 |
with all the others that you were able to do? | 1:32:29 | |
- | Initially, it was quite difficult for me | 1:32:31 |
because I couldn't speak Arabic. | 1:32:33 | |
So, I found it very difficult. | 1:32:34 | |
So, obviously I had to start learning | 1:32:36 | |
to speak Arabic, which I did over the two years. | 1:32:37 | |
I started learning, and eventually my Arabic | 1:32:39 | |
became very good. | 1:32:42 | |
So, I used to be a translator. | 1:32:43 | |
So, I translate for detainees to the soldiers | 1:32:45 | |
if there was any problems, so- | 1:32:47 | |
Interviewer | The soldiers would ask you | 1:32:49 |
to translate for them? | 1:32:50 | |
- | Yeah, they had translators, | 1:32:51 |
but it was more of a headache waiting | 1:32:52 | |
for the translators because they take... | 1:32:54 | |
Can take up to an hour to come sometimes. | 1:32:55 | |
So, if the guy's got serious pains in his stomach | 1:32:57 | |
and he's trying to explain, | 1:32:59 | |
it's better rather than waiting | 1:33:00 | |
for the translator for an hour, | 1:33:02 | |
so I translated it. | 1:33:03 | |
So, we learnt Arabic, | 1:33:05 | |
everybody learnt Arabic, actually, | 1:33:08 | |
even the Pakistani's and Afghani's. | 1:33:10 | |
Anybody who was non Arab, | 1:33:12 | |
they learned Arabic to communicate. | 1:33:13 | |
And which was quite weird because even though | 1:33:15 | |
I speak Urdu, Urdu's not the main language | 1:33:17 | |
I learnt as I was growing up. | 1:33:19 | |
It was not to do with any | 1:33:21 | |
of my culture within that. | 1:33:23 | |
The Pakistanis who were there, who was detained, | 1:33:25 | |
I could communicate with Urdu, | 1:33:27 | |
but which was weird because everybody | 1:33:28 | |
was learning Arabic, | 1:33:29 | |
we would speak Arabic together. | 1:33:31 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 1:33:33 | |
Which was odd, and we would realize, hold on, | 1:33:34 | |
why are we speaking Arabic? | 1:33:36 | |
Then we change to Urdu. | 1:33:37 | |
Interviewer | So would you say Arabic | 1:33:39 |
was the language of the prison? | 1:33:40 | |
- | Yeah, it was. | 1:33:41 |
It was the language of the prison. | 1:33:42 | |
Interviewer | And people were pretty much | 1:33:44 |
able to communicate then throughout the prison? | 1:33:45 | |
- | Yeah, because I mean, for the first | 1:33:47 |
maybe six, seven months it was hard, | 1:33:48 | |
but because everybody was learning it | 1:33:50 | |
at the same time, and we was all trying, | 1:33:53 | |
it was very easy. | 1:33:55 | |
I mean, when you go to college and learn, | 1:33:56 | |
try and learn language it's hard | 1:33:58 | |
because you're only learning in college, | 1:33:59 | |
and when you go out you don't speak it. | 1:34:00 | |
But obviously, in Guantanamo, | 1:34:01 | |
you was actually speaking it continuously, | 1:34:03 | |
and learning new words. | 1:34:05 | |
And you would try to put it into sentences, | 1:34:07 | |
and you just listen to him what he says, | 1:34:08 | |
and how he puts a sentence, | 1:34:10 | |
cause Arabic is different from English. | 1:34:12 | |
It's like the English sentence is one way, | 1:34:15 | |
and they use it the opposite way, so it's like, | 1:34:17 | |
it's quite- | 1:34:20 | |
Interviewer | Did they teach you | 1:34:21 |
the language too? | 1:34:22 | |
- | Yeah. | |
Interviewer | Would the people | 1:34:23 |
teach each other? | 1:34:24 | |
- | Yeah, I had people, I had a few guys | 1:34:25 |
who taught me Arabic because they could speak | 1:34:26 | |
a small amount of English. | 1:34:28 | |
So, I learned, I learned too quite a bit. | 1:34:30 | |
Then, eventually I moved to somebody | 1:34:31 | |
who spoke quite fluent English. | 1:34:32 | |
So, and he is actually an Arabic teacher, | 1:34:34 | |
who teaches languages. | 1:34:37 | |
So, that was great. | 1:34:39 | |
So, I learnt a fair amount of Arabic from him. | 1:34:40 | |
Interviewer | I wanna go back to where you said | 1:34:43 |
that you had seen some detainees | 1:34:45 | |
try to commit suicide. | 1:34:47 | |
- | Uh-huh. | 1:34:48 |
Interviewer | Could you tell me | 1:34:49 |
what that was like? | 1:34:50 | |
- | Well, there was one guy who | 1:34:51 |
was extremely depressed, you could say. | 1:34:53 | |
He was a Saudi national, | 1:34:56 | |
he was right in front of me, | 1:34:57 | |
and a very large guy. | 1:34:58 | |
And he's always on antidepressants, | 1:35:01 | |
they've put him on that. | 1:35:03 | |
He was not there, I think, mentally, | 1:35:04 | |
unless he was just acting. | 1:35:05 | |
And so, one day he was praying, | 1:35:09 | |
and he was like... | 1:35:11 | |
No, he was praying (chuckles) | 1:35:12 | |
and I was washing up, and then everyone | 1:35:13 | |
just started praying. | 1:35:15 | |
I was a bit behind, and I looked over, | 1:35:16 | |
and all I could see him doing something | 1:35:18 | |
with his bed sheet. | 1:35:20 | |
And I looked over carefully and I thought, | 1:35:21 | |
what's he doing? | 1:35:23 | |
And I thought... | 1:35:24 | |
It kind of got me, I thought, what's he doing? | 1:35:25 | |
And I was watching, and watching, and watching, | 1:35:27 | |
and eventually he starts ripping the sheet. | 1:35:28 | |
Cause obviously, the sheet's not... | 1:35:30 | |
It's like too thick to pull through the mesh. | 1:35:31 | |
So, he rips it, he ties a knot, | 1:35:34 | |
feeds it through and you can hear like, | 1:35:35 | |
going through, tying it. | 1:35:37 | |
And then he ties it around his neck, | 1:35:39 | |
he gets on top of the sink, | 1:35:41 | |
and he jumps off and he's hanging. | 1:35:42 | |
And he's making a noise. (groans) | 1:35:45 | |
And then he can't breathe, and me, and Shafiq, | 1:35:47 | |
and Asif was in one row. | 1:35:50 | |
It was like an execution, | 1:35:52 | |
and there it was (indistinct). | 1:35:53 | |
We was about to pray, we were washing up, | 1:35:55 | |
and Asif shouts out, "MP, someone's trying | 1:35:57 | |
to hang themself." | 1:36:00 | |
MP, we used to call the soldiers MP. | 1:36:01 | |
And they came rushing down, | 1:36:05 | |
they actually ran past his cell. (chuckles) | 1:36:06 | |
They ran past his cell (chuckles) | 1:36:08 | |
made it to the end of... | 1:36:10 | |
Cause it's hard to see through the mesh | 1:36:10 | |
because there's so many mesh, it's hard to see. | 1:36:13 | |
And of course, it's night, which makes it | 1:36:15 | |
quite hard to see more. | 1:36:17 | |
And they ran back, and it was over here, | 1:36:20 | |
over here, they came back. | 1:36:21 | |
He opened the door and the guy was like an obese | 1:36:22 | |
basically, the guy who was hanging. | 1:36:24 | |
So, he was very, very fat. | 1:36:26 | |
And I think, there was about three of them, | 1:36:28 | |
and they were struggling to lift him off. | 1:36:30 | |
So, he was hanging for a long time, | 1:36:32 | |
because of his weight, | 1:36:34 | |
they couldn't flip him and lift him, | 1:36:35 | |
and get the sheet off. | 1:36:38 | |
It took them about 10 minutes, | 1:36:40 | |
and he was nearly out. | 1:36:42 | |
So, that was one incident, | 1:36:44 | |
and there's another incident that happened | 1:36:45 | |
with a normal guy, he tried to kill himself. | 1:36:46 | |
There was one guy in isolation, | 1:36:49 | |
who succeeded apparently, but from what we know, | 1:36:50 | |
his name was Michelle. | 1:36:54 | |
He was also in the first prison that I was in | 1:36:55 | |
and was arrested by the Northern Alliance. | 1:36:59 | |
So, I know him quite well. | 1:37:01 | |
He was in isolation apparently, | 1:37:03 | |
and he tried to hang himself, | 1:37:04 | |
and he actually never died, | 1:37:05 | |
but his brain was starved of oxygen. | 1:37:09 | |
So, that has made him a cabbage basically. | 1:37:11 | |
So, he's paralyzed from... | 1:37:13 | |
Interviewer | Did you see him after the- | 1:37:14 |
- | Yeah, I've seen him after. | 1:37:16 |
Interviewer | How did you see hIm afterwards? | 1:37:17 |
- | I went to the dentist to get my teeth done, | 1:37:19 |
I had a root filling in my tooth. | 1:37:21 | |
I had pains. | 1:37:24 | |
And he was actually always... | 1:37:25 | |
After what happened to him, he was not actually | 1:37:28 | |
brought back to the camp. | 1:37:30 | |
He was always actually, handcuffed to the bed, | 1:37:31 | |
even though he was a cabbage. | 1:37:34 | |
He was always cuffed, | 1:37:35 | |
his legs and his ankles cuffed. | 1:37:36 | |
Interviewer | In the medical clinic? | 1:37:37 |
- | In the medical clinic. | 1:37:38 |
Interviewer | And you would see him there? | 1:37:39 |
- | Yeah, I went there a few times | 1:37:40 |
because I had problems in my stomach. | 1:37:41 | |
I had pains in my stomach, | 1:37:43 | |
had eye problems, and I had | 1:37:44 | |
to go see a consultant. | 1:37:45 | |
And I had a tooth, my tooth was hurting, | 1:37:47 | |
so I had a root filling done | 1:37:51 | |
when I was in Guantanamo. | 1:37:53 | |
So, I saw him because I had to stay there | 1:37:55 | |
for a couple of hours. | 1:37:56 | |
Interviewer | Could you tell us a little bit | 1:37:58 |
about when you went to the medical clinic, | 1:37:59 | |
how they took care of you and what they did? | 1:38:01 | |
- | (indistinct) to do with the medical clinic, | 1:38:03 |
when I had my tooth done, it was great. | 1:38:05 | |
Interviewer | It was? | 1:38:07 |
- | It was really, really good. | 1:38:08 |
The guy was like, bang on. | 1:38:08 | |
He was a black dude, and he talked about England. | 1:38:11 | |
And when he came on a trip to the UK | 1:38:14 | |
with the girls, when he was young, obviously, | 1:38:18 | |
and he was telling me some stories, | 1:38:19 | |
which was funny, and he was very nice. | 1:38:21 | |
He took a long time on my tooth. | 1:38:23 | |
On one, he took about eight hours and now, | 1:38:24 | |
I can understand why Americans | 1:38:27 | |
have so good teeth. | 1:38:28 | |
So white and so good, so straight. | 1:38:30 | |
Obviously, Brits have got a bad reputation | 1:38:32 | |
for their teeth. (laughs) | 1:38:33 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 1:38:35 | |
So, you know? | 1:38:36 | |
Interviewer | So, he took good care of you too. | 1:38:37 |
- | Yeah, he was there for a long time, | 1:38:38 |
and he was taking his time, | 1:38:40 | |
and he's like cleaned it, and he was really good. | 1:38:41 | |
And he was being very nice. | 1:38:44 | |
Other instance- | 1:38:45 | |
Interviewer | Have you ever heard | 1:38:46 |
of other dentists, of other people not having | 1:38:48 | |
the same good treatment for dentists? | 1:38:49 | |
- | No, Shafiq went to the dentist as well, | 1:38:51 |
and he's seen the same guy, I think, | 1:38:53 | |
and he also says that he was great. | 1:38:55 | |
I went to... | 1:38:57 | |
I actually went out once out of the camp. | 1:38:58 | |
They took me out of the camp once completely. | 1:39:01 | |
Interviewer | For what? | 1:39:02 |
- | I went to another medical center, | 1:39:03 |
which was a Navy hospital. | 1:39:05 | |
Interviewer | For what purpose? | 1:39:07 |
- | I suffer from... | 1:39:09 |
I've got impaired sight in both of my eyes. | 1:39:10 | |
So, I'm partially blind in both eyes. | 1:39:12 | |
So, I have to have corrective contact lenses | 1:39:13 | |
to see, glasses don't help cause | 1:39:16 | |
I have this rare condition in my eyes, | 1:39:17 | |
which is miss shaping of the... | 1:39:20 | |
My cornea is misshaped. | 1:39:21 | |
So, for me to see properly, | 1:39:23 | |
I have to have these special lenses made | 1:39:25 | |
according to size of my eyes and the shape. | 1:39:28 | |
And it's made of plastic, hard plastic. | 1:39:31 | |
So, they took me there to measure my eyes up | 1:39:34 | |
and they was gonna give me some contact lenses, | 1:39:36 | |
but that was just before I left. | 1:39:38 | |
They gave me like the last three months. | 1:39:40 | |
Interviewer | Before that they ignored it? | 1:39:43 |
- | Nah, they ignored it, | 1:39:44 |
they told me it's not boot camp. | 1:39:45 | |
Interviewer | Huh. | 1:39:47 |
- | They kept on saying that. | |
It's not boot camp, and that actually made my eye | 1:39:48 | |
much worse, both my eyes much worse | 1:39:51 | |
from what it was my vision. | 1:39:53 | |
I'm actually classed disabled, you can say | 1:39:56 | |
because of my sight, cause if I take | 1:39:59 | |
my lenses out, I wouldn't be able to see | 1:40:01 | |
your face clearly from this distance. | 1:40:03 | |
I can't see anything. | 1:40:05 | |
Interviewer | And what happened | 1:40:07 |
with your stomach? | 1:40:07 | |
How is that- | 1:40:08 | |
- | I was having some pains in my stomach. | 1:40:09 |
It was just like the food poisoning, | 1:40:11 | |
or something like that. | 1:40:12 | |
Other times I went to the medical, | 1:40:14 | |
it was okay, but the doctors... | 1:40:18 | |
I never had a bad experience with the doctors, | 1:40:22 | |
to be honest with you. | 1:40:23 | |
Interviewer | What? | 1:40:25 |
could you mind telling us? | 1:40:26 | |
- | No, I never had any bad experience. | 1:40:26 |
Interviewer | Oh, you never had | 1:40:27 |
a bad experience, oh. | 1:40:28 | |
- | No, not that I can remember. | |
I mean, they was always cool. | 1:40:30 | |
(indistinct) was all right, she was a black girl, | 1:40:32 | |
one was a white girl, one was a white guy, | 1:40:34 | |
they was all right. | 1:40:36 | |
The doctors would rarely speak to you, | 1:40:38 | |
because the commons were doing all the job. | 1:40:39 | |
Interviewer | Have you heard | 1:40:42 |
of instances where the doctors | 1:40:43 | |
weren't giving good medical care? | 1:40:45 | |
- | Yeah, that happened towards the end | 1:40:47 |
of when General Miller came in. | 1:40:49 | |
When the interrogators were interrogate... | 1:40:51 | |
Interrogators were given the power | 1:40:54 | |
to control what's happening in the block. | 1:40:56 | |
So, they would control the medical side also. | 1:40:58 | |
So, for example, like Omar Caro, | 1:41:00 | |
the cleaning guy, he wasn't treated | 1:41:03 | |
of his wounds, and he's got cataracts | 1:41:07 | |
in one of his eye. | 1:41:08 | |
He was not treated because | 1:41:10 | |
he was not giving valid information, | 1:41:11 | |
or the information they wanted off him. | 1:41:12 | |
So, because of that reason, the interrogator | 1:41:14 | |
put a stop on his medical supplies basically. | 1:41:16 | |
So, and that- | 1:41:21 | |
Interviewer | And you knew, did you know Omar? | 1:41:22 |
- | Yeah, Omar was my cell mate. | 1:41:24 |
I've actually received letters from Omar | 1:41:26 | |
since I've got released, | 1:41:28 | |
and I've sent him letters | 1:41:28 | |
that he's received letters from. | 1:41:29 | |
So, we stay in touch. | 1:41:32 | |
Well< it's been a long time, | 1:41:34 | |
it's been about a year and a half | 1:41:35 | |
I haven't received anything. | 1:41:36 | |
I think they've just totally cut him off | 1:41:37 | |
cause they've isolated him and so, and so. | 1:41:39 | |
So, and a few more other guys, | 1:41:43 | |
they've stopped medical, they- | 1:41:44 | |
Interviewer | Did you know anybody | 1:41:47 |
who was on a hunger strike, or were you ever | 1:41:48 | |
on a hunger strike? | 1:41:51 | |
- | Yeah, I know people who were on hunger, | 1:41:51 |
one guy was Mohamed Rajib. | 1:41:53 | |
He was also our frequent flyer, | 1:41:55 | |
on the frequent flyer program. | 1:41:57 | |
He was on medical hunger strike, | 1:41:58 | |
and they would force feed him | 1:42:00 | |
through little tubes, or whatever. | 1:42:02 | |
So, I mean, that goes against | 1:42:03 | |
their doctors thing, whatever they signed. | 1:42:05 | |
Interviewer | Did you ever hear of | 1:42:07 |
a whole group of people doing it ever? | 1:42:08 | |
- | I've heard of it since I've come out | 1:42:12 |
of Guantanamo, but not while I was in Guantanamo. | 1:42:14 | |
Obviously we used to have injections forced, | 1:42:16 | |
they used to force us to give injections. | 1:42:19 | |
That's something that was common to everybody. | 1:42:20 | |
Interviewer | For what? | 1:42:22 |
- | We used to get injections every six | 1:42:23 |
to seven months, we'd get injections. | 1:42:25 | |
Apparently it was for flu vaccination, | 1:42:26 | |
influenza apparently. | 1:42:28 | |
Interviewer | Why do you | |
say apparently, they told you, or- | 1:42:30 | |
- | They told us every time | 1:42:31 |
they would come give you an injection, | 1:42:33 | |
it's an influenza to protect us from the flu. | 1:42:34 | |
But I don't know about in America, | 1:42:37 | |
but in the UK, the only people who are allowed | 1:42:39 | |
to have actually flu vaccination, | 1:42:41 | |
is the child of the age of one, | 1:42:43 | |
and an old aged pensioner, | 1:42:45 | |
who's over the age of 60. | 1:42:47 | |
Or if you've got diabetes, severe case of asthma, | 1:42:48 | |
severe diabetes type two, | 1:42:51 | |
I think you have to have. | 1:42:52 | |
Severe type of di... | 1:42:54 | |
Certain kind of high blood pressure. | 1:42:54 | |
You have to have a severe case of certain | 1:42:57 | |
kind of illnesses, | 1:42:59 | |
and then they will give you influenza. | 1:43:00 | |
Very rare that I've come across anybody | 1:43:03 | |
in the UK to have a flu vaccination | 1:43:05 | |
at the age of 20. (chuckles) | 1:43:07 | |
Very rare, actually I don't think | 1:43:09 | |
they've ever gave anybody that, | 1:43:11 | |
because the human body our metab... | 1:43:12 | |
The immune system is strong enough | 1:43:15 | |
to fight it off, but okay, | 1:43:17 | |
if you wanna give us it once, maybe yeah, | 1:43:19 | |
I can say, yeah. | 1:43:22 | |
Every six months you gonna come to me | 1:43:23 | |
and say it's influenza. | 1:43:25 | |
It's like, what you talking about? | 1:43:26 | |
It just makes no sense. | 1:43:28 | |
Like if you cut your hand with metal, | 1:43:30 | |
you gonna have your tetanus jab, | 1:43:32 | |
you're covered for 10 years. | 1:43:35 | |
Then if you have, I think three in 30 years | 1:43:36 | |
then you don't need it ever again | 1:43:40 | |
for the rest of your life. | 1:43:41 | |
So, I've had three tetanus jabs. | 1:43:42 | |
So, they said to me I'll never need it again, | 1:43:44 | |
no matter how many times I cut my hand, | 1:43:46 | |
whether it's rusty iron, or metal. | 1:43:48 | |
There's certain things that people | 1:43:49 | |
have basic knowledge of, | 1:43:51 | |
even though we're not doctors. (chuckles) | 1:43:52 | |
Interviewer | Right. | 1:43:54 |
It's something that is common, | 1:43:54 | |
common knowledge, known to everybody. | 1:43:55 | |
So, that would be something rare | 1:43:57 | |
that they would come and force us | 1:43:58 | |
to have injections every six months, | 1:43:59 | |
and you would actually get earthed | 1:44:01 | |
to have these injections. | 1:44:03 | |
Interviewer | They would bring you to make... | 1:44:05 |
They would earth you- | 1:44:06 | |
- | No, no, they would come to the cell, | 1:44:07 |
and they would ask you to volunteer | 1:44:08 | |
to have the injections. | 1:44:10 | |
So, you have to get your hands out | 1:44:11 | |
and they would just inject you in your shoulder, | 1:44:13 | |
or wherever, and if you refused it, | 1:44:15 | |
then they would earth you and they would tie | 1:44:17 | |
you up basically and then force you to have it. | 1:44:20 | |
Interviewer | Mm, did you ever meet | 1:44:23 |
with the Red Cross? | 1:44:25 | |
- | Oh, on many occasions. | 1:44:26 |
Interviewer | How was that? | 1:44:27 |
Oh, ready? | 1:44:29 | |
Female | Yeah. | 1:44:30 |
- | Yeah. | |
Interviewer | Okay, so could you tell me | 1:44:31 |
a little bit about how you met | 1:44:34 | |
with the Red Cross and if it changed | 1:44:36 | |
over time, or you know? | 1:44:38 | |
The first time you met with them. | 1:44:40 | |
- | The first time met with them, | 1:44:41 |
obviously the Red Cross was when I was | 1:44:42 | |
in actually, in prison by the Northern Alliance. | 1:44:44 | |
Then I met them in Kandahar. | 1:44:47 | |
They was no good in both prisons. | 1:44:51 | |
They was no good, they was a waste of time. | 1:44:54 | |
Interviewer | Why? | 1:44:55 |
- | Because they wasn't given any power | 1:44:56 |
to do anything on behalf of the detainees. | 1:44:58 | |
Well, okay, they brought us fresh water, | 1:45:01 | |
and they gave us a bar of soap that we couldn't | 1:45:04 | |
have a bath with, so it was a waste of money. | 1:45:06 | |
They bought in... | 1:45:08 | |
This is obviously in the first prison | 1:45:09 | |
by the Northern Alliance. | 1:45:11 | |
They gave the Northern Alliance, | 1:45:13 | |
the prison guards two truck fulls of flour, | 1:45:16 | |
plain flour to make bread and dough | 1:45:19 | |
so we can get some food. | 1:45:22 | |
But we got bread for about three days, | 1:45:23 | |
then somebody, one of the prison guards, | 1:45:25 | |
they robbed the whole truck. | 1:45:27 | |
Interviewer | How do you know that? | 1:45:29 |
- | Cause we was told by the Red Cross. (laughs) | 1:45:29 |
Interviewer | Really? | 1:45:31 |
- | Yeah, they took it because that's (indistinct). | 1:45:32 |
You got a massive truck full of flour, | 1:45:34 | |
it's like, probably two years supply | 1:45:38 | |
for your family, probably three years supply. | 1:45:40 | |
I mean, it's not like flour goes off, | 1:45:42 | |
there's no expiry date. | 1:45:44 | |
So, he thought that... | 1:45:45 | |
He got the chance and he thought, yes, | 1:45:46 | |
this is my chance fr getting some bread | 1:45:47 | |
for the next three years for free. | 1:45:50 | |
So, obviously that went. | 1:45:52 | |
Interviewer | In Kandahar? | 1:45:55 |
- | In Kandahar, they didn't do much, | 1:45:56 |
they was not allowed to do much. | 1:45:58 | |
They wasn't given much access to us. | 1:46:00 | |
So, the only thing they gave us is Qurans. | 1:46:02 | |
(phone rings loudly) | 1:46:04 | |
(laughs) Sorry about that. | 1:46:06 | |
Female | It's okay. | 1:46:07 |
- | [Interviewer} Mm-Hmm. | |
Ruhal | It's probably... | 1:46:09 |
Interviewer | So, the Red Cross at Kandahar? | 1:46:11 |
- | The only thing Red Cross in Kandahar did | 1:46:17 |
was take complaints and they gave us Qurans, | 1:46:19 | |
that's about it. | 1:46:22 | |
They had no other say in anything whatsoever. | 1:46:22 | |
And the fact that we wrote letters | 1:46:26 | |
through them, and that's about it. | 1:46:28 | |
In Guantanamo, they initially for the first month | 1:46:29 | |
didn't have no impact at all, whatsoever. | 1:46:33 | |
The only thing they were good for, | 1:46:37 | |
they would just take you out to a tent, | 1:46:38 | |
or an integration booth, | 1:46:41 | |
where there was given access to us, | 1:46:43 | |
and it was just us and them. | 1:46:45 | |
And they would bring a lot of food, cookies, | 1:46:49 | |
and chocolates and stuff. | 1:46:50 | |
The first time I met them they brought | 1:46:52 | |
two packs of cookies about this big, | 1:46:54 | |
probably that big, and there was like, | 1:46:57 | |
loads in this packet. | 1:46:58 | |
They had about three packets, | 1:46:59 | |
and I actually ate all of them. | 1:47:01 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 1:47:02 | |
They had a lot of peanuts in them, | 1:47:03 | |
pistachios and I went back to my cell half | 1:47:04 | |
an hour later, I puked up. (laughs) | 1:47:07 | |
The amount of sugar in me. | 1:47:09 | |
I got sick, puked it all out. | 1:47:10 | |
I juts thought, damn, | 1:47:12 | |
couldn't even digest it properly, | 1:47:15 | |
but it tasted great. | 1:47:17 | |
Other than that, they really don't | 1:47:19 | |
have an impact. | 1:47:21 | |
They did do a bit of things, | 1:47:23 | |
they increased the food, | 1:47:25 | |
they changed the food for us. | 1:47:26 | |
We wrote letters through them. | 1:47:31 | |
There was more of like mail people, | 1:47:33 | |
like Royal Mail we have here, postmen, | 1:47:36 | |
that was the basic job for them. | 1:47:39 | |
Interviewer | Did you ever ask them why | 1:47:40 |
you were in Guantanamo, | 1:47:42 | |
or if they could help you? | 1:47:43 | |
- | No, we asked them, but they said | 1:47:44 |
obviously, because it's a serious situations | 1:47:46 | |
we're not allowed POW's and detainees, kind of, | 1:47:49 | |
and they haven't got full access. | 1:47:53 | |
So, they're limited in terms of what they do | 1:47:57 | |
and also, I think that it was the deal | 1:48:00 | |
that if they don't go public, | 1:48:02 | |
then they get limited access. | 1:48:04 | |
Interviewer | Were the Americans ever present | 1:48:06 |
when the Red Cross was there? | 1:48:08 | |
- | Initially they used to be present all the time, | 1:48:09 |
but later on I think about, | 1:48:11 | |
I can't give you a timescale, but maybe | 1:48:12 | |
after a year they would not be there, | 1:48:16 | |
the Americans would not be there, | 1:48:21 | |
but obviously, they had body mics on. | 1:48:22 | |
Obviously it's because it was known. | 1:48:24 | |
Interviewer | Hmm, have you had a look | 1:48:27 |
at like the worst experience | 1:48:30 | |
you had in Guantanamo, | 1:48:32 | |
would you be able to kind of... | 1:48:34 | |
- | The worst in terms of treatment, | 1:48:37 |
I would say probably the stress position | 1:48:38 | |
and the music, not the physical side of it, | 1:48:41 | |
I would say the psychological side of it | 1:48:46 | |
was probably hard. | 1:48:48 | |
Other than that, also not knowing | 1:48:49 | |
of what's happening, | 1:48:54 | |
and you'll be left in the dark, basically. | 1:48:56 | |
That was difficult, but as I said, | 1:48:58 | |
if you kind of accept the fact | 1:49:00 | |
that this is how it is, | 1:49:02 | |
then you're gonna cope with it. | 1:49:05 | |
But I think initially, that was hard not knowing | 1:49:06 | |
when you're gonna get home, | 1:49:10 | |
why you've been arrested, | 1:49:11 | |
why you're being held, why you're being treated | 1:49:13 | |
in such a way. | 1:49:14 | |
And especially by Americans, | 1:49:16 | |
that was hard to comprehend, very hard. | 1:49:18 | |
Interviewer | So it sounds like a lot | 1:49:28 |
of the people were really nicer to you than... | 1:49:29 | |
- | I wanna say... | 1:49:33 |
I would say probably 5% of the soldiers | 1:49:34 | |
were good, and they was nice. | 1:49:35 | |
Majority were assholes and bad, | 1:49:37 | |
but obviously those people who were nice, | 1:49:39 | |
we had a lot of things in common | 1:49:42 | |
with the Americans, many things in common. | 1:49:43 | |
The way we were brought up, our lifestyle, | 1:49:46 | |
our eating habits, socializing habits. | 1:49:48 | |
It's literally the same, there's no difference. | 1:49:51 | |
The only thing is we live... | 1:49:52 | |
We got different accents and we live different, | 1:49:53 | |
we have different housing styles. | 1:49:56 | |
The houses are laid out different. | 1:49:58 | |
We drive different cars. | 1:50:00 | |
We drive normal cars, you drive massive tanks. | 1:50:01 | |
(chuckles) So, that's the difference. | 1:50:03 | |
I mean, we had so many things in common | 1:50:06 | |
so we could talk about films, and some soldier | 1:50:07 | |
would come and play chess with us. | 1:50:10 | |
Interviewer | Really? | 1:50:13 |
- | Yeah, one soldier, his name was Parish, | 1:50:14 |
his surname was Parish. | 1:50:15 | |
He would actually open the door of the cage, | 1:50:16 | |
and he would actually come and sit | 1:50:20 | |
on our bunk and he would play chess, | 1:50:21 | |
and checkers with us. | 1:50:23 | |
Interviewer | And no one disciplined | 1:50:24 |
him for that. | 1:50:25 | |
- | No, because he was actually the block sergeant. | 1:50:26 |
He was actually the block sergeant, | 1:50:29 | |
so he would do... | 1:50:29 | |
Obviously people on his team | 1:50:31 | |
wouldn't obviously cross on it | 1:50:33 | |
because they would... | 1:50:34 | |
They was also quite cool, | 1:50:35 | |
so that was quite normal. | 1:50:36 | |
There was one... | 1:50:38 | |
There was two MP's | 1:50:39 | |
from South California, Carolina. | 1:50:40 | |
Interviewer | Oh, South Carolina? | 1:50:46 |
- | Carolina, yeah. | 1:50:47 |
Interviewer | Mm-hmm. | |
- | He was from there. | 1:50:49 |
And one was white, MP white, and MP Floyd, right? | 1:50:50 | |
And he was probably my age, very young. | 1:50:56 | |
And there was like, there was probably | 1:50:58 | |
the best soldiers, the nicest people | 1:51:00 | |
I've met in my entire life. | 1:51:02 | |
They were so down to earth, it was unbelievable. | 1:51:04 | |
You couldn't get any better people | 1:51:06 | |
than these two guys. | 1:51:08 | |
They would bring us ice creams, | 1:51:10 | |
sneak us ice creams, Snickers, Mars, | 1:51:12 | |
Ben and Jerry's in the night. | 1:51:14 | |
And when they were doing night shift | 1:51:16 | |
it was a (indistinct) and get food, and coke. | 1:51:17 | |
You name, they used to bring it, | 1:51:20 | |
sneak it underneath their pockets | 1:51:22 | |
and come and give it to us. | 1:51:23 | |
I actually had long hair in Guantanamo, | 1:51:25 | |
I actually grew my hair. | 1:51:27 | |
So, it was quite long. | 1:51:28 | |
It was probably like long | 1:51:29 | |
as probably my shoulder. | 1:51:30 | |
And obviously, having no shampoo | 1:51:31 | |
and having no conditioner, | 1:51:34 | |
you have a lot of knots in your hair. | 1:51:35 | |
So, I asked for a comb, and I asked | 1:51:37 | |
for some Pantene shampoo and conditioner, | 1:51:40 | |
And they actually went out and bought | 1:51:44 | |
this for me, and gave it to me, | 1:51:45 | |
and what they did, they have... | 1:51:46 | |
Every individual has a file, | 1:51:49 | |
and on this file it tells you | 1:51:52 | |
what you allowed to have, what the individual | 1:51:53 | |
is allowed to have. | 1:51:56 | |
So, what they did, they actually wrote in there, | 1:51:56 | |
"He's allowed to have a comb, | 1:51:59 | |
he's allowed to have shampoo and a conditioner." | 1:52:00 | |
So, the other soldiers would come and say, | 1:52:03 | |
"Hang on, he's got Pantene, | 1:52:06 | |
what's happening here?" | 1:52:08 | |
And they were like the ones who were not so nice, | 1:52:09 | |
not so friendly, they would be very, | 1:52:12 | |
very pissed off and angry. | 1:52:14 | |
The fact that I've got a comb | 1:52:16 | |
and I got Pantene, and them like, basically | 1:52:17 | |
we don't get this kind of treatment | 1:52:20 | |
from the army, so why should he? | 1:52:21 | |
And I said, well, why don't you go | 1:52:23 | |
and look at your paperwork, and he would go | 1:52:24 | |
and say, "He's allowed to have it." (chuckles) | 1:52:25 | |
(interviewer and female chuckle) | 1:52:27 | |
So, what they did, they put it into the book. | 1:52:28 | |
So, I had shampoo and conditioner, | 1:52:31 | |
and a brush in my cell all the time, | 1:52:33 | |
and it was great. | 1:52:35 | |
Interviewer | Do you know why | 1:52:36 |
they did that for you? | 1:52:37 | |
You know... | 1:52:39 | |
Just because they're nice people, | 1:52:43 | |
not everybody's, not every apple's bad. | 1:52:44 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:52:47 | |
Even though you're in the military, | 1:52:48 | |
and you're in that situation | 1:52:50 | |
doesn't mean you're bad. | 1:52:51 | |
Even though they've joined the military, | 1:52:53 | |
maybe they didn't really know | 1:52:54 | |
what they were signing up for, | 1:52:56 | |
and not everybody wanted to go to Guantanamo | 1:52:57 | |
and be babysitters for detainees. | 1:52:59 | |
Majority of the people who we spoke to, | 1:53:04 | |
who were good, the only reason | 1:53:05 | |
they actually joined the military | 1:53:07 | |
was for education, free education. | 1:53:08 | |
That was the sole purpose of joining | 1:53:10 | |
the military to be reserve. | 1:53:11 | |
Interviewer | Mm-hmm. | 1:53:13 |
- | They didn't know, no one had imagined | 1:53:14 |
such a thing like 9/11 to happen. | 1:53:17 | |
No one could have thought of it, | 1:53:20 | |
and it was unfortunate that they signed up | 1:53:22 | |
and then they were sent. | 1:53:25 | |
Interviewer | And did they say to you | 1:53:27 |
that about that they felt badly that they got- | 1:53:28 | |
- | Yeah, many of them would say, "We apologize | 1:53:31 |
on behalf of our government, what they're doing." | 1:53:35 | |
We don't agree with it, but I would always say | 1:53:36 | |
that it's not their place to actually apologize | 1:53:39 | |
because it's not them directly responsible | 1:53:42 | |
for our imprisonment. | 1:53:45 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 1:53:47 | |
I understand that he has to treat us | 1:53:48 | |
in a certain way because he signed up to it. | 1:53:49 | |
If he doesn't abide by his rules | 1:53:52 | |
that means he's gonna be in prison. | 1:53:54 | |
And sometimes you have to look at his situation | 1:53:56 | |
and you have to say, okay, | 1:53:58 | |
do you know what I mean? | 1:54:01 | |
Even though you don't wanna do it, | 1:54:02 | |
but you're forced to do it | 1:54:02 | |
because you're gonna be imprisoned. | 1:54:03 | |
You can kind of recover- | 1:54:05 | |
Interviewer | Do you know what year that was | 1:54:07 |
when was it early on, or was it- | 1:54:08 | |
- | 2003, about 2003. | 1:54:10 |
Interviewer | And do you... | 1:54:13 |
Could you explain how you had exercise first | 1:54:14 | |
when you were in Camp X-ray, | 1:54:16 | |
and then later on how it changed? | 1:54:18 | |
- | Camp X-ray we was not allowed | 1:54:20 |
to exercise whatsoever. | 1:54:21 | |
It was not allowed. | 1:54:23 | |
Interviewer | Not allowed. | 1:54:24 |
- | No, even when we were going to... | 1:54:25 |
When we got to a camp, I mean, | 1:54:25 | |
for Camp X-ray, we had... | 1:54:28 | |
They would take us out once a week | 1:54:30 | |
for a walk, for exercise. | 1:54:32 | |
And we would walk with actually, | 1:54:35 | |
our cuffs on, our leg irons on. | 1:54:37 | |
So, obviously the chain is only a set length. | 1:54:39 | |
So, you can't even take a full step. | 1:54:43 | |
You taking, like penguin steps. | 1:54:44 | |
You can call it, and that's... | 1:54:47 | |
They would never take them off, | 1:54:49 | |
so it was pointless actually even going | 1:54:50 | |
for a walk because it would be more of a strug... | 1:54:51 | |
It would be more painful to walk in them | 1:54:54 | |
because they rubbing against your ankles | 1:54:56 | |
and your skin, and stuff, and make you bleed. | 1:55:00 | |
(chuckles) And actually going for the walk | 1:55:02 | |
is like pointless. | 1:55:04 | |
So, really we would actually kind of refuse, | 1:55:06 | |
but when we went to Camp Delta, they had | 1:55:08 | |
a bigger rec area built. | 1:55:10 | |
Initially, we was not allowed, | 1:55:14 | |
we was only allowed to walk, but later on, | 1:55:15 | |
then you was allowed to run. | 1:55:17 | |
Then next, obviously we was allowed to exercise, | 1:55:17 | |
but a year down the line then you can exercise, | 1:55:20 | |
so we used to exercise, | 1:55:22 | |
Interviewer | Did you ever move | 1:55:23 |
to any other camp besides Camp Delta? | 1:55:24 | |
- | Nah. | 1:55:27 |
Interviewer | No, so you had enough exercise | 1:55:28 |
at Camp Delta to run, you said? | 1:55:29 | |
- | Well, you had a fairly big space | 1:55:34 |
in terms of like... | 1:55:36 | |
Interviewer | Was it a caged area? | 1:55:38 |
- | Yeah, it was a caged area, but then again, | 1:55:39 |
if you're gonna exercise, | 1:55:41 | |
the floor is made of concrete, extremely hot. | 1:55:42 | |
You run on bare, with your bare feet, | 1:55:43 | |
you get blisters. | 1:55:46 | |
I used to always get blisters. | 1:55:47 | |
So, really you can't, you only can do certain | 1:55:48 | |
amounts of running, or a certain speed. | 1:55:51 | |
So, didn't really get no exercise | 1:55:53 | |
other than walking in a fast walk, | 1:55:56 | |
like power walking, you can call it. | 1:55:58 | |
Interviewer | And how often would | 1:56:00 |
you get exercise? | 1:56:01 | |
- | First it was like 20 minutes twice a week, | 1:56:02 |
then it changed in 2003 it changed | 1:56:05 | |
when General Miller came in power, it changed. | 1:56:07 | |
It was all on level program. | 1:56:09 | |
So, if you level one, you go to exercise | 1:56:10 | |
every day for half an hour. | 1:56:12 | |
If you're level two, | 1:56:14 | |
you get to exercise 20 minutes, | 1:56:15 | |
three times a week. | 1:56:18 | |
If you're level three, once a week | 1:56:20 | |
for 15 minutes. | 1:56:22 | |
If you're level four, you don't get to exercise. | 1:56:23 | |
Interviewer | And how do you determine | 1:56:25 |
what level, how do they determine | 1:56:26 | |
what level you're on? | 1:56:27 | |
- | Your interrogator determines | 1:56:28 |
how cooperative you are with intel, | 1:56:30 | |
and also your behavior. | 1:56:32 | |
Interviewer | Will your level change | 1:56:33 |
daily, or weekly, or... | 1:56:34 | |
- | No, it'll probably change weekly. | 1:56:35 |
It depends, sometimes you're level one. | 1:56:37 | |
Initially we started off to be level three, | 1:56:39 | |
then to two, then we dropped. | 1:56:41 | |
I dropped to level four | 1:56:43 | |
for many months, five months, | 1:56:44 | |
and then when I got out of isolation | 1:56:47 | |
when the allegation was dropped. | 1:56:49 | |
When they obviously realized that | 1:56:51 | |
it wasn't us cause we had more | 1:56:52 | |
than enough alibis to say that we were actually | 1:56:54 | |
in the UK at the time. | 1:56:57 | |
And they announced, the British government's | 1:57:01 | |
obviously they was having talks | 1:57:03 | |
with the Americans. | 1:57:04 | |
So, they obviously knew that | 1:57:05 | |
we were getting released. | 1:57:06 | |
So, I think because that was happening, | 1:57:07 | |
they knew that we were gonna go home. | 1:57:08 | |
So, their treatments changed, | 1:57:09 | |
and then we was put to level one. | 1:57:11 | |
Interviewer | So, for a short time | 1:57:13 |
you were level one- | 1:57:15 | |
- | Three months, would say. | 1:57:16 |
Interviewer | Earlier, you mentioned | 1:57:17 |
that one of General Miller's changes was | 1:57:19 | |
he brought dogs in. | 1:57:24 | |
Did you actually see dogs in Guantanamo? | 1:57:25 | |
- | Yeah, the dog used to be... | 1:57:27 |
They used to walk him up and down the... | 1:57:29 | |
They call it the (indistinct), | 1:57:32 | |
and in the blocks you have like a causeway. | 1:57:34 | |
Interviewer | Mm-hmm. | 1:57:39 |
- | They would walk the dogs up and down, | 1:57:39 |
very rare though, it's very rare, | 1:57:41 | |
but they would have dogs in the interrogation. | 1:57:42 | |
When you were in stressed positions, | 1:57:44 | |
they would bring the dogs in. | 1:57:45 | |
Interviewer | Would they be held by the... | 1:57:47 |
- | They would be held back, | 1:57:49 |
but they wouldn't have the... | 1:57:49 | |
Interviewer | Muzzles? | 1:57:51 |
- | The muzzle, | |
they wouldn't have that on. | 1:57:52 | |
So, they were barking literally in your face, | 1:57:54 | |
where he's got the dog on the leash. | 1:57:56 | |
Interviewer | In Guantanamo? | 1:57:58 |
- | Yeah, in Guantanamo, in interrogation. | 1:57:59 |
Interviewer | While you were | 1:58:00 |
in a stressed position, | 1:58:01 | |
someone would be holding a dog? | 1:58:02 | |
- | Yeah, occasionally, that would be for | 1:58:03 |
something to like intimidate you. | 1:58:06 | |
Interviewer | Do you know if intimidated | 1:58:09 |
any of the people? | 1:58:10 | |
- | (chuckles) It intimidated me. | 1:58:12 |
(interviewer chuckles) | 1:58:13 | |
So, you have a rottweiler barking | 1:58:13 | |
like right in your face, it's kind of scary. | 1:58:14 | |
Now, I get scared of dogs walking | 1:58:19 | |
across the free road. (chuckles) | 1:58:20 | |
Cause sometimes they're just gonna go mad | 1:58:21 | |
and start chasing you, so. | 1:58:23 | |
Interviewer | Hmm, was there anything else | 1:58:25 |
that General Miller introduced that we haven't- | 1:58:27 | |
- | Long standing, prolonged standing, | 1:58:32 |
stressed positions. | 1:58:35 | |
Interviewer | Did you have | 1:58:36 |
to do prolonged standing? | 1:58:37 | |
- | Nah, never did that. | 1:58:38 |
Interviewer | But you heard of people who did? | 1:58:38 |
- | Yeah. | 1:58:39 |
- | Do you remember a situation like that, | 1:58:40 |
or people just told you? | 1:58:42 | |
- | People just told me, yeah. | 1:58:43 |
You had prolonged standing, | 1:58:44 | |
you had stressed position, | 1:58:46 | |
which was like short shackling, loud music, | 1:58:46 | |
strobe lights, the dogs, | 1:58:49 | |
hot and cold with the AC. | 1:58:51 | |
Interviewer | And the strobe lights, | 1:58:54 |
how long would that go on? | 1:58:55 | |
- | That'll be on all day long when you meet that- | 1:58:57 |
Interviewer | With the music, or- | 1:58:59 |
- | With the music, with the music, so- | 1:59:00 |
Interviewer | In your cell, | 1:59:02 |
or in the interrogation room? | 1:59:04 | |
- | No, in the interrogation, yeah, | 1:59:04 |
Nothing would happen to you sitting in your cell. | 1:59:06 | |
Interviewer | It'd all be in | 1:59:08 |
the interrogation room? | 1:59:09 | |
- | It'll all be interrogation. | 1:59:10 |
The only thing that would happen in your cell | 1:59:11 | |
is if you get earthed, that's the only thing | 1:59:12 | |
that happens in your cell. | 1:59:14 | |
Interviewer | Mm-hmm. | 1:59:15 |
- | And sometimes you might get beaten up. | 1:59:16 |
When you get earthed, you get beaten up. | 1:59:18 | |
Interviewer | Did you see anybody | 1:59:20 |
get beaten up really badly, and something- | 1:59:21 | |
- | No, I heard of one guy | 1:59:24 |
got beaten up, which I think | 1:59:25 | |
is already mentioned. | 1:59:26 | |
Juma from Bahrain was a Saudi now. | 1:59:28 | |
I've heard of him get beaten up. | 1:59:32 | |
I've seen detainees get earthed, | 1:59:33 | |
and physically manhandled to the extent | 1:59:36 | |
that you think well, you don't need | 1:59:39 | |
to treat him in that way. | 1:59:41 | |
I've seen people's heads being flushed | 1:59:43 | |
in the toilet while they're being earthed. | 1:59:45 | |
Interviewer | Oh, while they're being earthed. | 1:59:49 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 1:59:50 |
Interviewer | Do you know what caused them | 1:59:51 |
to be earthed, some of them? | 1:59:51 | |
- | Basically, misbehaving, | 1:59:53 |
not cooperating with the soldiers | 1:59:54 | |
on the block. | 2:00:00 | |
If you didn't give back | 2:00:03 | |
the spoon after your chow, your food. | 2:00:07 | |
If you refused medicine, injections, especially. | 2:00:09 | |
Those reasons if you- | 2:00:14 | |
Interviewer | You saw someone's head | 2:00:15 |
being flushed down the toilet? | 2:00:16 | |
- | That was quite common because | 2:00:17 |
when they earth you, the actual space | 2:00:19 | |
is very small to walk. | 2:00:21 | |
So, when they're earthing you, | 2:00:23 | |
you always gonna... | 2:00:25 | |
The toilet areas, they're always there. | 2:00:27 | |
So, you're always gonna fall in that area | 2:00:28 | |
because you have the door, which is here, | 2:00:30 | |
for example, when I'm here. | 2:00:33 | |
At the back, which is about two and a half meters | 2:00:35 | |
is a sink, right next to the sink on the floor | 2:00:39 | |
there's a toilet. | 2:00:41 | |
So, from the doors to the toilet, | 2:00:43 | |
there's about two steps, literally two steps. | 2:00:45 | |
And on the side, the actual length | 2:00:48 | |
is about two, or three meters. | 2:00:51 | |
And the width is about also three meters, | 2:00:54 | |
but the width is shorter | 2:00:56 | |
because they've got a bunk elevated halfway, | 2:00:58 | |
which takes a meter. | 2:01:00 | |
So, really you've got a meter | 2:01:02 | |
by two and a half meter, three meters. | 2:01:04 | |
So, you can't really go to the left or right. | 2:01:07 | |
You only can go back and forth to the door. | 2:01:08 | |
So, if you're getting earthed, | 2:01:10 | |
it's a small space. | 2:01:11 | |
So, when they ram you with a shield, | 2:01:13 | |
you always gonna fall to the back, | 2:01:16 | |
and that's what the toilet is. | 2:01:18 | |
So, when you fall flat either on your back, | 2:01:19 | |
or on your stomach, your head's always | 2:01:21 | |
in the toilet, but it's like | 2:01:22 | |
a stainless steel toilet. | 2:01:27 | |
And the hole's obviously quite far down | 2:01:30 | |
where the water is, but there's a button. | 2:01:32 | |
When you flush it, the water comes, flushes it. | 2:01:35 | |
What they do, they put your face near the hole, | 2:01:39 | |
and they flush it. | 2:01:41 | |
They flush the toilet so the water builds up | 2:01:44 | |
and it covers all your face, your hair, whatever, | 2:01:46 | |
and that was something they would do on purpose. | 2:01:48 | |
Interviewer | And you've seen that happen? | 2:01:51 |
- | Yeah, that happened to me, many people, | 2:01:52 |
and they would pepper spray you. | 2:01:54 | |
Pepper spray would be very common. | 2:01:56 | |
Before they earth you, they pepper spray you. | 2:01:57 | |
There's a procedure of earthing. | 2:01:59 | |
They would ask you, ask you, ask you, | 2:02:00 | |
then they would tell the guard commander to come. | 2:02:04 | |
He would ask you, if you don't listen to him, | 2:02:08 | |
they called the lieutenant. | 2:02:10 | |
I think, then he would ask you, | 2:02:11 | |
or they would call the captain, | 2:02:13 | |
and he would ask you. | 2:02:14 | |
And if you don't comply the guard | 2:02:15 | |
would come out and the lieutenant, or the captain | 2:02:18 | |
would spray you first, then they would earth you. | 2:02:20 | |
Five guys got you with riot gear. | 2:02:23 | |
Interviewer | And then they take you away? | 2:02:27 |
- | Yeah, and do whatever they want. | 2:02:29 |
Interviewer | Could you describe | 2:02:33 |
how you found out about | 2:02:34 | |
that you were gonna go home, | 2:02:35 | |
how that happened, and- | 2:02:36 | |
- | We found out initially by guards, | 2:02:37 |
soldiers would come and say to us | 2:02:39 | |
that your names have been released in our news. | 2:02:40 | |
Some of you guys are gonna go home, | 2:02:44 | |
and I think they over hear it from | 2:02:46 | |
the intel people as well, so they talk, | 2:02:50 | |
and the word spreads. | 2:02:53 | |
Interviewer | Do you believe them? | 2:02:54 |
- | At first, no, but I think... | 2:02:57 |
Cause we was obviously we've been told | 2:02:59 | |
that we was gonna be released from day one. | 2:03:01 | |
So, like (chuckles) for two and half years, | 2:03:02 | |
you're going home next week. | 2:03:03 | |
Interviewer | Who was telling you that? | 2:03:04 |
- | First of all, we was told actually | 2:03:05 |
by the general, General Lennart, | 2:03:06 | |
who's a marine general. | 2:03:09 | |
He actually came to me and he said that | 2:03:11 | |
you will be the first one to go home | 2:03:12 | |
because you're British, | 2:03:13 | |
because of the relationship the countries have. | 2:03:14 | |
Interviewer | Do you know when | 2:03:17 |
he told you that? | 2:03:18 | |
- | March, probably April, 2002. | 2:03:20 |
Interviewer | Mm, that early. | 2:03:24 |
- | Yeah, I was not even there for like, a month | 2:03:25 |
and that's what he told me. | 2:03:29 | |
Because there was the riots that happened, | 2:03:30 | |
the first hunger strike took place | 2:03:32 | |
because a soldier kicked the Quran, | 2:03:33 | |
and I actually was there when it happened. | 2:03:36 | |
And it was the first riot that took place, | 2:03:39 | |
and it was a hunger strike, | 2:03:42 | |
and they was trying to calm it down. | 2:03:43 | |
There's one guy who spoke very good English, | 2:03:44 | |
and he was an Arab. | 2:03:47 | |
So, Lennart would come down and speak | 2:03:49 | |
to the individual, and he was... | 2:03:51 | |
Personally, I think, well he was an okay general. | 2:03:54 | |
He was okay. | 2:03:57 | |
He came to me and he was talking to me. | 2:04:01 | |
He gave me a sweet, so usually generals | 2:04:03 | |
don't actually come and talk to anybody. | 2:04:06 | |
He was the only general that actually came | 2:04:08 | |
and spoke to the detainees. | 2:04:09 | |
And he actually used to hand out sweets, toffees | 2:04:12 | |
to detainees, which was quite... | 2:04:15 | |
Well, to me at the time, | 2:04:17 | |
it looked pretty normal because like to me, | 2:04:19 | |
I didn't know what a general was. | 2:04:22 | |
I never knew what a colonel was. | 2:04:22 | |
I never knew because military was not part | 2:04:23 | |
of my upbringing. | 2:04:26 | |
So, I didn't have a clue. | 2:04:28 | |
So, he told me that we gonna go home | 2:04:30 | |
within six weeks of being there. | 2:04:32 | |
So, then eventually when he left, | 2:04:35 | |
others came in and every so often, | 2:04:36 | |
someone would come and say, the interrogator | 2:04:38 | |
would say, "Oh, you're gonna home, | 2:04:40 | |
you're gonna home." | 2:04:41 | |
And after about seven, eight months, | 2:04:42 | |
I just gave up hope, they're all full of shit. | 2:04:43 | |
Then the last three months, | 2:04:46 | |
when things start changing for us, | 2:04:47 | |
we got level one, films, six meals a day, | 2:04:49 | |
that kind of gave it away. | 2:04:53 | |
Interviewer | And then what happened? | 2:04:55 |
How did it finally happen that you | 2:04:56 | |
were officially told you were going home? | 2:04:59 | |
- | We was not actually officially told. | 2:05:01 |
We was actually isolated | 2:05:02 | |
for the last week of our... | 2:05:03 | |
Before we got released. | 2:05:04 | |
Interviewer | In isolation? | 2:05:06 |
- | Yeah. | 2:05:07 |
Interviewer | Block. | 2:05:08 |
- | Yeah. | 2:05:08 |
Interviewer | Why? | 2:05:09 |
- | Well, it's just procedure. | 2:05:10 |
It's the normal procedure | 2:05:11 | |
that they do. (chuckles) | 2:05:12 | |
Everybody who leaves, they have to go | 2:05:13 | |
through their isolation first. (chuckles) | 2:05:14 | |
It's like a punishment, | 2:05:15 | |
last minute punishment before you go home. | 2:05:16 | |
So, we went to isolation, | 2:05:18 | |
stayed there for a week. | 2:05:19 | |
The last day, that night they came, | 2:05:21 | |
they gave us a new set of clothes, jeans, | 2:05:22 | |
some slippers, or pumps I think it was, | 2:05:24 | |
and a T-shirt, and a jacket, or a jumper. | 2:05:27 | |
Then they took us out, tied us up, | 2:05:30 | |
normal procedure, took us out. | 2:05:32 | |
They tried to make us sign some papers | 2:05:35 | |
before we left, but we refused. | 2:05:37 | |
Interviewer | Do you know what the papers said? | 2:05:39 |
- | Basically said that we was arrested | 2:05:41 |
because we was part of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. | 2:05:42 | |
And if ever in the future | 2:05:44 | |
we come to know that you were part... | 2:05:47 | |
If you are a part or affiliated | 2:05:50 | |
with any terrorist groups in the world, | 2:05:52 | |
we have the power to come and arrest you | 2:05:55 | |
wherever you are in the world. | 2:05:57 | |
That's what the paper said. | 2:05:59 | |
Interviewer | So, when you refused to sign it, | 2:06:00 |
what did they say? | 2:06:01 | |
- | They said that you will spend the rest | 2:06:02 |
of your time in Guantanamo. | 2:06:03 | |
We said, "Fine, that's cool." | 2:06:06 | |
Cause basically, them saying that we agree, | 2:06:08 | |
the reason why we was in Guantanamo, | 2:06:11 | |
and we said, "No, I'd rather stay here." | 2:06:12 | |
But then a couple hours later we seen | 2:06:15 | |
the British police, they came, | 2:06:17 | |
and that was the main giveaway, | 2:06:18 | |
because all throughout as I said, | 2:06:21 | |
we've always seen MI5, or the home office, | 2:06:22 | |
and this time it was actually | 2:06:26 | |
the police officers came in the police uniform. | 2:06:26 | |
So, we thought, okay, something's happening. | 2:06:29 | |
So, that night we got taken to the... | 2:06:31 | |
You know them school buses, | 2:06:34 | |
the American yellow school buses? | 2:06:35 | |
It was one of them. | 2:06:37 | |
We got into one of them, | 2:06:38 | |
then we drove to the airport, | 2:06:39 | |
which was quite funny. | 2:06:41 | |
It was hilarious. | 2:06:43 | |
Interviewer | Why? | 2:06:44 |
- | It was like a movie. | 2:06:45 |
It's like being in a military Rambo movie. | 2:06:46 | |
They got the bus to the runway. | 2:06:51 | |
You had the plane about | 2:06:54 | |
200 meters away from where the bus parked. | 2:06:57 | |
Then you had like, the plane | 2:07:00 | |
is for example, here. | 2:07:04 | |
We're here, right? | 2:07:05 | |
So, we've gotta walk 200 meters to the plane. | 2:07:08 | |
All the British police officers are sitting, | 2:07:10 | |
standing by this plane, and it's an RF plane, | 2:07:12 | |
a military plane from the UK. | 2:07:16 | |
And you had on this side of the Americans, | 2:07:19 | |
all the generals and officials, | 2:07:22 | |
and probably congressman cause some | 2:07:25 | |
of them were in their plain uni... | 2:07:27 | |
Plain clothes, so they could | 2:07:28 | |
be congressmen, or whoever. | 2:07:30 | |
And they had from here to there, | 2:07:31 | |
on this side and on that side, they're soldiers. | 2:07:34 | |
And they had about one soldier, | 2:07:38 | |
every three meters. | 2:07:41 | |
So, a soldier, soldier, soldier, soldier, | 2:07:42 | |
soldier, soldier, and soldiers across there. | 2:07:44 | |
And we had to walk in between | 2:07:47 | |
and they all had the M16's drawn on us. | 2:07:48 | |
As we was walking, marched by two guys, | 2:07:52 | |
cuffed up like animals. | 2:07:55 | |
All the guns were on us and they was moving, | 2:07:57 | |
and moving, and moving as we was walking | 2:08:00 | |
to the plane. | 2:08:01 | |
And I was thinking, how ridiculous is this? | 2:08:02 | |
This is like, insane. | 2:08:05 | |
And the British were actually, the cops, | 2:08:06 | |
the British cops, they even found it funny. | 2:08:09 | |
They even was taking the piss. | 2:08:11 | |
When we got on the plane, they go, | 2:08:12 | |
"That was a drama." | 2:08:15 | |
That was like a Hollywood movie, | 2:08:16 | |
We could have just done a shot | 2:08:18 | |
for Sylvester Stallone's new movie. | 2:08:19 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 2:08:22 | |
It's just madness. | 2:08:23 | |
It was so bizarre, I thought, | 2:08:24 | |
how many people do you need to have be there | 2:08:27 | |
with guns for five guys who's going home? | 2:08:30 | |
Who are unarmed, who are chained like animals? | 2:08:33 | |
How many do you really need? | 2:08:36 | |
I mean, it was just like a stage show, | 2:08:37 | |
a road show that was put on for the... | 2:08:40 | |
For the higher ups. | 2:08:44 | |
You know what I mean? | 2:08:45 | |
It was like, ridiculous, | 2:08:45 | |
and I couldn't stop laughing. | 2:08:47 | |
I got there, we got to the police officer, | 2:08:48 | |
the British guy, and he read my rights out. | 2:08:51 | |
He said, basically, | 2:08:53 | |
we're gonna transfer you back to the UK. | 2:08:56 | |
If you have any problems, please do let us know. | 2:08:59 | |
There's refreshments on the board, | 2:09:01 | |
blah, blah, blah, just being nice to me. | 2:09:02 | |
And obviously, we've been in a three piece suit, | 2:09:05 | |
and the police officer goes | 2:09:07 | |
to both guys, un-cuff him. | 2:09:09 | |
And they both look at the other, | 2:09:11 | |
like as if they miss heard something, | 2:09:14 | |
and the copper, the British guy | 2:09:17 | |
goes, "Un-cuff him." | 2:09:19 | |
And they go... | 2:09:21 | |
Un-cuff him, but why? | 2:09:22 | |
They go, "Because we're taking over, | 2:09:25 | |
so un-cuff him." | 2:09:27 | |
So, they presumed they're gonna put | 2:09:28 | |
their own cuffs on, so they opened my cuff, | 2:09:31 | |
and obviously I had to put my hand on my head, | 2:09:33 | |
interlock my fingers. | 2:09:36 | |
And they're like, one was holding | 2:09:37 | |
it really tight, the other one's got my shoulder, | 2:09:38 | |
squeezing my shoulder, making sure I don't... | 2:09:40 | |
One's got my collar, holding it as not to move, | 2:09:42 | |
and then they were squaring off | 2:09:46 | |
just in case I move or something. | 2:09:48 | |
They take everything, take all my shackles off | 2:09:49 | |
and they throw the shackles a bit behind | 2:09:51 | |
so I don't get reach of it. | 2:09:53 | |
And then they're waiting for the police officer, | 2:09:54 | |
the British police officer | 2:09:58 | |
to cuff me, and they... | 2:09:59 | |
And they had like an awkward silence | 2:10:01 | |
of two minutes between looks them exchanging | 2:10:04 | |
and I'm standing there laughing my head off. | 2:10:07 | |
Cause I know they're not gonna cuff me, | 2:10:10 | |
and I had this feeling they're not gonna cuff me. | 2:10:12 | |
I'm just laughing, I'm just smiling | 2:10:13 | |
at the police officer. | 2:10:15 | |
And he's also looking at me thinking, | 2:10:16 | |
why aren't they letting him go? | 2:10:18 | |
Why are they holding him like that for? | 2:10:20 | |
And he's not saying anything, then the guards go, | 2:10:23 | |
"Aren't you gonna cuff him?" | 2:10:26 | |
- | No, he goes, "No." | 2:10:27 |
He goes, "Why would you cuff him for?" (chuckles) | 2:10:29 | |
I couldn't stop laughing, and the guy goes, | 2:10:31 | |
"Oh, so you're not gonna cuff him." | 2:10:34 | |
So, what they did, one guy moved back, | 2:10:35 | |
and they both pushed me forward, so I went flying | 2:10:37 | |
into the police officer. | 2:10:40 | |
So, just in case I don't turn around, | 2:10:41 | |
or smack him one, it was like madness, | 2:10:43 | |
and the police officer just laughed. | 2:10:45 | |
And he goes, "Just walk on the plane." | 2:10:47 | |
So, I walked on the plane. | 2:10:49 | |
That was my first time I actually walked | 2:10:50 | |
without any chains, and it felt really hard | 2:10:52 | |
taking footsteps, it looked very odd. | 2:10:56 | |
So, I went to the plane, I sat down | 2:10:58 | |
and it was an RF plane. | 2:11:00 | |
It was like, all done up because we | 2:11:02 | |
was being brought home, so they had cameras | 2:11:05 | |
right in front of us. | 2:11:07 | |
They had two officers sitting beside me. | 2:11:08 | |
They had two officers in front of me, | 2:11:11 | |
and they were just being very friendly. | 2:11:12 | |
They offered us a lot of food. | 2:11:14 | |
We had chocolates and crisps, | 2:11:15 | |
and the foreign office guy was there as well. | 2:11:16 | |
The guy who used to come quite | 2:11:18 | |
on a regular basis to come and see us. | 2:11:19 | |
And what he said to us, | 2:11:21 | |
"When you get home, make sure you tell the press | 2:11:22 | |
that the British treated you right." | 2:11:25 | |
I looked at him for, are you having a laugh? | 2:11:29 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 2:11:30 | |
You must be joking. | 2:11:31 | |
Well, I go, "What did you do for me | 2:11:32 | |
for the last two and a half years?" | 2:11:34 | |
You didn't do jack. | 2:11:35 | |
You couldn't even increase the food, man. | 2:11:37 | |
The proportion of the food. | 2:11:38 | |
If you increased that, | 2:11:40 | |
I would say you done something. | 2:11:41 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 2:11:43 | |
But they didn't do nothing. | 2:11:44 | |
So, go, "Don't expect any good remarks, | 2:11:44 | |
or anything good to come out of my mouth | 2:11:48 | |
about the British government." | 2:11:50 | |
So, and then basically we (indistinct), | 2:11:52 | |
soon as we flew over we actually entered | 2:11:54 | |
the British airspace. | 2:11:57 | |
That's when they came in and gave, told us, | 2:11:59 | |
that we was actually being arrested | 2:12:01 | |
under the British Terrorism Act 2000. | 2:12:02 | |
Interviewer | And what happened then? | 2:12:06 |
- | They took us to | 2:12:07 |
the police station, Paddington Green. | 2:12:08 | |
They didn't cuff us, or nothing like that. | 2:12:12 | |
I think that was because of who we were, | 2:12:14 | |
and they decided that they're not gonna cuff us, | 2:12:18 | |
or nothing like that. | 2:12:19 | |
But they said they were gonna | 2:12:20 | |
have five police officers per detainee. | 2:12:21 | |
So, they took us to the police station | 2:12:26 | |
and we just checked in as, | 2:12:28 | |
you just fill your names, and we were taken | 2:12:31 | |
to one cell. | 2:12:35 | |
Taken to a cell, and I was there for about a day. | 2:12:40 | |
That same night I was interrogated by the MI5. | 2:12:45 | |
I was given my lawyer. | 2:12:50 | |
So, for the first time in two and a half years, | 2:12:51 | |
I was actually given a lawyer, | 2:12:53 | |
but that lawyer was actually appointed | 2:12:54 | |
by my father. | 2:12:55 | |
So, he actually met me in that prison, | 2:12:56 | |
in Paddington Green. | 2:12:59 | |
We went to, he basically... | 2:13:02 | |
We went to a consultation room, spoke, | 2:13:04 | |
and he basically, don't answer nothing. | 2:13:06 | |
He goes, "You don't need to speak, | 2:13:08 | |
just say no comment all the way through." | 2:13:10 | |
So, I went to interrogation, | 2:13:12 | |
and they asked me all these questions, | 2:13:14 | |
name, no comment, no comment, no comment, | 2:13:15 | |
all that through. | 2:13:17 | |
Then I went again, second time around, | 2:13:18 | |
and again I went, "No comment." | 2:13:19 | |
Took my fingerprints and took some photos | 2:13:21 | |
and stuff, normal procedure | 2:13:22 | |
for the police station. | 2:13:23 | |
And about 36 hours later, they said, | 2:13:24 | |
"You're free to go." | 2:13:27 | |
Interviewer | And that was it? | 2:13:29 |
- | And that was it really, yeah. | 2:13:30 |
Interviewer | Did your opinion | 2:13:35 |
of the Americans change from the time | 2:13:36 | |
before you were arrested to when you- | 2:13:39 | |
- | No, I don't think so, | 2:13:42 |
because if my opinion had changed, | 2:13:42 | |
then I wouldn't have had- | 2:13:43 | |
(phone rings loudly) | 2:13:45 | |
(Ruhal chuckles) | 2:13:49 | |
Interviewer | You wanna get it? | 2:13:51 |
We're almost finished, (indistinct). | 2:13:52 | |
Female | She's good. | 2:13:53 |
- | She's got it upstairs. | 2:13:53 |
Interviewer | Okay. | |
- | Yeah she'll get it. | 2:13:54 |
Interviewer | Okay. | 2:13:55 |
- | Yeah, I think... | 2:13:56 |
I don't think my opinion has changed | 2:13:58 | |
about Americans, American people, | 2:13:59 | |
because if it had, | 2:14:02 | |
then it would have changed | 2:14:07 | |
my opinion while I was in Guantanamo, | 2:14:08 | |
but obviously I've made good friends | 2:14:10 | |
in Guantanamo with the American soldiers. | 2:14:12 | |
So many soldiers were so nice to me. | 2:14:17 | |
So, my opinion about the people, | 2:14:20 | |
individuals never changed. | 2:14:22 | |
Obviously about the government | 2:14:23 | |
and its policies, | 2:14:24 | |
especially its foreign policies, | 2:14:26 | |
obviously I don't feel the way | 2:14:27 | |
I used to feel before. | 2:14:31 | |
No, I would love to go to America, | 2:14:33 | |
even till today. | 2:14:34 | |
If I had a chance to go to the US, | 2:14:36 | |
I would love to go, but obviously, | 2:14:38 | |
I'm on the no fly list. | 2:14:40 | |
So, I can't actually get a plane to America | 2:14:43 | |
because I was told by the FBI if I ever | 2:14:46 | |
try to go to America then I would be arrested | 2:14:48 | |
and I would be treated | 2:14:49 | |
much worse than Guantanamo. | 2:14:50 | |
Interviewer | When did the FBI tell you that? | 2:14:51 |
- | Just before we left, about a week or two | 2:14:53 |
before we left. | 2:14:54 | |
So, yeah, we've not tried to go to America yet. | 2:14:56 | |
I wouldn't mind to go to America, | 2:15:01 | |
but if I can get some kind of clearance | 2:15:02 | |
to say it's okay to go. | 2:15:06 | |
Because obviously, the new administration's | 2:15:07 | |
come in, so they may be more lenient, | 2:15:09 | |
but I doubt it somehow they'll let us in. | 2:15:13 | |
Because the FBI and the CIA have... | 2:15:14 | |
Have a bit of an influence over | 2:15:17 | |
the government as well. | 2:15:20 | |
So, if they obviously say no, | 2:15:21 | |
so then the government will say no. | 2:15:22 | |
But no, the people, no in my opinion | 2:15:26 | |
it hasn't changed. | 2:15:29 | |
I still watch American films. | 2:15:30 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 2:15:31 | |
Still go to cinemas and watch Transformers | 2:15:32 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 2:15:34 | |
three, I watched that. | 2:15:35 | |
Interviewer | Do you have a different opinion | 2:15:36 |
about the British government | 2:15:38 | |
from before and after? | 2:15:39 | |
- | Yeah, I do. | 2:15:42 |
I mean, obviously being a British... | 2:15:42 | |
Being born and raised in this country, | 2:15:44 | |
you feel you're part of this society, | 2:15:47 | |
and part of this culture. | 2:15:50 | |
But being in Guantanamo and then we came out, | 2:15:52 | |
and then the negative feedback that we got | 2:15:55 | |
from the press, and the government. | 2:15:58 | |
Until this day they haven't cleared our name. | 2:16:00 | |
It kind of makes you feel like | 2:16:02 | |
a second class citizen. | 2:16:03 | |
Like obviously, we are. | 2:16:05 | |
No matter how much we try to integrate | 2:16:07 | |
into society, we will never be the same | 2:16:09 | |
as John, or Paul Smith. | 2:16:13 | |
We'll never be the same because first of all, | 2:16:17 | |
even if I change my name to a white name, | 2:16:18 | |
I'm still gonna be brown. | 2:16:21 | |
No matter what happens, no matter how much | 2:16:22 | |
I try to change myself, | 2:16:23 | |
just like Michael Jackson. | 2:16:24 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 2:16:26 | |
No matter how much he tried to change himself, | 2:16:26 | |
he was always black. | 2:16:27 | |
It's the same. | 2:16:29 | |
No matter how much we try to integrate | 2:16:30 | |
in society, the government, the people | 2:16:31 | |
won't let us. | 2:16:34 | |
We're supposed to be living in the 21st century. | 2:16:35 | |
That's moving forward and they see... | 2:16:37 | |
They don't see the difference between color, | 2:16:40 | |
but the color factor will always remain. | 2:16:41 | |
Especially the religious barriers | 2:16:44 | |
will always remain no matter how much | 2:16:46 | |
we live next to each other. | 2:16:48 | |
My neighbors a white, | 2:16:50 | |
but it's just one of them things. | 2:16:52 | |
Everyone, when things happen like 9/11, | 2:16:53 | |
everyone always goes, they always withdraw back | 2:16:55 | |
to their own caves, you can call it. | 2:16:57 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 2:17:00 | |
Because that's what they know, | 2:17:01 | |
and it's just human nature. | 2:17:03 | |
And we will never be accepted as part | 2:17:04 | |
of this society fully. | 2:17:07 | |
I don't think, and I don't... | 2:17:09 | |
I don't like the British government | 2:17:11 | |
because they haven't done anything | 2:17:12 | |
to clear my name, because obviously, | 2:17:13 | |
I can't get a job for that fact. | 2:17:16 | |
Cause when I go to get a job and they know | 2:17:18 | |
who I am, then they obviously know. | 2:17:23 | |
Employers (indistinct) know what's happened, | 2:17:25 | |
it's a massive story, and people know, | 2:17:27 | |
and they've not cleared our names. | 2:17:29 | |
So, it's hard to get a job because | 2:17:31 | |
of that reason, because we're still classed | 2:17:32 | |
as suspected terrorists roaming | 2:17:35 | |
the streets of UK. | 2:17:37 | |
And Tony Blair was asked once by a news reporter | 2:17:39 | |
at a conference they did many years ago, | 2:17:42 | |
what's happened about... | 2:17:45 | |
What's happened and what's gonna happen | 2:17:46 | |
with the detainees from Guantanamo? | 2:17:48 | |
And he said, "We're still keeping | 2:17:50 | |
a watch on them." | 2:17:51 | |
So, that doesn't really say anything good | 2:17:53 | |
about us to the public, does it? | 2:17:55 | |
It actually makes people more scary, | 2:17:57 | |
and more scared of the fact that we still | 2:18:01 | |
could be a threat to this society. | 2:18:04 | |
And it was not really fair on us | 2:18:06 | |
because we can't move on, | 2:18:09 | |
and we can't have a better life, | 2:18:10 | |
and we can't support our families | 2:18:12 | |
in a better way. | 2:18:14 | |
So, we have to resort to other means | 2:18:16 | |
of money and whatever, so it is difficult. | 2:18:19 | |
Interviewer | Do you think that'll change? | 2:18:23 |
- | No, I don't think it'll change. | 2:18:25 |
I think the thing with Islamophobia, | 2:18:28 | |
it's getting worse day by day, | 2:18:33 | |
it's not actually getting better. | 2:18:35 | |
And the media actually doesn't help | 2:18:37 | |
because most of the information they get | 2:18:39 | |
is wrong, or what they understand of Islam. | 2:18:40 | |
And to actually understand Islam, | 2:18:45 | |
you have to actually study it to give | 2:18:47 | |
your opinion about it. | 2:18:49 | |
I can't talk about Christianity | 2:18:50 | |
because I haven't got a clue about it. | 2:18:51 | |
But why? | 2:18:53 | |
Because if one Christian fanatic decides | 2:18:54 | |
to blow up a building in America, | 2:18:58 | |
I can't blame the whole religion. | 2:19:00 | |
I have to blame the individual, even though | 2:19:02 | |
he's motives might be because of religion, | 2:19:04 | |
but then you have to investigate and educate | 2:19:06 | |
yourself in actually, what does the religion say | 2:19:09 | |
about the other people, other people of faith? | 2:19:12 | |
You have to understand it. | 2:19:14 | |
You can't just say his motives were based | 2:19:15 | |
on Islamic principles, or Islamic beliefs, | 2:19:18 | |
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, | 2:19:21 | |
cause he could be wrong in his beliefs. | 2:19:22 | |
It's simple as that, and he could be right, | 2:19:25 | |
he could be wrong. | 2:19:27 | |
And what's happening, them judging every Muslim | 2:19:28 | |
by the actions of a few. | 2:19:32 | |
It's not fair on people like myself | 2:19:36 | |
because when I go and travel to countries, | 2:19:39 | |
on the way back I get stopped, | 2:19:42 | |
in airports I get stopped, I get detained | 2:19:44 | |
because my name is Muslim, | 2:19:46 | |
because I look like a Muslim, I'm brown skinned. | 2:19:47 | |
People with beards. | 2:19:50 | |
Once me and my misses, | 2:19:52 | |
we went to some conference somewhere, | 2:19:53 | |
and she was stopped because she wears a hijab. | 2:19:55 | |
So, it's not nice being stopped. | 2:19:58 | |
You're felt to... | 2:20:00 | |
You were made to feel that you're like aliens, | 2:20:04 | |
and you actually (chuckles) made | 2:20:07 | |
to feel guilty of being brown. | 2:20:09 | |
Do you know what I mean? | 2:20:12 | |
You are made to feel bad because you're a Muslim. | 2:20:12 | |
I don't feel bad because I'm Muslim, | 2:20:15 | |
but I'm talking about people I know, | 2:20:16 | |
who are not practicing. | 2:20:18 | |
Who haven't got a clue | 2:20:21 | |
about what's happening in the world, | 2:20:21 | |
and they are being stopped, | 2:20:23 | |
and it's not fair on them. | 2:20:24 | |
Because you can't round up, | 2:20:26 | |
gather up everybody, Asian, | 2:20:31 | |
or a person who has converted to Islam, | 2:20:35 | |
and do that to them, it's not right. | 2:20:38 | |
And this should not be happening | 2:20:39 | |
in this day and age, it should not be happening. | 2:20:41 | |
Interviewer | So, I have two more questions, | 2:20:44 |
and then this kind of follows up. | 2:20:46 | |
One is what impact do you think Guantanamo | 2:20:47 | |
has had on your life? | 2:20:51 | |
Was there anything positive | 2:20:53 | |
that has impacted your life by Guantanamo | 2:20:54 | |
and what is negative probably? | 2:20:56 | |
- | I think it's had more of a positive effect | 2:20:59 |
on my life. | 2:21:01 | |
I think it would be the case on majority | 2:21:03 | |
of people's lives, if I'm correct. | 2:21:04 | |
There might be some individuals who say, | 2:21:07 | |
no it was the worst time in my life | 2:21:09 | |
and there was nothing positive about it, | 2:21:11 | |
it was all negative. | 2:21:12 | |
But I can say, hand on my heart, | 2:21:12 | |
I don't regret any moments | 2:21:15 | |
of my time in Guantanamo. | 2:21:17 | |
I don't regret going to Pakistan. | 2:21:18 | |
I don't regret going to Afghanistan, | 2:21:20 | |
kept being arrested. | 2:21:21 | |
I don't regret it at all | 2:21:24 | |
because as I said before, I believe in my region. | 2:21:25 | |
I do practice, I try to practice my religion | 2:21:27 | |
as much as possible, and it was part of my faith. | 2:21:29 | |
You know it's tests, God tests you in many ways | 2:21:34 | |
and for me, it was a test. | 2:21:37 | |
The test is not over because you're tested- | 2:21:40 | |
Interviewer | Your whole life. | 2:21:43 |
- | Whole life, and maybe that was part | 2:21:44 |
of my one fraction of the test, | 2:21:46 | |
which was Guantanamo. | 2:21:50 | |
It's made me more of a better person, | 2:21:51 | |
made me more understandable, understanding | 2:21:53 | |
about the faith, the cultures, religion, race, | 2:21:56 | |
color, creed, cast. | 2:21:58 | |
It's made me understand it. | 2:22:01 | |
No matter what you are, who you are, | 2:22:03 | |
humans are humans. | 2:22:05 | |
Human life is very valuable, very sacred | 2:22:06 | |
and just because you're a Christian, | 2:22:09 | |
or I'm a Muslim doesn't make me | 2:22:12 | |
a better person than the other. | 2:22:14 | |
What makes a person better | 2:22:16 | |
is his behavior, his morals, | 2:22:17 | |
that's what makes a person better, | 2:22:20 | |
That is the main thing. | 2:22:22 | |
Also, it's having an effect on me. | 2:22:24 | |
It's made me grow up, I think, | 2:22:27 | |
made me more mature quicker | 2:22:29 | |
than other 27 year olds. | 2:22:32 | |
I've experienced, I've got more | 2:22:35 | |
of a life experience than many other... | 2:22:36 | |
Well, a lot of other 27 year olds. (laughs) | 2:22:39 | |
So, yeah, I'm quite... | 2:22:42 | |
The way I was having around the world | 2:22:44 | |
and I know that the world's not such a nice place | 2:22:45 | |
as people make out to be. | 2:22:47 | |
It's all peaceful, it's not. | 2:22:49 | |
Interviewer | Mm. | 2:22:51 |
- | There's a lot of greed, it's all about money. | 2:22:52 |
It's all about gains, personal gains. | 2:22:55 | |
It's changed my opinion about politicians. | 2:22:59 | |
Politicians, the more lies or corrupt. | 2:23:01 | |
The only reason they actually become MP's, | 2:23:03 | |
or prime ministers, presidents is just | 2:23:06 | |
because they wanna get a name for themselves. | 2:23:09 | |
And the main goal of every person who wants | 2:23:11 | |
to do something is money, | 2:23:13 | |
better wage, better life. | 2:23:16 | |
And it's all about money. | 2:23:17 | |
It's not about giving people their rights. | 2:23:19 | |
It's never been about that | 2:23:21 | |
because if it was then (chuckles) | 2:23:23 | |
it wouldn't be in this state. | 2:23:24 | |
It's as simple as that, | 2:23:25 | |
because majority of people in America | 2:23:26 | |
don't want the war in Iraq. | 2:23:28 | |
Majority of the people in the UK don't want | 2:23:29 | |
the soldiers to be in Iraq, but hello? | 2:23:32 | |
They're still there, and we are the people | 2:23:34 | |
who actually elect these idiots, | 2:23:36 | |
Blair and even Obama. | 2:23:38 | |
Initially when he first came on, | 2:23:40 | |
he seemed to be good, and it sounded good, | 2:23:43 | |
but for them, it's a selling point. | 2:23:46 | |
It's to sell himself. | 2:23:47 | |
He needs to sell himself to become president. | 2:23:49 | |
He wants to sell himself to get the votes. | 2:23:51 | |
Once he's in power, he doesn't give | 2:23:53 | |
a crap about anybody. | 2:23:54 | |
All he cares about his money | 2:23:56 | |
that he's gonna earn. | 2:23:58 | |
He's gonna think about his future, his pension. | 2:23:59 | |
How he is gonna make his son or daughter, | 2:24:02 | |
or his grandson a doctor, | 2:24:05 | |
or somebody high, in a high elite, | 2:24:07 | |
in that country. | 2:24:12 | |
That's what the aims are for those people | 2:24:13 | |
who are prime ministers, MP's, that's... | 2:24:15 | |
They don't care about people, | 2:24:19 | |
the average Joe blogger on the street. | 2:24:21 | |
They don't care about me and you, | 2:24:23 | |
and it's the fact of the matter. | 2:24:26 | |
So, it's made me realize all the things | 2:24:28 | |
and I know that there's no such thing | 2:24:31 | |
as democracy throughout this world, | 2:24:32 | |
there's no such thing. | 2:24:35 | |
There never has been. | 2:24:36 | |
Never has been and never will be, | 2:24:38 | |
and never will succeed. | 2:24:39 | |
Interviewer | Would you say, | 2:24:42 |
is there something negative that came | 2:24:42 | |
out of Guantanamo besides what... | 2:24:44 | |
That impacted your life significantly. | 2:24:46 | |
- | No, I don't think nothing negative, | 2:24:49 |
but maybe for the Americans | 2:24:51 | |
because I've become more religious. | 2:24:52 | |
(interviewer chuckles) | 2:24:54 | |
I've become more closer to my religion, | 2:24:54 | |
which was, it has an opposite effect | 2:24:56 | |
because they tried everything | 2:24:58 | |
to kind of make us... | 2:24:59 | |
I mean, I wasn't a practicing | 2:25:02 | |
person before anyway. | 2:25:02 | |
I was just a normal guy. | 2:25:04 | |
(indistinct) I was born as a Muslim obviously, | 2:25:06 | |
but my family is not religious. | 2:25:07 | |
I'm the only one in my family who actually prays, | 2:25:09 | |
well me and my wife, and my younger sister. | 2:25:10 | |
My mother, my brother, my father, | 2:25:13 | |
my other brothers, my two other brothers, | 2:25:15 | |
my extended family. | 2:25:18 | |
None of them actually pray. | 2:25:19 | |
None of them actually practice religion | 2:25:21 | |
to even a small letter. | 2:25:25 | |
I'm the only one in my whole (chuckles) | 2:25:27 | |
entire family that I know of. | 2:25:28 | |
So, I was actually, | 2:25:31 | |
I went to a Roman Catholic school | 2:25:34 | |
when I was young. | 2:25:37 | |
So, that's the kind of upbringing that I've had. | 2:25:38 | |
I had more of an understanding | 2:25:41 | |
of Christianity than Islam. | 2:25:42 | |
Interviewer | Mm. | 2:25:45 |
- | But now, being in Guantanamo, | 2:25:46 |
I've become more religious, more practicing, | 2:25:48 | |
and I actually follow my religion. | 2:25:50 | |
Anything I do in my life, first of all, I think | 2:25:52 | |
is it according to Islam? | 2:25:55 | |
Interviewer | Mm. | 2:25:57 |
- | I think if it's right or wrong, | 2:25:58 |
and before I didn't care, I used to do anything, | 2:25:59 | |
but now I actually think. | 2:26:01 | |
What does my religion say about this action | 2:26:03 | |
that I'm gonna take, is it right or wrong? | 2:26:05 | |
So, in Guantanamo, they tried their best | 2:26:07 | |
to make us, make people kind of not pray, | 2:26:10 | |
and not do this, not be religious, basically. | 2:26:14 | |
But it's had the opposite effect on nearly | 2:26:17 | |
everybody in Guantanamo who went in | 2:26:19 | |
as a non-practicing person, or individual | 2:26:21 | |
who've all came out with beards. | 2:26:26 | |
Who've all came out to follow Islam | 2:26:28 | |
to the T. | 2:26:33 | |
Interviewer | Hmm. | 2:26:34 |
- | So, that's the... | 2:26:35 |
I mean, it's positive for me, | 2:26:36 | |
but for the Americans it's obviously negative. | 2:26:37 | |
So, that I mean, | 2:26:40 | |
I don't see any negative side. | 2:26:41 | |
(sighs) I don't see. | 2:26:43 | |
I mean, obviously I have pains, | 2:26:44 | |
my knees hurt because of certain things, | 2:26:46 | |
and my back hurts from Guantanamo. | 2:26:50 | |
My eyes deteriorated much worse in Guantanamo. | 2:26:54 | |
I mean, health wise, yeah, | 2:26:56 | |
I've had a few problems. | 2:26:58 | |
That's the only negative things about it. | 2:26:59 | |
Other than than, obviously I lost the time | 2:27:01 | |
with my family, the most important thing in life. | 2:27:03 | |
Interviewer | Mm, is there something | 2:27:07 |
that I didn't ask you that you'd like | 2:27:08 | |
to talk about, or speak to? | 2:27:10 | |
- | No, not really. | 2:27:12 |
I think that we've covered nearly everything. | 2:27:13 | |
Interviewer | Well, it was great. | 2:27:16 |
It was a great interview. | 2:27:17 | |
- | Cool. | |
Interviewer | I really appreciate it. | 2:27:18 |
- | You're welcome. | 2:27:19 |
Interviewer | Thank you. | |
Thank you. So, okay. | 2:27:20 | |
Female | Thank you so much. | 2:27:23 |
Interviewer | Thank you. | 2:27:23 |
- | You're welcome. | |
Female | Yeah, it was- | 2:27:25 |
Interviewer | Yeah, it was- | |
Female | Amazing. | 2:27:26 |
Interviewer | Yeah, amazing | 2:27:27 |
talking, no wonder... | 2:27:27 |
Item Info
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