Abbasi, Feroz Ali - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Okay, so.

0:05

Woman

Sorry, do you want the overhead lights on?

0:07

Interviewer

No.

0:10

One thing, we might have to stop

0:10

because of lighting, you know, the light.

0:13

If the sunlight comes out or something,

0:15

if something changes.

0:16

-

Okay.

0:17

Man

No, you're good there.

0:18

It's coming straight through.

0:19

-

Okay, good, okay, good.

Okay.

0:21

Good afternoon.

0:23

-

Good afternoon.

0:24

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:25

for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo project.

0:27

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:31

at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:33

We are hoping to provide you with the opportunity

0:35

to tell your story in your own words.

0:38

We are creating an archive of stories

0:41

so that people in America and around the world

0:44

will have a better understanding

0:47

of what you and others have endured.

0:49

Future generations must know what happened,

0:52

and by telling your story, you're contributing to history.

0:55

We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.

1:00

If any time during the interview

1:04

you'd like to take a break, just let us know.

1:06

And if anything you say you would like to retract,

1:08

just let us know and we can remove it.

1:11

And we'd like to begin with some basic information

1:14

such as your name and where you were born

1:16

and where you're living now and your age.

1:21

So you could start with that.

1:25

-

Okay, my name is Feroz Abbasi.

1:27

I was born in Entebbe, Uganda.

1:30

I'm 30 years old.

1:32

And the last, okay.

1:36

-

And you're-

-

Where I'm currently living, in London, UK.

1:37

Interviewer

And languages,

1:41

what languages do you speak?

1:43

-

I speak, English is my mother tongue,

1:45

and a little bit of Arabic, but I'm not very good at Arabic.

1:47

Interviewer

And your religion?

1:51

-

I'm Muslim, so Islam is my religion.

1:53

Interviewer

And your education?

1:55

-

Education, I was educated,

1:58

I came to this country when I was eight years old.

2:01

So partly primary school in Uganda,

2:03

and then primary school here, secondary,

2:06

English college, I know it's different to the American one.

2:10

And then I was sent to Guantanamo, et cetera.

2:12

And when I came back, hamdullah, I went to university.

2:16

Interviewer

Hmm.

2:20

And could you tell us the dates

2:21

when you went to Guantanamo and when you left?

2:23

-

Okay, Guantanamo, I was amongst the first

2:26

to the group of people sent to Guantanamo.

2:28

So I think it was the 11th of January, 2002.

2:31

And we were released, I think we left

2:34

the 24th of January, 2005,

2:36

but we landed here 25th, I think, so it's a time difference.

2:39

Interviewer

So I would like to begin by,

2:45

if you could describe how it was

2:48

when you were first apprehended

2:50

and all that happened between that moment

2:53

to the moment when you went on a plane to go to Guantanamo,

2:57

and then we'll take that next.

3:00

-

Okay.

3:03

Okay, when I was first apprehended,

3:07

so an Afghan family very generously were helping me,

3:09

because they realized, they knew the predicament

3:13

of any foreigners in Afghanistan.

3:16

They told me that there was a bounty on my head.

3:22

And if I remember the figure, it was 30,000.

3:25

Most, I learned later,

3:28

of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay

3:32

were sold for 5,000.

3:35

So that's a big figure.

3:37

And I don't know what the Afghans

3:38

told the Americans that wanted me.

3:39

I don't know what story they spun

3:42

that brought the price up on my head, but that's the price.

3:44

So the Afghan family's helping me.

3:47

But the issue was that, you know, as can be seen,

3:51

I'm black, and I don't pass for an Afghan.

3:55

But they tried their best to dress me up as an Afghan

3:57

to get me across, trying to get me to Pakistan.

4:00

It didn't last long, 'cause we didn't go far,

4:04

and then a van of, I think they're called anti-Taliban.

4:07

I don't know what they were called,

4:12

but anti-Taliban came over and obviously they spotted me.

4:13

And they decided, you know, we're gonna,

4:18

you know, this guy, we're gonna take him.

4:22

Initially, because they saw I was Muslim,

4:26

and they could, and you know,

4:29

I was relating to them as a Muslim,

4:31

and the Afghan that was helping me, 'cause he was older,

4:35

I could see he was giving them harsh words.

4:40

And you know, like I didn't understand the language,

4:42

but he was giving them harsh words.

4:44

So I think he got them to take me to Spin Boldak,

4:46

which is on the border with Pakistan.

4:49

It's Afghanistan, Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

4:52

So they took me there, telling me

4:57

that they were gonna take me to Pakistan.

4:59

So initially they were gonna help me.

5:01

We watched the border, the Pakistani soldiers

5:04

were walking back and forth and so forth.

5:06

And they said, "We're not gonna be able

5:09

to take you to Pakistan.

5:10

We're gonna take you to Herat,

5:13

which is over the other side of Afghanistan,

5:15

we'll take it to Iran and Iran will let you through."

5:17

So we're driving back,

5:20

and obviously we're driving through Kandahar,

5:21

and it was night.

5:23

I don't know what happened,

5:24

whether they changed their mind or whatever,

5:25

or you know, they started talking to each other, et cetera.

5:27

And you know, saying that it's, you know,

5:29

this guy is not gonna work out,

5:32

we're not gonna be able to help him,

5:33

and we can get some money for him, and the bounty.

5:34

And as I said, I don't know what happened,

5:36

because they seemed to be talking.

5:37

They became a bit malicious, you know,

5:39

just because it seemed like new people came into the car,

5:42

if I remember rightly, and they became malicious.

5:45

So you heard a Kalashnikov, you know,

5:46

you heard it cocking behind your head.

5:49

The guys over there didn't actually,

5:51

they searched me a number of times,

5:53

you know, which was kind of disconcerting.

5:56

'Cause before they were being friendly.

5:58

Now they're being, there was animosity,

6:01

but I obviously had to go with them.

6:03

Because first, I'm in fear of my life.

6:06

These are people actually, you know,

6:10

looking to to grab any foreigners in Afghanistan,

6:12

and they could kill you or whatever.

6:14

And secondly, you know,

6:17

maybe they would help me in that regard.

6:19

So we end up in Kandahar and it's late night.

6:22

And an Afghan comes over to the car.

6:25

And he could speak some English, but he seemed,

6:31

he spoke English, but he had an American accent.

6:35

He was an Afghan, but you could see

6:37

that English was not his first language.

6:39

And he said to me, he said,

6:43

"We're gonna hand you over to the British guys.

6:45

The British guys do not want you,

6:48

but we're gonna hand you over to the British guys."

6:49

Then he turns, like you know, angry and walks away.

6:51

So I don't know what's going on.

6:54

I'm just sitting in the car,

6:56

there's people with Kalashnikovs around me,

6:57

and you know, I, it's just,

6:59

it's not, you can't process it.

7:04

You know, your whole life has gone upside down.

7:07

The everyday rules of everyday life

7:10

that you thought were kind of universal and determined,

7:12

they've just kind of been ripped apart.

7:16

You don't even know how to, what to make of it.

7:18

Like, so you can't, I'm having trouble

7:20

processing what's going on.

7:22

So obviously I'm just sitting there.

7:23

I don't know what to do.

7:24

It's not like I've been in that situation before. (laughs)

7:26

There's no experience, nothing.

7:28

So, and I'm young at the time as well.

7:29

So I don't know what to do.

7:31

So they tell me to get out of the car,

7:32

obviously now, and then to walk.

7:35

And this is in the center of Afghanistan now, the city.

7:37

And then I had to walk into a building.

7:39

And then, you know, I walk into the building,

7:44

and then the building is just,

7:46

it's crawling, crawling with people with weapons.

7:48

I mean, just I don't know what, every weapon.

7:50

Just, they're all over the place they've got these weapons.

7:53

And then, you know, they, you know, they grab me.

7:57

I had a turban on with, this was the attempt

8:01

at the old Afghan trying to help me, put me here,

8:03

I had a turban on my head.

8:06

They took my turban off my head, tied my hands,

8:07

and you know, and when that happened, it,

8:11

I guess there was, you know,

8:15

with hope, you're hoping.

8:20

You know, you're hoping that the situation

8:22

is not as bad as it is.

8:24

So even though you have the clues of them

8:26

cocking their Kalashnikovs behind your head,

8:28

and blah, blah, blah, searching you so many times

8:30

and so forth, you know, not being so friendly anymore,

8:32

new people coming in, and you know,

8:36

the stares that they give you and so forth.

8:38

You still hope that they're still gonna help you.

8:41

You're still holding onto that glimmer

8:43

that they're gonna, they're gonna take me to Herat,

8:45

and Herat is gonna go to Iran,

8:47

in Iran it's gonna be okay, 'cause I'm gonna call home

8:49

and then I'm gonna get help,

8:52

and I'm gonna fly out and go home.

8:53

You know, this nightmare is gonna end.

8:54

But once they tied my own hands in my own turban,

8:57

then that's it.

8:59

I don't know, I felt something that I've never felt,

9:00

I don't think I've ever felt in my life.

9:03

And it was like the energy in my body just drained,

9:05

drained, and I just became limp.

9:09

Like, you know, I was about to faint.

9:12

You just can't describe it.

9:15

It's a feeling that I've never felt before.

9:16

I could not remember in my how many years

9:18

I've been living since then feeling like that.

9:20

So then they take me into this building and so forth,

9:23

and, you know, into a small room.

9:26

And the usual Afghan type housing,

9:29

and that small room was filled with people with weapons.

9:31

And I'm just standing there.

9:34

And one Afghan comes over, slaps me in my face.

9:35

I don't know why he did that, just come slaps in my face,

9:39

and I don't know what's going on.

9:42

And then, lo and behold, for the first time,

9:44

I guess, you know, anyway,

9:49

for the first time during that whole situation,

9:52

two American Marines walk in.

9:56

Blonde hair, blue eyes.

9:59

And I was like, I was surprised, you know.

10:00

That's not something you see in Afghanistan.

10:04

So they walk in with their uniforms

10:05

and their M16s on their necks and et cetera.

10:07

I'm there as the prime specimen,

10:10

the deer that has been caught.

10:13

And the Afghans are sitting around,

10:15

and you know, like they're presenting me to them.

10:17

They're looking at me and et cetera.

10:20

They had words to say, like you know,

10:22

blah, blah, blah, why are you here,

10:25

this and that and the other, et cetera.

10:25

You know, they checked me out.

10:27

It wasn't serious.

10:28

And then like, they went off

10:29

and they told the Afghans to put me in the Afghan prison.

10:31

So I'm transferred to the Afghan prison.

10:34

And transferring was really disconcerting.

10:37

It was like, they for some reason, I don't know,

10:39

anyway the Afghans, they brought a black wooly hat

10:43

and then they put it over my eyes.

10:46

So that was the kind of black bag over the head type,

10:47

but they did it with a black wooly hat.

10:51

And then they put me in the back of a four by four,

10:53

and then I'm lying on the floor.

10:57

And I don't know, I think they covered me with something

10:59

because I couldn't breathe.

11:00

I found a difficulty breathing.

11:01

You know, it's amazing that there's a lot

11:03

about the treatment that we suffer that's very mundane,

11:07

and someone won't understand

11:11

until they're put in that situation.

11:12

It's very small things that really bother you.

11:13

But when you're there, and that's happening to you,

11:15

it's a big thing to you.

11:19

And not being able to breathe

11:19

because there's something over you,

11:21

they put a cover over me.

11:22

And I think they put a cover over me because,

11:23

and I was surrounded by like, you know,

11:25

Afghans with weapons again,

11:28

in the back of this four by four.

11:29

You know, because they were hiding me.

11:33

They were hiding me.

11:35

They were driving through the streets,

11:36

and you know, it looked like they were taking some cargo,

11:37

which was me, and a human cargo,

11:40

in the back of this four by four with their weapons.

11:42

They take me to the Afghan prison.

11:44

And I'm in the Afghan prison for I think three days,

11:47

I think three, I think it was three days

11:51

I was in the Afghan prison,

11:54

and they got the Afghans to shackle,

11:55

they shackled me, and they had their own shackles.

11:57

Rudimentary shackles, the lock kept on opening,

11:59

'cause it was that bad, but they kept me in the shackles.

12:02

And, but I was amongst the population of the Afghans

12:05

and I had my own room, like a cell and that kind of thing.

12:07

And they were pretty okay.

12:10

They didn't really, they didn't hit me

12:11

or anything like that, or treat me in a bad way.

12:13

I was just amongst the others, except for the shackles.

12:16

That's how I had to spend my time.

12:18

So obviously I'm thinking now, you know,

12:21

well, what has happened has happened,

12:23

and this is not so bad.

12:27

You know, like, you know, I guess prison is prison.

12:29

And Afghan prison is like, well, you know,

12:32

I could just kind of like, you know,

12:35

you're looking for some continuity.

12:37

So I was thinking to myself, well an Afghan prison,

12:39

I guess I could, you know, be okay with this.

12:42

You know, it's not freedom, but you know,

12:44

like you know, you're just trying to make sense of it,

12:45

trying to find something that, you know,

12:48

the thing about our treatment is that it keeps on changing.

12:51

So you're trying to find something that just stays stable,

12:54

and then you can deal with it.

12:56

'Cause if it stays stable,

12:58

if it keeps on changing, there's the unknown.

12:59

If there's unknown, then a human being

13:01

can't deal with the unknown.

13:03

You can't, it's just,

13:04

you just can't deal with it in that respect.

13:05

So after the three days, the it seemed like senior type,

13:08

the Afghans that came to look me over, three of them,

13:14

they seemed to be like, you know, like respected,

13:18

a bit older, and the way they held themselves,

13:20

you know, that you could distinguish them

13:23

from the Afghan guard in the prison.

13:24

And then they looked me over,

13:29

and they sat with me in the cell and they looked me over.

13:31

And then they take out the black wooly hat again

13:33

and they put it on my head (laughs)

13:36

and then that's it, I'm taken out.

13:38

So I'm taken out of the Afghan prison,

13:40

and then the Afghans are the ones taking me

13:43

and they take me to a house.

13:45

And I know they took me to a house.

13:47

I don't know where it was

13:49

because I was blindfolded the whole time.

13:50

They took me to the house and they took the blindfold off.

13:53

So I look around and it's kind of like an empty house,

13:55

that doesn't look like it's being used.

13:57

And then they put the blindfold on again,

13:59

'cause I think they weren't supposed to do that.

14:01

And then I hear American voices,

14:03

and there's the change over.

14:05

I don't know, I can't recall hearing the rustle of money.

14:06

(laughs) I don't recall any of that.

14:10

I just remember that, you know,

14:13

first I'm in the Afghan hands,

14:14

and then I hear American voices,

14:15

and it's the Americans that are taking me.

14:17

And obviously they take the shackles off,

14:19

and then they put their own,

14:21

I don't know what they call them,

14:22

the plastic ties, that's what they were using.

14:23

And then they put their own hood on my head,

14:26

I think if I remember rightly, 'cause I couldn't see.

14:29

But I don't think they used,

14:31

I don't think they used the Afghan one.

14:33

Or they just put it over the Afghan one, et cetera.

14:33

I think I've kept the wooly hat.

14:36

And then they put me into the back of their vehicle,

14:38

and then we were just driving along.

14:42

It was first bumpy, then all of a sudden it becomes smooth.

14:44

In Afghanistan, when it becomes smooth,

14:48

it can only be one road.

14:49

And that was the road I think, you know,

14:51

it goes by the airport, Kandahar airport.

14:55

And that's where I was taken.

14:58

I was taken out of the van.

14:59

And they were kind of being friendly,

15:02

but you know, like the situation,

15:04

you can't make sense of it.

15:06

So you don't, you don't make sense of it.

15:06

You don't know what's happening.

15:08

So you don't anticipate,

15:09

because you don't know what you're anticipating.

15:11

You just go along with it.

15:13

And you know, you're in a daze.

15:14

So I'm in a daze.

15:15

So they take me out, and I'm walking on gravel.

15:16

And then all of a sudden they trip me over,

15:19

and then you know, I'm thrown to the ground

15:21

and then like one knee's in my back.

15:22

And then they start searching, searching, searching,

15:24

and then you know, on one side,

15:27

the other guy does the other side, and et cetera.

15:28

Then picked up, your shoes have been taken off, et cetera,

15:31

you know like, 'cause they check between the toes as well.

15:34

I don't understand.

15:36

I don't understand the mentality, check between the toes.

15:37

Picked up, and then now you're just being pushed.

15:40

You know, it's only your toes touching the ground

15:44

and you're being rushed.

15:47

I'm rushed through.

15:48

Because I'm blindfolded, you know,

15:51

everything's done by hearing.

15:52

You know, you don't see anything,

15:54

just by hearing, by feeling, you know, that kind of thing.

15:56

I'm rushed through, like sometimes in warehouses

16:00

you have these plastic, like it acts like a doorway.

16:03

It's slit like that, so I'm rushed through one of those.

16:07

And then, you know, the process is kind of vague right now,

16:10

but I'll try to remember it as best as I can.

16:13

You know, they, well, I think the first thing is,

16:18

you know, they take scissors and you know,

16:21

you're blind folded right now.

16:24

You're handcuffed.

16:26

People are shouting around you.

16:28

The situation has changed.

16:30

All of a sudden you're hearing F word this, F word that,

16:31

just swearing, and you're being called names and et cetera.

16:33

And then there's the scissors,

16:37

and you feel these scissors,

16:38

this cold metal, just going all over your body.

16:40

It's like ants over your body,

16:42

just cutting your clothes off.

16:43

And then the next thing you know, you're naked.

16:44

Huh, you're naked but blindfolded.

16:47

For me, it's something

16:51

that, you know, in that situation,

16:55

for anyone, it would be very upsetting.

16:57

For an Arab, it would very upsetting.

17:02

Because I was raised in this country.

17:04

In our physical education, you know,

17:06

you have showers with the guys, and you know,

17:08

it's not something that Islamically is right,

17:12

but you know, in school, that's what, you know,

17:14

you have showers and everyone's naked.

17:15

So, you know, you kind of have,

17:17

you're kind of desensitized to it.

17:19

For an Arab, that's very,

17:21

it's a big humiliation in that regard.

17:23

So I really feel for the Arabs, and you know,

17:26

the others who are kind of traditionally Muslim

17:29

and that are raised in that kind of tradition

17:33

that, you know, that would have been a big humiliation.

17:35

So there I am, naked.

17:37

There's a blindfold on my head.

17:39

I'm moved on, like from one set of hands to another,

17:41

with the same set of hands either side, you know,

17:44

the same guards that had took me out of the van

17:46

and tripped me up are the same ones on the side,

17:48

but they're moving me to other sets of hands.

17:49

And then there's this whole thing.

17:52

Sometimes I would pull off the,

17:52

whatever's on my head, the sack, et cetera.

17:57

And then, so I'll get to see,

18:00

but there's so many bright lights that you know,

18:01

your eyes are squinting

18:02

and you can hardly see what's going on

18:03

and there's too many things happening

18:05

and you can't process it.

18:06

It's too many things.

18:06

And then like, there's the lights of what you can see.

18:07

And then beyond, there's just these shadows, moving.

18:09

And you know it's people and et cetera,

18:12

and you're in a big tent, et cetera.

18:14

So you remove that.

18:15

And then there's these hands feeling your body,

18:17

checking for scars, et cetera,

18:19

this, that, and the other, and you're naked.

18:21

And there's everyone around you.

18:22

And it's not only men, there's women around as well.

18:23

And then they're looking at you,

18:26

and you know, you're just there, naked.

18:27

And I mean naked, like that.

18:29

And then the scars, and then there's a guy there,

18:31

speaking to you, asking you and he asks you,

18:33

"Are you Al Qaeda or Taliban?"

18:35

That's the question, right?

18:37

Where's, kind of, (laughs) what are the options?

18:39

There's no other options, there's two options here.

18:41

And then that's all he asks, "Are you Al Qaeda or Taliban?"

18:42

Okay, like that.

18:46

And then, you know, scars, they're checking, et cetera.

18:46

Then the thing goes back on your head,

18:48

and you get rushed, running through,

18:49

and then through the plastic thing again.

18:52

And then I was taken to another place,

18:54

and then they took the thing off my head.

18:56

I think it was a sack, I can't remember exactly.

18:58

Bright lights now, these are bright lights,

19:01

and there's a guy with a camera in front of me,

19:02

and he takes pictures of me naked.

19:04

And I know that they're fully naked pictures.

19:07

They weren't facial, et cetera.

19:09

I know because later on, many years later,

19:10

a detainee tells me that his military lawyer,

19:14

a military lawyer,

19:18

'cause he was off for the military commissions.

19:19

He had them, these pictures, on his laptop.

19:21

So these are pornographic pictures, fully naked.

19:24

They're not, they didn't take pictures,

19:27

we weren't naked and they took pictures

19:29

of our upper body or face.

19:30

These were fully naked pictures, 'cause he told me,

19:32

on his laptop, and he was showing the detainee,

19:34

and he showed the detainee my picture.

19:36

So, you know, there is this pornographic picture

19:39

on a military lawyer's laptop,

19:41

being shown to another detainee,

19:43

and that detainee came to tell me.

19:44

So they take these pictures.

19:47

Now I could see, like beyond the light,

19:49

you have to squint, and I could see,

19:50

you know, like it's just, you know,

19:52

the soldiers are looking,

19:53

and you know where they're looking,

19:54

'cause you can see where their eyes are.

19:56

They're not looking at your face.

19:57

So, and there's female soldiers is there as well.

19:58

And what can you do in that situation?

20:01

You know, you're butt-naked, and I mean naked.

20:03

And then there's this group of people just looking.

20:07

So the thing goes back on my head.

20:10

I'm taken into, you know,

20:12

it seems like there's workmen cabins,

20:15

you know, like the work sites,

20:17

when they're doing some construction or something,

20:19

they have a cabin, I was taken into one of those.

20:20

I'm naked, and then they take the thing off my head

20:23

and this was the interrogation.

20:25

So there's the interrogator in front of me,

20:26

sitting at a table and chair.

20:29

I think I was on on the floor.

20:31

And I was naked.

20:34

And then the first time I got clothes,

20:35

they throw me some Afghan clothes.

20:36

So, okay, so I get some clothes.

20:39

But the thing about Afghan clothes is,

20:41

I don't know, I don't understand

20:42

whether they did this on purpose,

20:44

or they probably did it on purpose.

20:45

You have to buy the belt separately.

20:47

And it's just like a piece of soft rope

20:49

that goes through your trousers.

20:51

Otherwise the trousers are too big.

20:52

They're made too big.

20:53

So I put on the trousers, like you know,

20:55

as best as I can, and I put on the top.

20:58

And I'm sitting on the floor, and then I'm asked

21:00

all sorts of questions, et cetera.

21:02

I don't remember the questions.

21:03

Just, they were all military related,

21:04

'cause they, 'cause it was the military

21:07

that was interrogating me.

21:08

So obviously they just wanted to know something about,

21:10

I don't know, where the fighters are,

21:13

or where the explosives are, some stupid,

21:15

and I was like, "I don't know."

21:17

you know, like I'm gonna answer those questions,

21:18

but that's all they were interested in.

21:20

You know, 'cause obviously in that situation,

21:21

I guess that's what military intelligence does.

21:23

And then, you know,

21:25

those are the questions that they started off with.

21:27

Obviously they asked me about my background,

21:30

what I was doing, et cetera.

21:32

Then the guy went away,

21:36

and I think I was left there.

21:37

Now the interrogation, I remember,

21:39

there was two people behind me, and I knew they had guns

21:40

'cause when they brought you in, you know,

21:42

they're there and they're obviously looking menacing.

21:44

And then there's, you know,

21:45

there's at least five people in the room.

21:46

And obviously I thought to myself, you know,

21:49

I'm gonna get kicked in here.

21:50

You know, these people, I'm on the floor,

21:51

and you know, these people looking menacing

21:53

and they've got guns and one guy's got a knife,

21:54

you know, in his boot. (laughs)

21:56

You know, what has he go that for?

21:58

Like, you know, that kind of thing.

22:00

So I'm afraid.

22:01

I'm really afraid, and I don't know

22:03

how to process the whole thing.

22:04

You know, just going from one situation to another,

22:05

and you know, there's no moment,

22:08

there's no quiet time where you can sit back

22:11

and start making sense of it.

22:13

It just keeps on changing and changing

22:14

and changing and changing,

22:16

and your mind is not keeping up with it.

22:17

And you know, it's very discomfiting.

22:19

So they go back, and they come back and they say I'm lying.

22:21

So, okay, so I'm lying.

22:24

So I have to go through the process again,

22:26

and you know, like blah, blah, blah.

22:28

And then they start questioning me, et cetera.

22:30

And the military intelligence guy, I think he was a Marine.

22:31

He said he was a Marine, 'cause I remember even him saying,

22:35

"Do you know what the Marines are?

22:37

It means you don't eff with us. (laughs)

22:38

That's what a Marine means."

22:40

Okay, that's fine.

22:41

So he said, he asked me what year it was.

22:42

I remember this clearly, he asked me what year it was.

22:46

And I couldn't tell him, I actually couldn't tell him.

22:49

And really, I thought very hard.

22:51

I thought very hard.

22:53

And I think the first thing I said was 2003.

22:55

This was 2001.

22:59

And I didn't, I could not tell him the year like that.

23:00

And he asked me again, and I said 2002.

23:04

He said, no, it's 2001.

23:07

That's, but I was thinking, I was really thinking hard.

23:10

And he said, you know, like most people,

23:13

when they answer the question,

23:15

they answer it in 0.7 seconds.

23:15

Why does it take you four seconds to answer a question?

23:17

I didn't, I didn't know.

23:20

But the situation was like that, that's the way.

23:21

So they take me out of there, and then

23:24

they put me in, you know, like what they called the barn.

23:27

So, you know, it's just basically,

23:33

in Kandahar there was a old hangar,

23:34

and they'd converted it into an isolation kind of situation.

23:38

So it had three meter highly razor wire,

23:41

and I was separated from everyone else.

23:43

And you know, there was a guard above my head with an M16.

23:45

And I think he had instructions to shoot to kill

23:48

if you tried to escape or something, he told me. (laughs)

23:50

You know, they tell you these things.

23:54

So I was putting the barn, but I was blindfolded,

23:55

and I was still like in the plastic cuffs.

23:58

And then I was made, and they took me into the barn

24:00

and into my little kind of razor wire cell.

24:02

And then they had me there for,

24:06

you know, near the razor wire, so I could feel it.

24:07

And then they said, "Do not move."

24:09

And then I just lay there, and you know,

24:11

like I don't know how long I laid there,

24:13

but that was maybe the first night,

24:15

whatever, how many hours.

24:18

It wouldn't have been a long, a few hours.

24:19

It wouldn't have been eight hours or something.

24:21

And I could feel the razor wire near me.

24:23

So I, you know, obviously I hadn't been in the actual cell,

24:25

so I don't know whether it's just, it's all around me.

24:28

I'm not gonna squirm around to get caught up in it.

24:30

And it is razor wire.

24:32

It is, you know, it's very dangerous.

24:33

So I just lay still.

24:35

And the thing is, it was that night

24:37

when, you know, I told myself,

24:41

you know, like I couldn't sleep.

24:44

'Cause the situation, you have to,

24:47

like right now, you know, you're in a survival situation.

24:48

So you have to stay awake, you don't know what's happening.

24:50

It's better to be awake than to be sleeping

24:52

and get caught off of guard.

24:53

And, you know, I said, you have to sleep.

24:58

You have to keep your strength up.

25:00

'Cause, you know, you can't be weak

25:01

in a situation like, so I tried to sleep.

25:02

But I couldn't get a full night's sleep.

25:06

Normally before that, you know, I would sleep pretty well.

25:09

I wake up refreshed, you know, I deep sleep.

25:13

I'm a deep sleeper, and I'd been like that for years.

25:16

But I think that was the first night

25:18

where I didn't sleep properly, you know,

25:19

slept but didn't sleep properly.

25:22

And that was the first night,

25:24

and every night until I was released from Guantanamo Bay.

25:26

Because there is a sense that, you know,

25:30

you have to be ready, you have to be ready.

25:31

And you know, there's, you have to prepare

25:36

'cause you don't know what's happening.

25:38

And at least, you know, you can soften the blow

25:39

by knowing it's coming

25:41

rather than just being taken unawares of it.

25:42

So they take me out.

25:45

And then I think, I can't remember how many interrogations,

25:45

they interrogated me so many times.

25:48

The first time I ate, I don't know why,

25:52

they took me into a van and they were all staring at me.

25:52

And then they threw an MRE at me.

25:55

And, you know, really, Kandahar,

25:59

there's not much to say about that situation.

26:02

The soldiers were starving me, because I came,

26:05

they called me Santa Claus because I came,

26:08

the time when I was brought there

26:10

was kind of near Christmas time.

26:11

And then they would take presents from my MRE,

26:13

which meant that, you know,

26:16

basically I wasn't getting that much food.

26:18

To the point where they had this habit,

26:20

I don't know why, a group of 10 soldiers would come.

26:23

It happened maybe three times or something like that.

26:27

They would come into the barn, you know, looking menacing.

26:29

And one of them in front would say, "Stand up."

26:32

And I think I was 016.

26:34

"Stand up and turn around, what's your name,

26:37

blah, blah, blah, where are you from?"

26:39

And then you have to go all the way down to my town.

26:40

Then they'll say, then the guard would say

26:43

to the rest of the soldiers, this is badass.

26:44

This is SAS, SAS guy.

26:48

So I was supposed to be special air forces.

26:52

I was supposed to be British secret services,

26:53

you know, not secret services,

26:57

British special forces, the elite of the British army.

27:00

I'm supposed to be British SAS.

27:04

This is the accusation.

27:06

This is the first accusation, yeah.

27:07

Badass, British SAS.

27:09

And you know, I don't even know where that came from.

27:11

And when they were doing this,

27:15

I had to stand up the whole time.

27:17

And the thing is, like it maybe would take 10 minutes,

27:19

but I couldn't stand for five minutes.

27:22

I couldn't, my legs were hurting,

27:24

were in pain so much I couldn't stand.

27:26

Because you know, like

27:28

you weren't supposed to lean on the wall

27:30

'cause they would tell you to turn around,

27:32

and then they would say you're a badass, SAS,

27:33

and this, that, and et cetera.

27:35

So, you know, like it was that bad.

27:37

I would drink water, 'cause you got water regularly,

27:39

just to keep my stomach from shrinking, you know.

27:41

And you didn't get that much food,

27:45

and there wasn't much reading material

27:46

or something like that.

27:48

So my reading material was the actual packets in the MRE.

27:49

I would read the calories, add them up. (laughs)

27:51

I don't know, just I would do whatever with the packet.

27:54

That that was my reading material

27:57

Hamdullah, you know.

28:00

Am I going into too much detail?

28:03

Interviewer

No, it's wonderful.

28:05

-

Yeah?

28:05

Okay.

28:07

Interviewer

Can I ask you some questions?

28:08

-

Yeah, sure, go on, go on.

28:09

Interviewer

Did you see other prisoners

28:10

while you were there?

28:11

-

Okay.

28:12

Because for some reason they isolated me straight away.

28:13

During the whole processing,

28:18

if you want to call it processing,

28:19

with them taking my clothes off and et cetera,

28:20

they isolated me straight away.

28:24

So I did see, in the barn, they held certain people.

28:25

The first people I saw was a group

28:29

of Pakistanis and Afghanis I think.

28:31

I could tell, but they were distant

28:33

and they were grouped together.

28:35

But they were kept away from me.

28:36

And then they took me out of the barn,

28:39

and then they put up a screen

28:40

so I couldn't actually see them.

28:42

But opposite me, there was an Afghan

28:44

who was kind of, I don't know what they called him,

28:48

but he was acting a bit crazy.

28:51

So, you know, he was just kind of leaping about

28:53

and doing whatever, like, you know,

28:56

I think he was a bit crazy.

28:57

I can't remember his name, but he was a bit crazy.

28:58

And if, like on the other side of me, you know,

29:00

I think it was a group of Afghans.

29:04

But no one, I couldn't actually speak to anyone,

29:05

because I was isolated.

29:07

I was supposed to be the SAS guy in that regard.

29:08

At night, I would hear them,

29:12

you know, bringing people in.

29:14

And you know, it was horrible, really.

29:16

It was horrible.

29:18

You would hear the shackles, you would hear them

29:19

being smashed into the metal doorway

29:22

and the soldiers were laughing.

29:24

You'd hear the detainees screaming.

29:26

You'd hear the soldiers commenting

29:29

that they've defecated themselves, the detainees.

29:30

You'd hear, 'cause the guy in the guard tower, you know,

29:34

he was, he gave running commentary of what's going on.

29:36

You know, and I'm just lying there, hearing this, yeah,

29:39

and you know, I can't see it, but you know, it was horrible.

29:42

One of the detainees over there,

29:47

you know, he needed something to drink.

29:50

And then the, you know, the guard in the guard tower,

29:51

you know, said to drink from the urine bucket, which he did.

29:56

He didn't really, I don't think he knew it was urine,

29:59

you know, like that, so 'cause they started laughing.

30:01

The guards in the guard tower would comment

30:04

on how small the genitals are of detainees,

30:05

which means that they were naked when this was happening.

30:09

And you would hear the detainees

30:12

being smashed into the metal,

30:13

because you know, it would reverberate.

30:14

This is a hanger, so you would hear,

30:16

(imitates metal reverberating)

30:18

And then, you know, they would laugh,

30:18

and you know, et cetera.

30:21

And then the detainees would be screaming.

30:21

And then, they had shackles on their legs,

30:24

and they'd been, you can, you know,

30:25

by the speed of the shackles you could,

30:27

you knew it was painful,

30:29

'cause they were moving them too fast.

30:31

And that must be painful.

30:33

It was just, it was really horrible.

30:34

But in terms of actually speaking to someone,

30:35

they kept them away.

30:38

Interviewer

And you were kept isolated

30:40

the whole time you were there?

30:42

-

Yeah, I was kept as isolated the whole time.

30:43

But hamdullah, it wasn't long that I was in Kandahar.

30:44

You know, some people suffered for a very long time

30:47

in that kind of situation, like Kandahar and Bagram.

30:50

But I think it was three weeks for me.

30:52

Interviewer

Three what?

30:55

-

Three weeks.

30:56

Interviewer

And the interrogators

30:57

would always ask you the same questions,

30:58

that was always the American interrogator?

30:59

-

Yeah, military, I think,

31:01

some pretended, like I had maybe two,

31:05

possibly maybe two interrogations

31:10

with people who they would said they were MI,

31:13

sorry, FBI, FBI.

31:15

But you know, I didn't really believe them.

31:18

But it was a military facility,

31:19

you don't know who's who.

31:21

But it was military interrogations.

31:21

The questions were just kind of like, you know,

31:26

your background, what were you doing there,

31:27

and you know, just stupid.

31:29

And then the military intelligence, obviously, like I said,

31:30

they were more interested in, you know, weapons

31:33

and you know, whatever, this, that, and the other,

31:37

et cetera, you know, 'cause of the situation we were in.

31:40

Later on the FBI, those who said they were FBI,

31:43

obviously they were interested in just other stuff,

31:46

Al Qaeda, where's Osama Bin Laden, or so forth.

31:49

I can't remember, it's been a long time,

31:51

so I can't remember the questions.

31:52

And there was a lot of interrogations after that,

31:53

and they kind of merge into this one, yeah.

31:56

Interviewer

So did you know

32:00

you were gonna go to Guantanamo, or how did that happen?

32:01

-

Okay, that was like, so now,

32:04

this is probably my last interrogation.

32:07

And I think, I believe it was a military,

32:13

it was military intelligence, Marine or whatever.

32:17

And he said,

32:19

he actually, he said, "You're gonna go,

32:24

we're gonna send you to America."

32:27

He says, "You're gonna go to America,

32:30

we're gonna transfer you over to America,

32:31

and you're gonna go either before a military tribunal

32:34

or a civilian court."

32:36

And then, then there's the usual,

32:39

100 years without parole for the default allegation.

32:43

If there's no allegation,

32:49

this is the default allegation, conspiracy.

32:50

They, you know, you want to ask,

32:53

conspiracy, well, what's the plot?

32:54

How was I involved?

32:57

You know, what was this incident?

32:58

And there isn't, there's no answer,

33:00

it's just a conspiracy, just a kind of,

33:02

you know, like just some vague, you know, conspiracy.

33:05

So it was conspiracy, 100 years without parole.

33:09

I remember him saying that.

33:11

And he also said, "You're gonna be on an island somewhere,"

33:12

pardon my language, "shitting in a bucket."

33:15

That's what he said.

33:18

So, okay, something like that.

33:19

So shortly after that, I'm gonna be,

33:21

we're gonna be transferred.

33:25

And then they came and they took me out

33:27

as they normally took me out.

33:29

I won't go into the details.

33:30

And you're on the floor and there's a bag over your head.

33:32

There's a dog barking, you know,

33:35

incessantly behind you, around you, et cetera.

33:37

And then there was a processing,

33:40

which was, you know, just similar to the first processing.

33:42

So you're naked again.

33:45

For some reason, I don't know,

33:49

it, I think, I think yeah.

33:50

I think, yeah, you're naked again,

33:54

they shave your beard off, and the hair off your head.

33:57

You know, and then they put you

34:02

in orange kind of tight clothing and plimsolls and so forth,

34:03

goggles and earmuffs, handcuffs,

34:08

and mittens over the handcuffs,

34:12

which prevented some movement I think, and et cetera.

34:14

And then we were sitting for a long time,

34:17

waiting, waiting, waiting,

34:21

'cause there's a whole load of us.

34:22

But that's probably the first time I came,

34:23

once they isolated, in the barn they isolated me further.

34:27

So I don't think I actually saw any detainees.

34:29

That's probably the first time I came close

34:32

to another detainee, cause they were processing him

34:33

just before me, but then I didn't see him for long.

34:36

And then I was sitting amongst the other detainees,

34:39

and then we were waiting.

34:41

And then they took us out in two lines,

34:42

and I was at the front of one line

34:45

and then someone else was at the front of the other line.

34:47

And then we were, there was a chain running along us.

34:50

So if anyone was too slow, if anyone was too fast,

34:53

or tripped or whatever, we'd all fall down,

34:56

and et cetera, and they took us on the planes.

34:57

Now what they did with the handcuffs,

35:00

they didn't actually lock them.

35:02

Which means that if you just keep on pushing them,

35:03

then they'll keep on squeezing and squeezing on,

35:06

and they did that on purpose.

35:08

Because they checked whether it was done or not before.

35:10

And, you know, 'cause they would just push it slightly

35:12

to check whether it still clicks.

35:16

So like that, but they did it on purpose,

35:18

so that some people, if you just, if it locks,

35:20

if they just put it on hard in the beginning,

35:22

then it means that they spent the whole,

35:25

I don't know how many hours,

35:27

maybe 18 hours it was, the flight,

35:28

with you know, the blood restricted.

35:31

Some hands just swollen, swollen, and so forth, et cetera.

35:34

So, and then they put us on the plane.

35:38

And then on the plane, you know, just,

35:41

there's not much to say.

35:45

You're just there.

35:46

You're not allowed to lean on anyone,

35:47

soldiers shouting at you, and it's a long flight.

35:50

And if I remember rightly, I can't remember

35:53

it's this vague, but I think we were transferred.

35:55

I remember we were taken out of the plane,

35:57

and it was hot, and it was very bright.

35:59

Obviously I'm earmuffed, and et cetera.

36:02

And we were transferred, and it was a quick transfer

36:04

from one plane to another, and then it took off.

36:06

And the next thing I remember about the flight

36:09

is that, you know, the pilot saying that,

36:11

"Oh, we're going over such and such American city."

36:15

Well, I think he was probably lying,

36:17

but you know, just for my benefit.

36:19

Also, the guy next to me,

36:23

'cause they knew there was a British guy who spoke English,

36:25

so they wanted to give words to him,

36:28

but they got the wrong guy. (laughs)

36:31

They got the guy next to me,

36:32

which was, I felt sad for the guy next to me.

36:34

He was, (laughs) but I wasn't gonna say anything. (laughs)

36:37

It is a crazy, crazy experience.

36:40

So we land.

36:42

Interviewer

Before we get to Guantanamo,

36:43

what were you thinking on the plane?

36:46

And just before you boarded the plane,

36:49

were thinking going to America

36:51

was a better situation than from Kandahar?

36:53

-

Okay, yeah.

36:56

Well yeah, obviously.

36:58

I really, I heard stories.

37:00

Stories of, you know, prison, you know, some prisoners.

37:04

'Cause the thing is, right,

37:08

I'm in Kandahar and I'm starving.

37:09

And I'm losing a lot of weight,

37:10

and then I'm remembering someone telling me

37:13

about how prisoners in America get swollen.

37:15

Like, you know, they pump up.

37:18

And so I thought, I concluded that, you know,

37:20

they must get swollen because a lot of food. (laughs)

37:23

So, you know, if we go to America,

37:25

there's gonna be a lot of food. (laughs)

37:27

So, you know, America must be better than Kandahar.

37:28

And you know, obviously I thought to myself, you know,

37:32

I had this idea that America,

37:34

you know, is a bit like Britain,

37:38

you know, there's rule of law,

37:39

you know, there's justice,

37:42

there's, you know, fair treatment and so forth.

37:43

You know, I didn't, I really didn't expect Guantanamo.

37:48

I really, it's,

37:50

that's changed my impression of America.

37:53

Because beforehand, I really thought America

37:55

was all about, you know, I don't know,

37:57

democracy and...

37:59

Interviewer

So even being transferred

38:01

to American prison, was it to you at that moment

38:02

a better situation?

38:06

-

Yeah.

Yeah, than Kandahar, yeah.

38:07

I really, I was really, you know,

38:10

the first thing you're thinking about is survival,

38:13

and obviously the second thing then,

38:15

you're thinking about legal, your legal situation.

38:16

And then, you know how, you know, justice.

38:19

But you know, thinking of survival.

38:21

And Kandahar, I mean, they were starving me.

38:23

They were starving me.

38:25

I got to, I was 147 pounds

38:26

when I got to Guantanamo.

38:30

Interviewer

How much were you weighing before you-

38:33

-

I can't remember.

38:35

I think I stayed at 170 in Guantanamo.

38:36

And then it got worse in Guantanamo, I started going down.

38:40

But the best I did is 170 pounds.

38:43

But that's a different story.

38:46

But I can't remember beforehand,

38:48

but you know, that 147 was really, really bad.

38:50

Interviewer

So we can go when you land then,

38:56

since you were one of the very first people

38:58

to come to Guantanamo then, right?

39:01

So it's an important story,

39:04

if you can describe how it was

39:05

when you got off the plane and, you know.

39:06

-

Okay.

39:10

So they're taking us off the plane, one after another,

39:11

and then the soldiers, there's two soldiers,

39:16

always one on one shoulder and one on the other shoulder.

39:17

You're always flanked by soldiers.

39:20

They take you down a ramp,

39:22

and obviously you've got the earmuffs on your ears,

39:23

and you know, you're blind goggled.

39:28

Not blindfolded, (laughs) it's an actual goggle.

39:31

You can't see anything.

39:35

And you know, it's been a long flight,

39:36

and you're taken down the ramp.

39:41

Okay, now the first thing is obviously,

39:44

you know, everything's by hearing,

39:45

you know, by tactical senses.

39:49

So it's hot, you know it's hot.

39:51

It's dry, the situation, 'cause it was day when we landed.

39:54

And then the soldiers, you know,

39:59

they're giving their running commentary,

40:01

the ones on either side.

40:02

So they say, you know, "Oh, look at that."

40:03

You know, like, "Those detainees

40:05

are really getting effed up," this, that, and the other.

40:07

"Those Marines are giving them this and giving them that,

40:08

you know, and it's gonna be you next, man."

40:10

And this, that, and the other.

40:12

Obviously you can hear, from the distance,

40:13

people screaming, shouting, you know,

40:15

like, you know, they're in pain, you know?

40:17

Like whatever, but you know, you can't see,

40:19

so you don't know what's happening.

40:21

And then like, then it's your turn.

40:22

So then they throw you into the hands of the Marines.

40:24

And then the Marines then they start,

40:25

they do the search again, you know,

40:26

like you know, search one side, search the other side.

40:28

And you're rushed, and you've got shackles on your feet.

40:31

So, you know, you're trying your best

40:33

to limit the pain, you know, and then,

40:36

but they're trying to make you go faster.

40:39

So, you know, we were just,

40:41

we were searched by the Marines and then put on a bus.

40:43

And the bus doesn't have any seats.

40:47

I don't understand why the bus doesn't have any seats.

40:49

We're sitting cross-legged on the floor

40:52

and then bolted to the ground,

40:54

and we're supposed to sit upright.

40:55

And we're not allowed to move.

40:57

You just have to sit there.

40:59

The Marines, at every opportunity they'll get,

41:01

they'll push you, kick you, punch you, that kind of thing.

41:05

The guy driving the bus, he's happy to accelerate

41:08

and you know, like, you know, just being stupid.

41:12

So you lose your balance, so you're about fall over,

41:15

which then inspires the Marines,

41:19

the Marines that are looking after you,

41:21

to shout at you because you moved from your position,

41:22

and then they hit you and whatever on your leg, et cetera.

41:24

Now there's people on, you know,

41:27

if you're young, if you were like young like me,

41:28

and you know, I was starved, but you know,

41:30

like young, relatively healthy,

41:32

then you kind of got to take care of these old people.

41:34

There's people with back problems,

41:36

there's people with, you know, just like, you know,

41:38

they're not in the situation, and you know,

41:40

able to maintain that position

41:42

for I don't know how long we were there.

41:44

It must have been hours, like you know,

41:45

they took, you know, on that bus.

41:47

These people punching, you know, like you know,

41:50

you know, just really treating you in a bad way.

41:54

The bus was stationary,

41:57

must have been stationary for half an hour.

41:59

And at the time I didn't,

42:01

I thought they were just being mean, you know,

42:02

well how come they're just leaving the bus here,

42:04

just you know, they can drive to the place.

42:06

I'm not sure whether that's the, you know,

42:08

later on I hear that from the lawyers and so forth

42:10

in Guantanamo that there's supposedly,

42:12

to get to Guantanamo you have to go through

42:14

on a boat or something, or something like that.

42:16

So maybe that was the boat.

42:18

At the time, I thought they were just being mean.

42:20

And then they brought us to Guantanamo.

42:22

And then what they do is they take you

42:26

into what I later learned was the rec yard

42:28

in, this is Camp X-ray.

42:31

So it's just a green, you know, like a green,

42:35

grassy kind of in between one block and another.

42:38

They took us there.

42:43

And then they have you sitting

42:45

in basically what they now call the stress position.

42:47

I didn't know these terminologies at the time.

42:50

All I knew is that, you know, they had you sitting down

42:52

and then, you know, like on your knees,

42:54

and then one foot was over, you know, the heel of the other.

42:57

And you had to put your hands in a specific position,

43:00

which was like, you know, just on,

43:02

near your knee and that kind of thing, and leave them there.

43:06

And you're supposed to sit there for hours on end

43:08

while they're shouting at you,

43:12

this, that, and the other, et cetera.

43:14

I had a face mask on, 'cause they put a face mask,

43:17

'cause I think of TB or something?

43:19

They were worried about TB or something like that.

43:20

So there was a face mask.

43:22

Because it's hot and you're sweating

43:24

and it's been on your face for a long time,

43:25

you can't breathe.

43:27

There's always this thing about breathing.

43:28

So obviously, in that situation,

43:31

then you start trying to find a way of breathing.

43:33

So I tried to remove it with my mouth.

43:35

So you just, you know, work the jaw

43:36

until it comes off my nose, and then just to get some air.

43:38

And then the soldier would come over,

43:41

scream at you not to do that and put it back on.

43:43

And then we just, this was the game we were playing.

43:46

You're sitting in this situation.

43:49

You can't see anything, there's earmuffs over your ears.

43:52

And you know, there's only one soldier.

43:56

There was another supposedly Arabic translator,

43:58

but he couldn't speak Arabic to save his life.

44:01

So, you know, his Arabic was bad.

44:03

And then there's a dog barking,

44:06

and then there's one guy who supposed to be maintaining,

44:08

and there's soldiers, you can hear them around you,

44:10

and there's other soldiers

44:11

who were just standing guard, et cetera.

44:12

So obviously you would hear the guy scuttle off

44:14

to mess with another detainee,

44:20

and then you take the opportunity

44:21

to either lean on one side to relieve yourself,

44:23

change your feet over, take the thing off your nose,

44:25

or just lean forward to get the pressure off your back,

44:28

et cetera, whatever.

44:31

And then he'll come running back to you and set you right.

44:32

And obviously he'll give you a punch or something,

44:34

you know, 'cause you know, like that.

44:36

Detainees were dropping like flies.

44:39

And whenever a detainee dropped like a fly,

44:41

then you know, then you'd hear a scurry,

44:44

like footsteps and they'd drag him away.

44:46

And then, you know, and then they just kept on dropping,

44:48

dropping, dropping, dropping.

44:51

And then for some reason, I was the only one there.

44:53

And I just remember silence.

44:56

You know, I'm just holding position.

44:58

What happened was I became numb.

44:59

I just, I really, I became numb,

45:01

you know, holding that position for so long,

45:04

it's just that you kind of become suspended

45:05

between pain and I don't know what else, you know?

45:08

It's just between, so all of a sudden,

45:11

so you're just there, and it was just silent.

45:13

And then for some reason the soldier came,

45:15

took my plimsoll off my top foot,

45:18

so there I am with one foot bare.

45:21

I don't know why he did that.

45:24

And I'm just there, you know, and fatigued.

45:26

It's been a hot day.

45:29

The sun was going down.

45:30

And then they decided, okay, they're gonna process me.

45:33

So they take me out.

45:35

Now, obviously I'm worried that, you know,

45:37

'cause I haven't got my plimsoll on my foot.

45:38

And this is how you got to think.

45:40

It's just tiny little, you know,

45:41

you're always cringing away from pain.

45:44

You're always trying to move away from pain,

45:47

cushion the pain.

45:49

So now my foot is bare.

45:50

I'm worried about my foot getting cut on the stones.

45:52

This is your thinking.

45:55

And it's always at this level.

45:56

It's not, it doesn't go beyond that.

45:58

You're just always trying to save yourself from pain

46:00

or minimize the pain or, you know?

46:02

That's the thinking in that situation.

46:03

So they drag me off, one foot bare.

46:06

And then, you know, right now I'm fatigued,

46:09

you know, dehydrated, you know,

46:13

you're just kind of in a twilight.

46:15

You know, you're just, like your head is lightheaded,

46:18

you know, you're just like that.

46:21

So it's kind of vague, the rest of the processing.

46:22

And then the sun's going down, and I don't know

46:25

if the sun was up when we got there,

46:27

but the sun's going down, and you have no sense of time.

46:29

And then it was the shower.

46:32

So obviously it's naked again.

46:34

So you know, like you're naked again,

46:36

and they're just watching you.

46:39

And then you've got like,

46:39

I don't know how many minutes to have a shower.

46:41

They throw some soap or something,

46:42

or shampoo or whatever at you.

46:44

And then you have a shower quickly.

46:45

And then there's,

46:48

then I remember they just, then you're blindfolded again

46:50

and they take you here and there and everywhere.

46:52

They do the anal search again.

46:57

I think it's not really, it's not a security measure.

47:00

Because you know, they did it in Kandahar.

47:03

And then 24 hours later, they do it there.

47:06

And there's no opportunity, there's no,

47:08

you know, you've been handcuffed.

47:11

You've been, you know, there's mittens on your hand

47:12

that will prevent thumb movement.

47:14

You can't deposit anything in your rectum

47:16

in that situation, obviously.

47:19

So it's just, it's a matter of humiliation.

47:21

So they had to put you through that as well.

47:23

And then they took me to the cage.

47:25

So right now it's just dark.

47:28

Interviewer

And they didn't interrogate you

47:32

that first day?

47:34

-

No, it was just, I call it initiation.

47:35

I think what they think they have to do is to break you.

47:38

So they put you through that,

47:41

and during transfer, they put you through excruciating pain.

47:43

That's the reason why they didn't lock the handcuffs,

47:47

because they say that if you're in pain,

47:50

then you won't to try to escape.

47:52

Not that anyone has any escape on their mind,

47:54

not that anyone would even know how to escape if they did,

47:56

but you know, that's the kind of mentality.

48:00

So there was no,

48:01

there was no interrogation that first.

48:03

Interviewer

And when you were there that first day,

48:06

you weren't able to talk to anybody at all,

48:08

any other detainees, too?

48:10

-

No, when they took me, they took me into my cage.

48:12

They took the, you know, blind goggles off.

48:17

And then, you know, I was basically deposited in my cage.

48:20

And that's the first time.

48:22

And then there were detainees around me.

48:23

So obviously, this is the first time

48:25

I can actually speak to someone,

48:27

for the first time in my situation.

48:29

But we weren't allowed to talk,

48:33

but obviously you try to get around it.

48:34

I don't remember actually speaking,

48:35

because when I got there it seemed like,

48:36

I think it was night.

48:37

I saw one detainee in the distance praying,

48:39

but he was praying in the wrong direction, I later learned.

48:41

And then everyone else,

48:44

I don't remember having a conversation with someone there,

48:46

so they must have been sleeping, but it was night.

48:48

Interviewer

Well, speaking in English,

48:50

were you limited in who you could talk to?

48:52

Man

Can we just hold on one sec, though?

48:54

I just, where's-

48:56

Woman

I'll hold.

48:58

Man

You want to monitor that?

48:59

Woman

Yeah, I show 8:30 now.

49:01

I think I'm fast, though.

49:02

Man

I think you're fast, too.

49:03

Give me a second.

49:05

-

Let me turn on my phone.

Man

Okay, okay.

49:06

-

Okay, so-

49:08

-

We're good to go.

Interviewer

So we were talking about,

49:11

if I remember, people, whether they,

49:12

since you spoke English,

49:16

whether you were able to communicate with anybody else.

49:17

-

Okay, at that time I could just basic Arabic.

49:19

I could speak some little bit of Arabic.

49:23

Interviewer

So then that was enough

49:27

to at least have a little bit of communication?

49:28

-

Well, you couldn't actually have a conversation,

49:30

'cause you know, they won't understand me

49:31

and I won't understand the majority of what they're saying.

49:33

But you know, the first days in Camp X-ray,

49:35

first thing is I remember it as three days

49:41

that we had to remain silent at all times,

49:44

you weren't allowed to speak to anyone.

49:46

Obviously you tried to get around it

49:48

by one way or another, and you'd then get in trouble.

49:49

But you know, yeah.

49:54

So the first night, I think people were sleeping,

49:56

obviously, because of the situation.

49:59

We were the first there.

50:01

So, you know, it wasn't as populated

50:03

as later on, when they brought more people.

50:06

So you know, just think,

50:09

I think there was only about,

50:10

there had to be a maximum of 27 people

50:12

that were first brought on the plane.

50:14

Interviewer

So I'm gonna ask you again,

50:16

did you have any idea what was going on

50:18

or where you were, or you know, at that,

50:20

since you were the first there,

50:23

did you have any idea of what?

50:24

-

No.

50:26

My conclusion, I looked around and I saw these cages

50:26

and, you know, et cetera.

50:30

And I thought to myself, this must be quarantine.

50:32

You know, cause obviously I had this impression

50:35

they were gonna send me to America.

50:37

The guy said they're gonna send us to America.

50:39

This doesn't look like America to me,

50:41

this must be quarantine.

50:44

And I thought to myself, well, you know,

50:45

like animals when they're being brought

50:46

from abroad into a country,

50:48

you have to put them in quarantine.

50:49

And my basic understanding,

50:51

you have to keep them in a situation

50:52

where there, you know, might be diseases

50:53

or something like that, et cetera.

50:54

So that's what I thought.

50:55

So I thought to myself, you know, this must be quarantine.

50:56

They're gonna hold us here for a short period of time

50:59

to work out whether we've got any diseases, or something,

51:00

whatever, and then we're gonna be sent to America.

51:02

And I actually did start to prepare myself,

51:05

like you know, because I knew, okay, right,

51:07

they're gonna take us in the,

51:09

on the bus again.

51:12

So I started sitting on my,

51:14

this is later on, in a few days,

51:15

I started sitting on the concrete, bare concrete,

51:17

'cause otherwise you can sit on the Isomat, I think,

51:20

on the bare concrete, preparing my legs.

51:23

Just, you know, when the Marines come and start beating us,

51:25

then I'll be in a better situation.

51:27

So, you know, I had this impression that, you know

51:29

we were only gonna be there for a short time.

51:31

It was just a holding for a short period of time,

51:33

and then they're gonna send us to America.

51:34

And then that's we'll face

51:36

a military tribunal or civilian courts.

51:38

Interviewer

And when you saw more people come

51:41

the next day, did more people come the next day, or?

51:45

-

Okay, now I was there, what was it?

51:48

We came in-

51:52

-

The 11th to the 1st.

-

Yeah, 11, and then I think it was about three months.

51:55

Three months.

51:58

So it wasn't the next day that they brought people,

51:59

but periodically, you know,

52:02

probably quite regularly they would bring people.

52:03

And you would know, because they'll tell you

52:05

they're holding them in the rec yard,

52:09

the green area, which they held us in.

52:10

And then they'll tell us to face the other way.

52:12

And we weren't allowed to get up and,

52:14

you know, whether to pray or to use the toilet,

52:17

just had to sit there while they processed them.

52:19

So basically they were going through

52:21

the same thing that we were going through,

52:22

you know, the same situation, the initiation as it were.

52:24

Interviewer

And when was your first interrogation,

52:27

and how many days in do you think?

52:29

-

I would estimate it from memory maybe about two weeks.

52:32

-

Two?

52:35

-

Maybe two weeks, yeah.

-

Two weeks?

52:36

-

And it wasn't straight-

Two weeks, yeah.

52:37

It wasn't straight away that they took us to interrogation.

52:38

Interviewer

Okay, before we get to the interrogation,

52:41

during those two weeks did you still think

52:42

you were just in quarantine?

52:44

Or did you begin to think something else was going on?

52:45

-

No, actually I think it was quarantine.

52:49

I thought it was actually quarantine.

52:51

So that's what I was, I was preparing my legs

52:53

for the beating and (laughs) the Marines on the bus.

52:55

Interviewer

And did you know you were in Guantanamo?

52:58

Did someone telling you that?

53:00

-

Whether I knew I was in Guantanamo,

53:02

no I don't, in the first two weeks,

53:05

I don't think so.

53:07

And, wait.

53:10

Okay, first three days,

53:14

we weren't allowed to talk to anyone.

53:15

We had to sit in the middle of our cells for this,

53:18

face one certain direction,

53:20

and your eyes could only go on the vertical.

53:21

So you could look up at the sky, the ground,

53:24

but you couldn't look around.

53:25

The MPs took great pleasure in running up to you

53:28

when they caught you actually looking around

53:31

and telling you off, which was, you know,

53:33

that was their life at that time.

53:36

You know, so that's it.

53:37

For me, those three days, they were a relief.

53:41

'Cause all of a sudden there's kind of time to process,

53:44

you know, time to process this, you know,

53:48

and I didn't have to like speak to anyone.

53:50

So you know, it was quiet time

53:52

that you know, I could start thinking,

53:54

and I was trying to make sense of the situation.

53:57

Others remember it too,

54:01

for us to be sitting and not talking for about two weeks.

54:02

I don't know, I remember it as three days,

54:04

but maybe that's just, after years, you know.

54:06

You know, people remember things differently.

54:10

Interviewer

Do you remember what food you got

54:13

those first few days?

54:13

-

Okay, okay.

54:15

The first night, I'm put in my cage,

54:17

they take the goggles off,

54:21

my eyes are finding it very hard to focus

54:22

because I've been looking at the back of the goggle

54:25

for like, I don't know, 24 hours or over.

54:27

And so I'm looking around and it's dark

54:32

and it looks like people are sleeping, detainees.

54:34

And a soldier just kind of waltzes by,

54:37

and he throws this silver food packet

54:39

through the gap in the door.

54:41

And then that was dinner.

54:43

And then the flight were, you know,

54:45

it was like a peanut butter sandwich and an apple.

54:47

That was about it for the flight.

54:51

Interviewer

Were you able to eat those on the flight?

54:54

-

Well, you attempted to eat it, like, you know,

54:55

your hands are in mittens

54:59

and they wouldn't take the mittens off.

55:00

And you just kind of leaned forward

55:02

and tried to eat it, et cetera.

55:04

So I mean, you ate, but you know,

55:05

the soldiers on the plane, they ate more than us.

55:08

And you know, I remember hearing them,

55:10

you know, (laughs) I understand English.

55:12

So I hear them, you know, like chowing down on our food,

55:15

and they ate more than us.

55:18

So, you know, they didn't give us much to eat.

55:20

And then that was it for dinner.

55:23

What was the other question?

55:27

Oh, do I remember what we were fed?

55:28

Okay, yeah.

55:29

And then...

55:30

Then they, sorry?

55:35

-

For breakfast?

For breakfast the next day, were they the same?

55:36

-

Vaguely.

55:40

I remember one breakfast, which it seems to like,

55:42

you know, descend pretty quickly.

55:46

What they did, they decided that you know,

55:49

'cause we weren't gonna be moving around much,

55:51

they were gonna give us just enough calories

55:53

to keep us, that would keep someone

55:57

in a comatose state, I believe.

55:59

So they gave us, I remember one breakfast,

56:01

it was a bagel and a small portion

56:07

of cream cheese, or something like that,

56:10

but they didn't bother putting it on a plate.

56:12

So they put it on the ground, served it like that.

56:15

Another lunch or dinner was a small polystyrene cup

56:18

of, you know, it was just rice

56:24

and beans on top, in the same cup.

56:26

And they put the spoon in the cup as well,

56:29

so (laughs) that took up space.

56:30

They didn't bother opening the door this time.

56:32

For the bagel, they opened the door.

56:34

So you know, for this one,

56:36

they just fed it through the gap

56:37

between the frame of the door and the frame of the cage.

56:39

So that was that.

56:42

And I think lunch, they had an MRE,

56:46

but they had a special one.

56:48

They said it was a kosher one.

56:49

So basically it was just things like raisins.

56:51

The good thing is, we got granola bars,

56:55

bagel chips, sunflower seeds,

56:59

that kind of thing like that.

57:07

For the Arabs, that was like,

57:09

'cause they're used to meat and rice

57:11

and that kind of thing, et cetera,

57:13

you know these were snacks for them.

57:14

And that's what we got.

57:17

Yeah, that's what I remember.

57:20

Interviewer

So can we move to the first interrogation?

57:22

Was that any different from the interrogation in Kandahar?

57:24

The first interrogation in Guantanamo.

57:28

-

Okay, first interrogation in Guantanamo,

57:30

I think it was military again, it's a military guy.

57:33

And if I remember rightly, it was,

57:37

none of the information, if I understand rightly,

57:41

from Kandahar had got to them.

57:45

Or they said they were starting a clean slate.

57:47

You have to start your story all over again.

57:49

So like I said, a guy just sits there,

57:50

and he seemed very disinterested.

57:52

And then he's like, "Okay, tell me your story,"

57:55

blah, blah, blah, so you know,

57:57

that was the first interrogation.

57:58

They called it, they called it

58:00

exhibition, the code name for it was exhibition.

58:05

So if they're taking a detainee to interrogation,

58:07

they're taking one to exhibition.

58:11

And they would take you out of the cages,

58:13

and then into kind of shacks that were made like that.

58:14

There would be a guy with a shotgun,

58:17

you know, like outside the door.

58:20

And then obviously you'd be bolted to the ground.

58:23

So the shackles would still be on your person.

58:25

And then you answer the questions.

58:28

There was cameras.

58:30

I remember, I think I remember cameras,

58:32

'cause I don't know where they were.

58:33

Maybe they were, they were somewhere, situation.

58:34

I just remember thinking to myself,

58:36

they're actually filming this,

58:38

and then listening to it as well.

58:40

You know?

58:42

I don't know why, what conclusion I came to that,

58:43

but it's, yeah.

58:44

Interviewer

And it's almost time for us to take a break,

58:49

but did the interrogations change over time,

58:52

or were pretty much the same, repetition?

58:55

-

What they'll do, they'll work out rapport,

58:57

who you have rapport with.

59:01

So there's military intelligence

59:02

and then there was FBI at the beginning at Camp X-ray.

59:04

Obviously I didn't like the military people,

59:07

'cause of the way they treated us.

59:09

The FBI were kind of more civilian.

59:11

So you know, they came to, I think,

59:13

I don't know who dealt with the interrogations or whatever,

59:16

but FBI became dominant.

59:19

The military kind of left me alone,

59:21

because they realized I'm not gonna talk to them,

59:22

and I didn't like them at all.

59:24

Just at Camp X-ray, or you want to talk

59:29

about just the whole of Guantanamo?

59:30

Interviewer

Well, you can talk generally,

59:32

if there's something you wish to.

59:34

-

Okay, so later on, that's Camp X-Ray,

59:35

that was mainly, it was either military or there was FBI.

59:38

Then Camp Delta, then you get,

59:42

it's military, FBI, sometimes New York Police Department.

59:46

I don't know why they were there.

59:50

Yeah, some New York police guy came.

59:51

MI5, the Australian intelligence.

59:57

I don't know why they wanted to speak to me.

1:00:02

ASIO, A-S-I-O, they came and yeah, spoke to me.

1:00:03

I don't even know why.

1:00:07

Yeah, so it's just a whole, it's a whole mix.

1:00:11

Interviewer

Were they also the same questions

1:00:13

again and again?

1:00:14

-

It, no, it changed.

1:00:19

It changed.

1:00:20

First of all they were interested

1:00:21

in background information in your story.

1:00:22

Then there's a kind of maybe,

1:00:25

yeah, there's always, where's Osama Bin Laden stupidness.

1:00:29

Then it just kind of descended into just,

1:00:35

just nonsense, really seriously.

1:00:39

They just, they just said, "We just want you to talk.

1:00:41

Talk about cricket, talk about football, just talk.

1:00:43

We don't care what you talk about, just talk."

1:00:45

Like that.

1:00:47

And then like, if you think about it,

1:00:48

like you know, what kind of intelligence value,

1:00:50

if we had any at the beginning, we would have

1:00:51

after so many years of being incarcerated?

1:00:53

We won't.

1:00:55

So, you know, they just wanted us to talk about anything.

1:00:56

So we could just, you know,

1:00:58

you've talked philosophy, you could talk about,

1:00:59

I mean kind of, I mean, with the FBI

1:01:03

funny conversations like, you know,

1:01:07

we were talking about the sighting of the moon

1:01:08

in the Ramadan, the month of fasting,

1:01:12

whether you do it by the calendar

1:01:14

or you do it by the sighting.

1:01:15

'Cause he had talked to someone or something like that.

1:01:17

Whether the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

1:01:19

you know, whether the Prophet Muhammad was illiterate.

1:01:21

What that meant, did it mean he couldn't read and write,

1:01:25

or it meant, you know, cause he was a merchant,

1:01:28

which meant he knew numerical, so it doesn't,

1:01:31

so we had a conversation about that.

1:01:33

There was a conversation about whether laws of a country

1:01:37

are based on the morals of the people of that country.

1:01:40

It's just things like that.

1:01:45

So, you know, it was very quick

1:01:46

that, you know, the, you know,

1:01:50

the questions weren't always about terrorism,

1:01:52

or Osama Bin Laden, or this, that, and the other.

1:01:55

It just became, at least in Camp Delta,

1:01:57

it just became, just talk to us.

1:02:00

Just talk to us about anything.

1:02:02

And as long as we can bring you into interrogation

1:02:04

and ensure that you're talking,

1:02:06

but not necessarily talking

1:02:07

about what people would think you were talking about,

1:02:08

you know, in Washington and so forth and the White House,

1:02:11

then that was fine.

1:02:14

That's what it descended into.

1:02:15

Interviewer

Well, why don't we take a break

1:02:17

and then we'll continue to-

1:02:18

-

Okay.

-

Okay?

1:02:21

-

All right, okay, thank you.

I'll be back soon.

1:02:22

Interviewer

What I want to go back to was when,

1:02:24

I just want to confirm you were,

1:02:27

you were on the first plane load

1:02:29

to come to Guantanamo, and you knew that?

1:02:31

You saw no other detainees when you arrived,

1:02:34

and how did you know that you were the first plane load?

1:02:36

-

Okay, how did I know?

1:02:41

It's probably a number of factors,

1:02:50

but it would have been my ISN number.

1:02:51

I was 024, and then they were processing us

1:02:54

chronologically at that time.

1:02:57

Later on I, so that meant

1:02:59

I was the 24th person to be processed.

1:03:00

We must've been 27 on the plane.

1:03:04

I don't know how I came by the information,

1:03:06

but it must have been cumulative.

1:03:09

For instance, you know, you talk to people

1:03:11

and then, you know, they came later and so forth,

1:03:13

you know, cause they found people already there.

1:03:17

People talk to interrogators,

1:03:19

and then they come back with information and so forth.

1:03:21

So it wouldn't have been,

1:03:23

I wouldn't have known it at the beginning,

1:03:24

apart from the fact that, you know,

1:03:26

there wasn't that many people.

1:03:27

But when people keep on coming,

1:03:29

then you start to realize, you know,

1:03:30

then this batch come from this,

1:03:32

and that batch came from there,

1:03:34

and you start hearing people's stories

1:03:35

and so forth in that regard.

1:03:36

But I know it was the 24th person to be processed, 024.

1:03:38

There must have been about 20, 27 people on the plane.

1:03:43

Interviewer

And you knew it was January 11th,

1:03:47

which was the first.

1:03:49

-

Yeah, yeah.

1:03:50

Interviewer

And then when the MI5 interrogated you,

1:03:51

were the British any different

1:03:54

in the questions they asked you from Americans?

1:03:57

-

Okay, so we're kind of jumping now.

1:04:00

Do you want me-

1:04:02

-

Oh, they came much later?

-

Yeah, they came much later.

1:04:04

This is, actually, no.

1:04:05

They came in Camp X-ray, actually.

1:04:07

Yeah, they did.

1:04:09

Okay, I think there was a period of two weeks

1:04:11

being interrogated every day by the FBI.

1:04:15

They just kept on taking me every day

1:04:20

to get interrogated for two weeks.

1:04:22

And in fact, the other detainees got worried,

1:04:23

you know, they said this is, what's going on here.

1:04:25

You know, this guy is just being taken

1:04:27

every day to be interrogated.

1:04:28

During that period, the Red Cross came to talk to us,

1:04:31

and the MI5 came to talk to me

1:04:34

and the other British detainees.

1:04:38

But it was,

1:04:43

one of them said he, they didn't actually say they were MI5.

1:04:45

So one of them said, "I'm a consular official,

1:04:48

I've come in to speak to you,

1:04:51

just, you know, to see how you are, et cetera,

1:04:53

I'm from the British government and so forth."

1:04:54

And then he said, "My colleague

1:04:55

is from the British government."

1:04:57

He didn't actually say MI5.

1:04:58

It's only later on that I learned,

1:05:00

and they did that I think for a period of time.

1:05:02

And it was, I can't remember the exact date,

1:05:06

but it was at least a few years.

1:05:08

At least, definitely one year,

1:05:11

but it must have been over a year,

1:05:14

when the actual British consular guy comes.

1:05:16

So they pretended that whole time

1:05:18

that, you know, that-

1:05:20

Interviewer

And did you believe them

1:05:22

that they were consular?

1:05:23

-

Obviously, yes.

1:05:25

You know, like the situation is that, you know,

1:05:26

I've just got to Guantanamo Bay, I'm in Camp X-ray.

1:05:29

And you know, I'm new, you know.

1:05:34

You have to be lied to so many times

1:05:36

before you start realizing, well, you know,

1:05:38

what they tell you is not the truth.

1:05:40

So obviously, I'm fresh to the situation.

1:05:42

And I actually believed, I actually believed

1:05:43

that, you know, one of them was a consular official

1:05:45

and the other one was just British government,

1:05:47

so I didn't know what that meant.

1:05:50

Interviewer

Did they say you'd be coming

1:05:52

back to Britain soon, or did they give you any?

1:05:54

-

No, they just want us to know who,

1:05:57

they just wanted to confirm that I was who I said I was,

1:05:58

and you know, to know my story, so forth,

1:06:04

you know, how I got into the situation.

1:06:06

And then they would just, they would go back.

1:06:09

They never said anything about being released

1:06:10

or anything like that, et cetera.

1:06:12

Interviewer

And how do you know

1:06:13

there were other English, or other British citizens there?

1:06:14

How do you know that?

1:06:19

-

Okay, because

1:06:20

Asif Iqbal, he was in the same kind of,

1:06:23

'cause we were, I was Bravo Bravo nine.

1:06:28

So you were in kind of like, section Bravo,

1:06:31

and then I was segment Bravo, and then I was the ninth cage.

1:06:33

So he was in the same section, but he was in Bravo.

1:06:37

So he was Bravo Alpha something.

1:06:40

Like that, Asif.

1:06:45

And then Shafiq Rasul was in the same,

1:06:46

I can't remember which section he was,

1:06:49

but he was in the same kind of segment.

1:06:51

So I actually could speak to them.

1:06:54

And Hicks was in the same segment as well.

1:06:55

So I actually could speak across,

1:06:57

when we were allowed to speak,

1:06:58

and definitely after two weeks we were allowed to speak.

1:06:59

I could, we would shout over across to them,

1:07:02

and then you have your conversation and so forth.

1:07:03

And you know, you could talk to them

1:07:07

to some degree.

1:07:08

-

How did it feel

to see some more Englishmen there, how?

1:07:09

-

Yeah, it was,

1:07:17

it didn't strike me as anything significant.

1:07:18

I mean, the thing about being incarcerated

1:07:22

in that situation, like it's, I tend to go quiet.

1:07:27

I tend to go quiet and just keep myself to myself,

1:07:30

kind of brood in a way.

1:07:33

So, you know, conversation wasn't a big thing for me.

1:07:35

Like, you know, not to say that I didn't appreciate it,

1:07:37

and it was good to talk to them, but you know,

1:07:39

like they weren't close enough

1:07:41

to have a long conversation with, so you had to shout a bit.

1:07:43

And so you couldn't say, it was just like a few words

1:07:47

and you know, sentences passed along, et cetera.

1:07:51

And then, you know, you couldn't sustain it for long.

1:07:53

'Cause you would be shouting

1:07:55

for a really long time in that regard.

1:07:56

So, yeah.

1:07:58

Interviewer

Did you go quiet with the interrogators too?

1:08:01

-

Okay, there's me, and my naive self,

1:08:05

you know, thinking that, you know,

1:08:10

like, okay, this is Guantanamo.

1:08:11

I think Hicks was the one who told,

1:08:14

he, when he was processed, he told his story.

1:08:18

The Marine said something like, you know,

1:08:21

"Welcome to Guantanamo Bay, you are US property now,"

1:08:24

or something like that, et cetera.

1:08:29

So he relayed it to us, and that's one of the ways

1:08:30

we found out, or at least I found out,

1:08:33

we were in Guantanamo Bay.

1:08:35

I didn't hear about Guantanamo before then. (laughs)

1:08:36

I know about Cuba, but (laughs)

1:08:39

like that I saw it on TV,

1:08:41

and I actually wanted to go there on holiday one time.

1:08:42

But I'd never heard of Guantanamo Bay before.

1:08:44

And so, sorry, I missed the question.

1:08:48

Interviewer

How, what was the question?

1:08:56

-

It was-

1:09:01

-

You know...

(interviewer mutters)

1:09:07

Oh yeah, did you ever go quiet with the-

1:09:12

-

Okay, yeah, quiet with the interrogators.

1:09:14

Okay, so there, I'm telling him,

1:09:16

you know, telling him my story, being truthful, et cetera.

1:09:19

This is my story, and so forth.

1:09:23

Then, you know, they, I don't know.

1:09:27

They were just,

1:09:31

I didn't like where they were going with it.

1:09:34

So actually no, in Camp X-ray I didn't go quiet.

1:09:38

I didn't go quiet with them.

1:09:42

I didn't go quiet with them.

1:09:44

But...

1:09:45

But they were they were taking, you know,

1:09:56

they were going...

1:09:57

You know, I was telling him the truth, et cetera,

1:10:02

but they were going with it

1:10:04

in the wrong direction, if you understand.

1:10:06

I wasn't happy with it.

1:10:08

So I, you know, I decided,

1:10:09

basically I let them know I wasn't happy with it.

1:10:13

And then they kind of became a bit despondent with me.

1:10:15

And then, you know, they went quiet on me.

1:10:19

So there was a whole period of two weeks

1:10:21

when they were,

1:10:23

when they were, you know, interrogating me,

1:10:25

and then they just basically stopped.

1:10:30

I don't want to go into too many details concerning it,

1:10:32

'cause it's probably an ongoing thing.

1:10:35

But they they stopped, and they stopped interrogating me.

1:10:38

For them, they thought it was a privilege.

1:10:42

I don't understand why they think,

1:10:47

they thought it was a privilege

1:10:48

to bring the detainee to the interrogation room.

1:10:49

They bolt you down to the ground,

1:10:52

and you have a guy behind you with a shotgun,

1:10:54

'cause for sort of some reason it was a privilege.

1:10:55

Later on, in Camp Delta, they referred to the,

1:10:59

I don't think they ever saw the cages.

1:11:01

So they referred to the cages as the shithole,

1:11:03

meaning that when they took us out of the shithole

1:11:09

and brought us into the interrogation room,

1:11:11

it was a privilege.

1:11:12

I would have rather stayed in my cage,

1:11:14

because, you know, I wasn't bolted to the ground in my cage.

1:11:16

At least I had some freedom to walk around.

1:11:19

Although it was a small cage,

1:11:20

it was better than actually being bolted to the ground.

1:11:21

But they saw it as a privilege.

1:11:24

So I guess because they thought, you know,

1:11:25

like for two weeks they were privileging me

1:11:26

and, you know, I didn't want to do

1:11:29

what they wanted me to do,

1:11:32

and then, so that was, you know, that was it.

1:11:34

They weren't gonna privilege me anymore.

1:11:36

So basically, they shut up on me

1:11:37

rather than me shutting up on them in a way, in that regard.

1:11:39

That was in Camp X-ray.

1:11:42

Interviewer

And then where were you moved to next?

1:11:44

-

Okay, it must have been after about three months,

1:11:47

and then Hicks was our kind of line of information.

1:11:49

He would go to interrogation

1:11:53

and then bring information back.

1:11:54

So he tells us about this new prison, blah, blah, blah,

1:11:55

is built, whatever, et cetera, and this and that,

1:11:57

and that's where we're gonna be going.

1:11:58

So, you know, he's, I took his information to be credible,

1:12:00

and it was, it was credible.

1:12:03

So I'm thinking, okay, they're about to process.

1:12:07

I was thinking about, they're gonna send us

1:12:12

through to process again and send us to a new prison.

1:12:13

That's, this is Camp Delta now.

1:12:16

Unfortunately, the Arabs in general,

1:12:19

they, sadly, they didn't want to hear about a new prison.

1:12:22

They had this notion in their head

1:12:29

that, you know, the American government

1:12:30

will realize that they made a mistake,

1:12:35

and they will soon transport them home.

1:12:37

So when there was this whole big mass movement of us,

1:12:40

I think we were 300 at the time,

1:12:44

we'd amassed from about 27 to 300,

1:12:45

you know, being moved into like empty cages

1:12:51

and then, you know, being transferred,

1:12:53

you know, you could see the hope in their eyes.

1:12:55

This was, this was their homecoming.

1:12:57

And you know, and I remember speaking to one of the Arabs,

1:13:00

trying to tell him, "Look, you know,

1:13:02

they're going to take us to a new prison."

1:13:05

He didn't want to hear it.

1:13:07

He didn't want to hear it.

1:13:08

He really wanted to believe that he was going home,

1:13:11

he was going home, and it was sad to see.

1:13:13

It was sad to see.

1:13:15

So obviously the transfer is the same thing.

1:13:16

The Marines, you know, search you.

1:13:19

They weren't supposed to touch the Quran,

1:13:24

I think Saiful Islam, you know,

1:13:27

the chaplain at that time,

1:13:31

told us they weren't gonna touch the Qurans, et cetera.

1:13:33

They touched the Quran, flicked through it,

1:13:35

you know, did it on purpose, you know.

1:13:37

Like the Marine, he did it on purpose,

1:13:40

'cause I know the Marine grabbed my Quran,

1:13:42

looked me in the eye, and flicked through it.

1:13:43

I looked back at him in the eye.

1:13:45

they had cameras there filming it.

1:13:46

I don't know what they've done with the footage.

1:13:48

They probably have it somewhere,

1:13:50

if they haven't done a CIA

1:13:51

and actually gone and got rid of it.

1:13:52

You know, look at his eyes and so forth at the camera.

1:13:56

'Cause I was looking at the Marine very, very sternly.

1:13:58

And then he gives me back my Quran.

1:14:01

And they put us in the bus, and it's the same thing.

1:14:03

So obviously you're bolted to the ground,

1:14:05

sitting cross-legged, you can't lean on anything.

1:14:06

You're sitting there.

1:14:09

The bus is just jolting forward and backwards,

1:14:10

so you're being, you're moving out position.

1:14:12

And then, you know, they're messing you up,

1:14:14

they're pushing you, hitting you and so forth.

1:14:16

I remember Asif Iqbal, he couldn't maintain the position.

1:14:18

So I hear him screaming, "I can't do this,"

1:14:21

and putting his legs out,

1:14:23

and then they're hitting him and so forth

1:14:24

because you know of his back.

1:14:25

He had a back problem, pain in his back, and et cetera.

1:14:27

So that's all, you know,

1:14:30

the same situation again, the mass movement.

1:14:31

And then they bring us to Camp Delta.

1:14:33

Obviously you're blindfolded, you know,

1:14:35

like blind goggled.

1:14:38

It's not an actual material, it's an actual goggle.

1:14:39

And then I was taken into the Charlie block,

1:14:42

and I was put like in the first cage.

1:14:45

Being there, I was put in my cage obviously.

1:14:50

You know, people being brought,

1:14:53

and we have a change of situations,

1:14:56

so new people being brought into the cage,

1:14:58

and they didn't keep the same set up as Camp X-ray.

1:15:00

Obviously I'm gonna give them greetings,

1:15:03

Islamic greetings, but you know,

1:15:04

the Arabs, they were just choked up.

1:15:08

You could see the tears in their eyes.

1:15:11

They were just, you know, they were sad.

1:15:13

You know, the Islamic greeting,

1:15:16

it's actually obligatory to reply.

1:15:18

They didn't reply, and I don't blame them.

1:15:20

Because they were, they couldn't take it.

1:15:22

They were hoping to go home, and that's what they saw.

1:15:24

Interviewer

Do you think

1:15:26

you didn't have the same feelings

1:15:27

'cause you understood what was going on?

1:15:28

-

You know, in Camp X-ray, I evaluated the situation.

1:15:33

And being from the West, I, you know,

1:15:36

I, you know, in Britain, et cetera,

1:15:38

I've never had any trouble with the police.

1:15:41

You know, like I'd never had before,

1:15:43

before Guantanamo, nothing.

1:15:44

I never had any trouble with police.

1:15:46

Obviously, I watched movies and so forth.

1:15:47

I know America has the Miranda rights

1:15:49

or something like that here.

1:15:51

You know, read you your rights and so forth.

1:15:52

So the way I was grabbed and et cetera,

1:15:54

I started putting things together.

1:15:57

I thought to myself, you know what?

1:15:59

These people don't have a clue where the Afghans,

1:16:01

'cause the Afghans lied to them, actually.

1:16:04

The Afghans said they found me

1:16:06

roaming around after curfew in Kandahar,

1:16:08

and they grabbed me

1:16:12

and then handed me over to the Americans.

1:16:13

When they know the true story is

1:16:15

they took me to the Pakistani border,

1:16:18

and then they said they were gonna take me to Herat,

1:16:22

and then that's why we ended up in Kandahar at night, yeah?

1:16:24

But they lied to them in that regard.

1:16:26

So the Americans, and they didn't have a clue

1:16:28

who I was, whether I was doing anything or what I was doing,

1:16:32

where, they don't have a clue.

1:16:35

Because it was the Afghans that got us.

1:16:37

And the Afghans would fleece you,

1:16:38

and they would take anything from you,

1:16:40

money, your watch, your whatever,

1:16:41

this, that, and the other, et cetera.

1:16:42

I don't even know what they passed on to Americans,

1:16:43

if they passed on anything.

1:16:45

So, you know, they don't have,

1:16:46

they don't know where you were caught.

1:16:49

So I thought to myself, you know what,

1:16:51

okay, my rights haven't been read to me.

1:16:53

They don't know where they got me.

1:16:55

The only way they're gonna, you know, justify having me

1:16:56

and then like, you know, like charging me

1:17:00

and then keeping me in prison for a long time,

1:17:02

they're gonna have to frame me.

1:17:03

That's what I thought.

1:17:05

And believe me, like from the beginning,

1:17:06

I thought to myself, you know,

1:17:08

I'm gonna be in Guantanamo for a long, long time.

1:17:09

That's it.

1:17:12

I'm gonna be, I'm not, there's no hope

1:17:12

of me leaving this place unless, you know, you escape,

1:17:14

or you know, you leave out of a body bag

1:17:17

or something like that, yeah.

1:17:19

I'm gonna be in this place for a long, long time.

1:17:21

And then as a young man, well, what can you do?

1:17:22

You can only just make the best of it as you can,

1:17:25

and try to live your life.

1:17:27

There were very few detainees who took that line.

1:17:28

The majority were, they'll languish in their cells

1:17:31

and wait to be released.

1:17:34

Interviewer

And why did you take that line,

1:17:36

and they didn't?

1:17:38

-

I guess because I understood that, you know,

1:17:40

the only way they were gonna keep us in prison

1:17:41

was to frame us, and they were definitely gonna frame us.

1:17:43

And I believed, you know, the American government

1:17:47

and the FBI and all the others,

1:17:50

the interrogators were gonna frame us.

1:17:51

Later on, I came, I thought to myself,

1:17:54

I came to realize that maybe no.

1:17:56

Because I was surprised by that.

1:17:57

This is later on, I started to realize

1:18:00

that, you know, the interrogators,

1:18:02

as much as they would all go toe the line,

1:18:04

they wouldn't put their behinds on the line.

1:18:07

And it would take, you know,

1:18:10

like an act of patriotism in a way,

1:18:13

for one of them to lie in so much

1:18:17

as put someone in prison because of that lie.

1:18:19

So they were covering their backs.

1:18:21

And that, basically I believe is what saved us

1:18:22

from being framed, at least, you know,

1:18:26

me in that situation.

1:18:29

I don't know what's happening now.

1:18:31

Interviewer

So do you think you had an advantage

1:18:33

that you knew English and you were from-

1:18:34

-

Of course, of course, of course.

1:18:36

They, how is an Arab,

1:18:38

Hicks is the one who's telling me this.

1:18:40

He got it from his interrogators.

1:18:42

I understand the system, in a way.

1:18:43

And you know, like, you know.

1:18:47

And you know, you kind of understand,

1:18:48

we're getting more information.

1:18:50

As an English speaker,

1:18:51

we're getting more information than the Arabs.

1:18:52

The Arabs are not getting any information

1:18:54

apart from themselves, you know?

1:18:55

And which is, you know, it's not helping them at all.

1:18:57

Interviewer

Were you getting information from guards,

1:19:01

or could you overhear the guards?

1:19:02

And did you get get any information that way?

1:19:04

-

The guards, in terms of how we're gonna be treated?

1:19:05

I think it was the interrogators.

1:19:12

'Cause it depends on whether a detainee

1:19:13

was in rapport with the interrogator.

1:19:15

Hicks was very, he had the military intelligence,

1:19:17

and I guess they told him some stuff.

1:19:20

And I remember it was Hicks

1:19:22

who was telling us about the new prison.

1:19:23

And I thought he was credible, you know,

1:19:25

that that was the likely scenario.

1:19:26

Obviously the Arabs, they don't.

1:19:30

First of all they, you know, they didn't want to hear it.

1:19:33

They just, it was a matter of like,

1:19:38

they didn't want to hear it.

1:19:39

I mean, there was, in Camp X-ray, one of the Arabs,

1:19:40

he said, 'cause he would speak a bit of English.

1:19:44

So he said, you know, he had a dream,

1:19:46

and the dream said tomorrow he was gonna be released

1:19:48

and so forth, et cetera.

1:19:52

Tomorrow came and he was watching the sunset

1:19:54

and it didn't happen, and he was miserable.

1:19:56

There was one time I was sitting in X-ray,

1:19:59

and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

1:20:01

I was standing there, and I looked around,

1:20:03

and I scanned the whole, you know, section Bravo.

1:20:05

Everyone was sleeping, in the daytime.

1:20:09

Everyone just like, I was wondering what's going on.

1:20:11

They just sleeping, like that.

1:20:14

Because it's like they,

1:20:16

like I said, you know, there was very few

1:20:18

who said, I'm gonna be here a long time,

1:20:20

I'm gonna make the best of it.

1:20:22

And the majority were, this is a mistake,

1:20:23

they'll realize the mistake, they're gonna release us soon.

1:20:26

So let me just sit and languish in my cell

1:20:28

until they release me.

1:20:30

And that's not a healthy thing to do in Guantanamo.

1:20:32

Interviewer

Shafiq Rasul said to us

1:20:37

that knowing English helped too,

1:20:39

when you could speak to the guards,

1:20:41

and sometimes, you know, the guards were nice to him too,

1:20:43

because he spoke English.

1:20:46

Did you have that experience?

1:20:47

-

Yeah, communication breaks down barriers.

1:20:50

So, I mean, if you can communicate...

1:20:52

Are we talking Camp, just general?

1:20:57

-

Yeah, generally.

1:21:00

-

General?

Yeah, if you could communicate, then you know...

1:21:01

First, you know, if they're doing something bad to you,

1:21:07

like you can't breathe or whatever,

1:21:09

you can say, "I can't breathe."

1:21:10

And then they might, they might show some,

1:21:12

if you want to call it mercy, upon you

1:21:13

because they understand your situation.

1:21:15

If you can't say that, then if you're wriggling,

1:21:17

they're probably taken in a bad way.

1:21:19

You know, it did help.

1:21:23

I think, you know, it really,

1:21:24

being British, speaking English,

1:21:26

meant that we got the better of the treatment

1:21:31

by default, by default.

1:21:36

And I really feel really sad for the Arabs,

1:21:38

'cause they would have, they just got it hard.

1:21:41

But you know, by just the fact that we're British

1:21:44

and we speak English and we can relate to the guards

1:21:47

and we can say when there's something wrong,

1:21:49

we can ask for something, and we can speak to them

1:21:50

and explain to them the situation.

1:21:53

And just by the fact of them speaking to us,

1:21:55

we can break down those barriers

1:21:57

and they can say, well, you know,

1:21:58

these guys are not so bad.

1:21:59

They're not just speaking a funny language.

1:22:00

And then, you know, like really,

1:22:02

they can't demonize us in the way they can demonize

1:22:04

an Arab or an Afghan or a Pakistani or so forth.

1:22:06

You know, that was an important factor.

1:22:09

And, but it's sad that it had to be,

1:22:12

it had to come down to that really.

1:22:13

Interviewer

Do you think you got

1:22:16

better medical care, too?

1:22:17

-

Okay, the thing is about both questions,

1:22:19

like for instance, speaking English and medical care,

1:22:21

there was, in Camp Delta...

1:22:24

I actually got sick of speaking to the guards.

1:22:29

Like, you know, it's, they just got on my nerves.

1:22:31

I didn't want to actually speak to them.

1:22:34

So for a long time, I was pretending I was Arab. (laughs)

1:22:35

So when I'd ask, I would speak to them in Arabic,

1:22:39

as best as I could, but they didn't know Arabic.

1:22:42

So they couldn't realize the faults in my language.

1:22:44

And so when I asked for something,

1:22:47

I would just say it in Arabic,

1:22:47

or like, you know, point and whatever, like the Arabs.

1:22:48

And medical care, I made very sure,

1:22:52

as best as I could not ask for medical care.

1:22:56

I stayed away from that.

1:22:59

-

Why?

-

Because, you know, that's where they get you.

1:23:03

They will use that against you.

1:23:06

And there came a period of time in Camp Delta

1:23:08

when the interrogators were given free reign of our welfare

1:23:13

in the sense that whatever you had in,

1:23:18

they had control of your condition.

1:23:20

And therefore, if you needed medical care,

1:23:22

you had to go to your interrogator

1:23:24

and then speak to them and ask them

1:23:26

and then they would get you medical care.

1:23:27

And if you wanted to write letters to your family,

1:23:28

you had to go to your interrogator.

1:23:30

If you, you know, like you're missing something

1:23:32

in your cell, like for instance you wanted a blanket

1:23:34

or something like that, you had to go to your interrogator

1:23:37

and speak to them, everything was through the interrogators.

1:23:38

And that was a way of leveraging people to talk.

1:23:41

And it wasn't just like talking, just generally talking.

1:23:45

You know, they were trying to extract confessions.

1:23:48

They were really, they were treating people really badly.

1:23:51

There was a time in Camp Delta

1:23:53

when they were putting pressure on people

1:23:55

to extract confessions.

1:23:56

Interviewer

And so you just

1:24:00

wouldn't ask for any medical treatment?

1:24:01

-

I stayed away, I stayed away.

1:24:04

They were, they had this thing about,

1:24:05

the only medical treatment I got in Camp Delta willingly,

1:24:06

not even willingly, they said, you know, I had TB.

1:24:10

The thing is, in Britain you have,

1:24:13

they call them BCG shots when you're young.

1:24:14

And you have them like when you're young,

1:24:17

and I think you have them maybe twice.

1:24:18

Some people only have them once.

1:24:19

Any TB tests will show positive because of the shots,

1:24:22

because it's an immunization shot.

1:24:26

So when they, in Camp X-ray, they did that TB test.

1:24:27

And then it showed up positive, because of the BCG.

1:24:30

I wouldn't be a threat, because of the immunization shot,

1:24:33

I wouldn't have got TB, but because it showed positive,

1:24:36

then they wanted to give me some pills.

1:24:38

I didn't know that, like you know, I didn't know

1:24:41

because you had the BCG, it shows positive on a TB test.

1:24:43

So, you know, so I started taking the pills.

1:24:47

And I thought to myself, you know what,

1:24:50

I don't want to take the pills.

1:24:52

So it was only a few.

1:24:53

Like maybe a few times I took the pills, and then I stopped.

1:24:55

And then in the whole time Camp Delta,

1:24:58

I stayed away from that,

1:25:02

because that was a way they could get you.

1:25:04

And, you know, they could really use that against you.

1:25:06

And I made sure of those two things.

1:25:08

I didn't speak English to the guards,

1:25:10

and medical care I kept away from.

1:25:12

Interviewer

And you didn't see a dentist either, then?

1:25:15

-

No, I, (laughs)

1:25:18

that's another thing of being from the West.

1:25:20

The Arabs didn't know how to use a toothbrush,

1:25:23

because it was weird,

1:25:26

they don't use, I don't know why,

1:25:29

but, 'cause I don't know Arab culture too much.

1:25:30

They have a different way of, you know,

1:25:33

dental care and so forth.

1:25:35

And toothpaste was, some of them found it difficult

1:25:36

with toothpaste because they couldn't,

1:25:39

they couldn't hold the toothpaste in their mouth.

1:25:42

So this seems to be one of those Western kind of,

1:25:44

I don't know, (laughs) one of our peculiarities

1:25:47

that we can actually hold the toothpaste

1:25:50

in our mouth while we're brushing.

1:25:51

I was fine with it, I was fine with that.

1:25:53

And when they changed the toothbrush to a little finger one,

1:25:54

I still, because there was,

1:25:57

before, in Camp X-ray they had a normal toothbrush.

1:25:59

But they had snapped it.

1:26:02

So it was shorter, the handle.

1:26:03

'Cause they said it was a weapon.

1:26:04

Then they decided without it,

1:26:05

that can still be used as a weapon,

1:26:06

so they give you one that goes on the finger

1:26:08

and it just has bristles and it's just plastic.

1:26:10

So I was fine using it, and I could use it well.

1:26:12

The Arabs, you know, in general, they,

1:26:17

first of all, they weren't used to it, I think.

1:26:21

Or some of them weren't used to it.

1:26:24

At least I know one of the Russians, Russian detainees,

1:26:25

he couldn't do it, he wasn't used to using it.

1:26:29

So it would dribble out of his mouth.

1:26:31

And then the second thing was,

1:26:33

they didn't know what was in the toothpaste.

1:26:35

So they said maybe it's not lawful

1:26:36

to swallow or something like that.

1:26:39

So they kept away from it.

1:26:40

I'm from the West, I've used toothpaste before.

1:26:42

So you know, that was fine.

1:26:44

So no, in terms of dental care,

1:26:46

no, I didn't need dental care, no.

1:26:49

Interviewer

And were you ever put in isolation?

1:26:52

-

Yeah, okay.

1:26:54

Isolation, I was isolated about...

1:26:58

This is MSU, yeah, a maximum security unit.

1:27:01

Even though the whole of Guantanamo is maximum security,

1:27:03

but they have MSU, maximum security unit,

1:27:06

which is disciplinary isolation in the actual Camp Delta.

1:27:08

I was there three times, I think.

1:27:12

Interviewer

For what reasons?

1:27:16

-

Was it three or four?

1:27:18

Okay, I'll go through them.

1:27:19

Okay, they brought us,

1:27:21

they brought me to Charlie, Charlie block.

1:27:22

And I was in Charlie one.

1:27:24

I decided to take my sheet

1:27:27

and wrap it around my head like a turban. (laughs)

1:27:30

-

They took offense. (laughs)

1:27:34

They took. (laughs)

1:27:37

Interviewer

What was your purpose?

1:27:38

-

Huh?

1:27:39

-

What was your purpose?

-

One of detainees said the Prophet Muhammad,

1:27:42

he wore a turban, like, he wore a turban.

1:27:44

So, you know, in our religion,

1:27:48

if you emulate Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

1:27:49

then you get rewarded for it.

1:27:51

So if you see, you're in a situation

1:27:53

where, you know, we're just in a cage and so forth,

1:27:54

and you can't really do much.

1:27:56

So I thought to myself, you know what, let me,

1:27:57

I've got a sheet here I'm not really using,

1:27:59

so let me use it as a turban.

1:28:01

So I wrapped it around my head as a turban

1:28:02

in emulation of the Prophet

1:28:04

Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

1:28:05

They took offense to it.

1:28:06

I think I gave him words.

1:28:09

'Cause I said, you know, I'm not gonna, you know,

1:28:10

you don't tell me what...

1:28:12

You spend a lot of time in a cage.

1:28:14

So, you know, (laughs)

1:28:16

you've got to pass your time somehow.

1:28:18

And sometimes you do crazy things.

1:28:20

I mean, for instance,

1:28:21

I don't think Asif will mind you telling this,

1:28:23

Asif and Juma, 'cause they,

1:28:25

I was in Charlie one and then Shafiq was Charlie two.

1:28:26

I think Asif was three, and then Juma Al Dossari was four.

1:28:32

Now, Asif and Juma, they got on pretty well,

1:28:36

but sometimes they get into little arguments and stuff.

1:28:41

So they were going a bit wacky,

1:28:43

so they would throw water at each other.

1:28:44

They, at that time on the toilets, we had canvases,

1:28:47

like canvas strips to put on the toilet

1:28:52

because it was just a floor toilet.

1:28:55

So I guess they were,

1:28:56

you know, it was a new prison.

1:28:58

So they were being reasonable in a way.

1:28:59

Obviously, that canvas,

1:29:02

Asif and Juma didn't put it on the toilet.

1:29:04

When they got it, they put it

1:29:06

and they made it into a bandana.

1:29:07

Then they upgraded their headgear.

1:29:09

And what else did they put on their head?

1:29:11

Then they took their shorts,

1:29:15

and they put their shorts on their head.

1:29:17

Like jester's hats, and then they would, like that.

1:29:18

So obviously you've got a lot of time on your hands,

1:29:20

and there's not much to do.

1:29:22

I decided to do the turban thing.

1:29:24

The guard said, "Take it off."

1:29:26

I gave him some words.

1:29:27

So he put me in isolation, India block.

1:29:28

So I was in isolation for a few days.

1:29:31

That was the first time.

1:29:32

You know, isolation is not good.

1:29:36

The thing is with me, if I,

1:29:39

the more I get isolated,

1:29:41

the more I become just within myself.

1:29:43

I become very quiet, I don't want to speak,

1:29:46

even to the other detainees.

1:29:47

It's just, so isolation wasn't good.

1:29:48

It's just kind of, I don't know.

1:29:51

It just affects me in that way.

1:29:52

Then the other time I was-

1:29:55

Interviewer

Did you have the Quran

1:29:58

while you were in isolation?

1:29:59

-

No, I think, I think...

1:30:02

No, I don't remember having it in, no.

1:30:06

Because isolation is just like, you're being punished.

1:30:08

So, you know, they take your things away.

1:30:12

They take your,

1:30:14

what they call comfort items.

1:30:14

-

Comfort items.

-

Of course, I call them essentials.

1:30:16

They're not comfort items.

1:30:17

They, you know, the wordage they try to use is, anyway.

1:30:19

So you would just, we just had the Isomat,

1:30:24

and they might give you a blanket when it's time to sleep.

1:30:27

But then, they have the AC, what they call the AC,

1:30:30

which is really for punishment, on high.

1:30:32

So you're freezing all the time.

1:30:34

Like that, but I wouldn't have had, you know, no.

1:30:37

I think the Quran would have been in a black plastic bag

1:30:40

with the rest of my stuff, which they'll keep on the side,

1:30:44

when they take you from the, you know, MSU.

1:30:46

Now, the second time I was in MSU...

1:30:51

The second time was because the detainees,

1:30:58

over a period of time, they've come to the conclusion

1:31:03

that the Qurans are being used against us.

1:31:06

The interrogators are using the Qurans against us.

1:31:08

So it became like a, this was the situation

1:31:10

where the interrogators have control of our welfare.

1:31:13

So it became like, just that like,

1:31:15

like a plastic cup or you know, like,

1:31:16

you know, what they call the comfort items.

1:31:19

So we said we were gonna give them back.

1:31:23

And then they wouldn't accept them back.

1:31:26

I took the policy of taking the English Arabic translation

1:31:29

because technically it's not a Quran, it's a tafsir.

1:31:33

It depends on, you know, like,

1:31:37

I won't go into the details.

1:31:40

But an English Arabic one was not a Quran.

1:31:41

It's a tafsir, meaning the explanation

1:31:44

of the meaning of the Quran.

1:31:47

And it doesn't have the same rules as a Quran,

1:31:48

because of the fact of this desecration of the Quran.

1:31:50

So I didn't take the full Arabic one in that regard.

1:31:53

So I tried to get around it that way.

1:31:56

But what happened was that the detainees decided

1:31:59

that you know, they weren't gonna flick through the Qurans,

1:32:04

because that's a desecration in itself,

1:32:08

before they go for recreation.

1:32:09

So, you know, the policy was, from the general I guess,

1:32:11

was that then you can't go to recreation.

1:32:15

So the detainees said, we're fine.

1:32:17

We'll stay in our cells.

1:32:18

And then the policy comes that you have to go to recreation.

1:32:19

It's mandatory to go to recreation.

1:32:23

Even if you, they call it touch base,

1:32:25

so you put one foot in the rec yard

1:32:27

and then they take you back, but you have to go.

1:32:28

So if you're sick, you have to go.

1:32:30

If you, whatever, you have to go.

1:32:31

And when one of the detainees was taken out,

1:32:34

then one of the senior kind of officers, et cetera, came.

1:32:38

And then he decided to flick through the Quran,

1:32:42

which meant that the whole block decided to scream about it,

1:32:44

and then, you know, like shout about it

1:32:48

and you know, like kick up a fuss.

1:32:49

I was there shouting, "Hitler is your leader,

1:32:52

you Nazis, religious persecutors."

1:32:55

And then after they kind of,

1:32:57

after they pepper sprayed a lot of people,

1:33:01

unnerved them, you know,

1:33:04

they took them and me into isolation.

1:33:06

So that was another reason for isolation.

1:33:08

When I was in isolation at that time,

1:33:10

one of the senior officers comes and says something

1:33:11

like, you know, "You effing get over here."

1:33:14

So I said to him, "Who do you think you're talking to?"

1:33:16

And then that landed me another three days. (laughs)

1:33:18

So that was another time I was in isolation.

1:33:22

The other time was because the MI5 agent decided

1:33:25

that he wanted to break fast with me.

1:33:28

So he told them to put me in an air conditioned room,

1:33:30

blah, blah, blah, somewhere separate

1:33:32

from the other detainees.

1:33:34

And then said that I'll be brought back,

1:33:38

when it's time to break fast, they can break fast with me.

1:33:40

They decided to put me in isolation.

1:33:43

And then the last time I remember,

1:33:45

they put me in isolation but this time with all my stuff.

1:33:46

I hadn't done anything,

1:33:50

but that was before taking me to Camp Echo.

1:33:51

But they put me in isolation with all my stuff,

1:33:54

which was very strange,

1:33:57

'cause the soldiers didn't understand.

1:33:58

I'm a level whatever four, but in isolation.

1:34:00

Like you know, not level four.

1:34:03

I think whatever level I was,

1:34:04

I can't remember the levels now.

1:34:06

But I had my stuff, but I was put in isolation,

1:34:07

which was very strange for them,

1:34:10

'cause you know, you go to isolation for punishment.

1:34:11

And then, but that was in preparation

1:34:13

for going to Camp Echo.

1:34:14

Interviewer

And why were you going to Camp Echo?

1:34:18

-

Okay, well that's, (laughs)

1:34:21

that's a long, long, long story.

1:34:24

The FBI, okay, interrogators

1:34:29

in Camp X-ray, like I said, in Camp X-ray,

1:34:35

there was, you know, they were going,

1:34:37

I told them my story, et cetera.

1:34:39

I was truthful, did not lie.

1:34:41

I didn't have anything to lie about,

1:34:43

nothing, you know, I was truthful.

1:34:44

They were going with it in a way

1:34:46

that I didn't like them to go with it.

1:34:48

So they thought that if they just, in Camp X-ray,

1:34:51

if they just, you know, stopped the interrogations,

1:34:54

I'll start getting worried.

1:34:56

I wasn't worried.

1:34:59

You know, like I'll be eager.

1:35:00

But in Camp Delta, after a month

1:35:02

they pulled me into interrogation,

1:35:04

and I don't know,

1:35:05

they thought I'd be in tears maybe,

1:35:07

and begging them or something like that.

1:35:08

And they decided, you know,

1:35:09

that that will make me compliant.

1:35:11

It didn't work.

1:35:13

And the situation worsened,

1:35:14

because at some point in Camp Delta

1:35:16

it was the second hunger strike.

1:35:18

It was, part of the second hunger strike

1:35:20

was to hunger strike and not to talk,

1:35:22

not to talk in interrogation.

1:35:23

The guy next to me convinced me (laughs)

1:35:26

I should go for it.

1:35:28

So I decided I would.

1:35:30

They took me into interrogation.

1:35:32

They realized that the situation's getting worse,

1:35:34

and now this guy's not even talking to us.

1:35:36

Beforehand, I was asking for lawyers.

1:35:38

So I was saying to them, "I want my legal representation.

1:35:40

If you want me to talk about my case,

1:35:43

I'm fine with it, just give me legal representation."

1:35:44

They were happy I was just talking about general stuff.

1:35:47

But now I'm just not talking to them, blank.

1:35:50

So they saw the situation worsening.

1:35:53

One of them, you like to give names, or is it,

1:35:56

yeah?

1:36:00

-

Sure.

-

WJ Corbett.

1:36:01

It was WJ Corbett and Robert Iorio,

1:36:02

I-O-R-I-O, yeah.

1:36:05

-

How do you know their names?

-

WJ Corbett, I mean, he showed me his badge.

1:36:09

But you know how they flash it?

1:36:11

'Cause I said to him, you know,

1:36:12

"You people don't even give me real names."

1:36:14

And then he flashed it.

1:36:15

But if I remember right, I think it's,

1:36:16

you know, that these were the two,

1:36:18

WJ Corbett and Robert Iorio,

1:36:21

that were the main FBI interrogators in Camp X-ray.

1:36:24

And then they had their own agenda.

1:36:28

Let's just say their agenda was supposedly,

1:36:32

I'm supposed to be some co-operative witness

1:36:35

or something in that regard.

1:36:38

So that's the reason why in Camp X-ray

1:36:39

I rejected, you know, their proposal.

1:36:41

And actually, I had to think of a way

1:36:44

of getting them off my back.

1:36:46

So I thought, I was told I was sold for 30,000.

1:36:47

So let me tell them, I want $6,000.

1:36:52

I want, I just thought of things like off my head,

1:36:54

like just to get them off my back.

1:36:56

I want $30,000, immunity from prosecution, and a green card.

1:36:59

That's what I was. (laughs)

1:37:03

I didn't even know what this green card was, (laughs)

1:37:04

but that's what I said.

1:37:07

So that, obviously they thought this guy, yeah,

1:37:08

we treated him too nice, we told him our plan,

1:37:10

and now he's just, he's become greedy.

1:37:12

So we're gonna just, you know, shut him up

1:37:14

and shut him off for a while, and in that regard.

1:37:17

WJ Corbett, he seemed to become the model,

1:37:22

he was still there when we got transferred to Camp Delta.

1:37:25

A few interrogations with him, you know,

1:37:29

his jovial, you know very happy self,

1:37:31

seemed to kind of just become deflated.

1:37:34

I think he realized what the situation was,

1:37:36

and you know, how things were going.

1:37:39

And his idealism kind of just went.

1:37:41

I didn't really hear much from him after, for awhile.

1:37:44

Robert Iorio, which, he's a guy.

1:37:46

If you look him up, I've looked him up on Google.

1:37:49

And I don't know whether it's the same guy,

1:37:51

but I think it's the NCIF, that's the Naval whatever,

1:37:53

whatever NCIF, there is a PDF

1:37:57

of an indictment about a drugs charge,

1:38:01

someone, they did this kind of drugs charge.

1:38:04

It's on the internet.

1:38:07

Interviewer

Could you spell his last name again?

1:38:09

-

I-O-R-I-O.

1:38:10

And I looked it up,

1:38:15

and I don't know whether it's the same guy,

1:38:16

but it's the same name from the same organization.

1:38:18

The, I can't remember, the NCIF, the Navy,

1:38:21

Navy whatever, I know I have it in my notes.

1:38:25

I wrote it down, so I knew it then.

1:38:27

Same thing, and that indictment's about 1994,

1:38:29

like the 1990s, mid.

1:38:32

So it's kind of like pretty old, but it is on the internet.

1:38:34

So I don't know whether it's the same guy.

1:38:37

But he wouldn't let the thing go.

1:38:38

So I think he pushed for me

1:38:41

to be the first to go up for a military commissions.

1:38:46

And he said he was taking a chance here.

1:38:50

And this is what happened in Camp Echo.

1:38:55

So if you want me to jump forward to Camp Echo?

1:38:56

Interviewer

Sure, if that's okay.

1:38:59

-

If it's okay?

1:39:01

-

Yeah.

-

Okay, let me, okay.

1:39:02

Let me just do a quick one.

1:39:03

They put me in, okay.

1:39:05

The first thing happening, like I'm in Mike block, I think.

1:39:07

And this is 2003,

1:39:11

before Iraq was attacked.

1:39:18

Because later on, I found out that the date

1:39:20

that they took me to Camp Echo

1:39:23

was the same date that Iraq was attacked.

1:39:25

Yeah, like you know,

1:39:29

that's the beginning of the conflict, et cetera.

1:39:30

Later on I realized that the date sticks in my head.

1:39:32

Before they did that, I'm in Mike,

1:39:36

and they took me to the medical.

1:39:38

I didn't ask for medical intervention or nothing,

1:39:40

but they took me to the medical facility on the base.

1:39:43

And then they did an x-ray,

1:39:48

and I think it was a chest x-ray.

1:39:49

So that was weird.

1:39:51

And then later they take me out of Mike

1:39:53

and out of the actual Guantanamo Bay, the prison.

1:39:56

And they took me like, dude,

1:40:01

I didn't even know that that existed.

1:40:03

They took me to the hospital.

1:40:05

So they actually took me to, you know,

1:40:07

like the civilian part, I don't know what it is,

1:40:08

but I could see that.

1:40:10

-

On base?

-

Yeah, like they took me off, out of,

1:40:13

'cause you say Guantanamo Bay,

1:40:15

but Guantanamo Bay is an area.

1:40:17

It's not just a prison, like that.

1:40:18

They took me out of that prison,

1:40:19

and then they took me to the civilian area.

1:40:21

I could see roads.

1:40:23

I could see like, you know, just,

1:40:24

you know, like maybe shops or something like that.

1:40:26

High rise buildings, so forth.

1:40:27

And they took me to the hospital,

1:40:28

and they gave me a CAT scan.

1:40:30

So this-

1:40:33

-

What were they looking for?

-

They don't tell me, they don't tell me.

1:40:34

So I asked them, this is, what's going on?

1:40:36

This is weird.

1:40:38

And they actually took me out of the prison itself.

1:40:39

And then they bring me back.

1:40:41

Then I'm in isolation with my stuff.

1:40:42

And it was from there that it took me to Camp Echo.

1:40:46

Now I thought when they took, brought me to Camp Echo,

1:40:48

they brought me there because their, you know,

1:40:51

medical intervention showed up something.

1:40:55

So this was like a holding facility

1:40:56

for something, maybe the TB or something like that

1:40:58

was active or something like that, in that regard.

1:41:02

Robert Iorio, he comes to visit

1:41:07

with another interrogator who called himself,

1:41:10

they would give false names,

1:41:14

so he called himself Gregory Highland.

1:41:15

He supposedly had Scottish roots, so whatever.

1:41:18

And his favorite movie was Scottish or something.

1:41:21

I don't know.

1:41:23

And Robert Iorio said that, you know,

1:41:25

here, being Camp Echo, can be like a short holiday stay

1:41:29

or it can be like for a long time.

1:41:33

And, you know, I think he was the one who pushed

1:41:36

for me to be offered a military commissions, to go up first.

1:41:38

And I guess it's just in connection with them

1:41:42

wanting me to be a co-operative witness in that regard.

1:41:44

And then he said, "Because I gave you a promise a year ago."

1:41:49

I don't know, I don't even remember the promise. (laughs)

1:41:53

"I promised you a year ago that, you know,

1:41:55

I think you'd be out of Guantanamo.

1:41:57

You know, this is me coming back to fulfill my promise."

1:42:00

At that time I'd sick of them.

1:42:04

I wasn't even talking, I wasn't even talking to them,

1:42:05

and I just blanked them.

1:42:08

And then, you know, he just,

1:42:09

he came for a few days over there

1:42:10

and he showed, you know, they had their movies, DVDs,

1:42:12

which I wasn't watching.

1:42:15

And then there was one about fishing,

1:42:17

and then he made me sit through it

1:42:19

just for one scene, one scene where the guy says,

1:42:23

you know, "You have to help someone,

1:42:26

even if they don't want that help."

1:42:28

That's it, that was the whole thing.

1:42:29

That was supposed to get me in my heart.

1:42:31

And I was supposed to break down in tears

1:42:33

and so forth, et cetera, so this is his big thing.

1:42:35

And then some nonsense about him,

1:42:38

he became more religious and he's going to church more now.

1:42:40

And he saw a dream where he's gonna give me a prayer mat.

1:42:43

So (laughs) he dumps it on my lap.

1:42:49

I thought it was some furry animal,

1:42:52

because I wasn't looking, (laughs)

1:42:53

and I was about to freak out.

1:42:55

And then I realized it is a prayer mat,

1:42:57

because prayer mats have these kind of frills

1:42:58

or something like, so. (laughs)

1:43:00

I didn't actually look at it

1:43:01

when he dumped it on my, and you know,

1:43:03

so he supposedly had a dream where he gives me a prayer mat.

1:43:04

And then he was pushing for me to go,

1:43:07

to be the first for the military commissions.

1:43:09

'Cause I guess that was leverage for me

1:43:11

to become a co-operative witness,

1:43:13

and then for them to have their way.

1:43:14

Like I said, WJ Corbett seemed to just kind of left the idea

1:43:16

and probably left the island a long time ago.

1:43:20

Robert Iorio, I think he was looking for,

1:43:21

you know, like, you call them glory hounds?

1:43:24

You call them glory seekers.

1:43:28

I think he was looking for his big break,

1:43:30

you know, like and I was supposed to be

1:43:33

that big break for him.

1:43:35

Interviewer

So when you didn't play the game,

1:43:37

you were moved back out of Echo, or did they keep you?

1:43:40

-

No, no.

1:43:42

-

They kept you there?

-

Oh, I,

1:43:44

how much time do we have?

1:43:49

Interviewer

I think we should stop for a moment

1:43:50

to change a card.

1:43:51

-

Yeah, we should change.

Interviewer

We just have to change a card, but.

1:43:54

Man

Okay, we're good.

1:43:56

Interviewer

Okay, so in Camp Echo,

1:43:58

you said you were there for a while?

1:44:01

-

Okay, Camp Echo, yeah.

1:44:02

So I must have stayed one year in Camp X-ray and Delta.

1:44:04

I remember the anniversary, one year anniversary.

1:44:10

I was in isolation (laughs) in Camp Delta.

1:44:13

So that was my one year anniversary.

1:44:16

I can't remember what the reason was

1:44:18

for me being in isolation, but yeah.

1:44:20

So the whole time I was there was three years.

1:44:23

So it's, let's say it was two years that I was in Camp Echo.

1:44:28

Interviewer

And was it better in Camp Echo?

1:44:33

Is that what you're saying?

1:44:36

-

Camp Echo was a nightmare.

1:44:37

Interviewer

Because?

1:44:39

-

It was a real nightmare.

1:44:40

I could deal with Camp X-ray.

1:44:41

I could deal with Camp Delta.

1:44:43

But Camp Echo was a nightmare.

1:44:47

Okay, how to put it?

1:44:51

Okay, first of all, the situation is there's only one cell.

1:44:54

It's within a building.

1:44:57

There are no windows.

1:45:02

And the guards, there's two guards.

1:45:05

You know, at least one would be there all the time.

1:45:08

And basically, you know, going from population,

1:45:13

not speaking Arabic, sorry, English to the guards.

1:45:18

And you know, just speaking like Arabic

1:45:21

when you want to ask him for something,

1:45:22

not being under that much attention.

1:45:23

All of a sudden you're the center of attention right now,

1:45:26

everything you do.

1:45:29

Because I, I think I was actually probably

1:45:30

one of the first to go into Camp Echo,

1:45:34

'cause they expanded Camp Echo.

1:45:36

But right now, I believe it was just only two buildings

1:45:38

or just maybe more, when I was brought there.

1:45:42

And later I learned,

1:45:46

Mozhan Beck was taken into the other building.

1:45:47

And he was there, like you know,

1:45:50

they brought him straight there.

1:45:52

Interviewer

So you were really in,

1:45:55

that's really isolation.

1:45:56

-

That's really isolation.

Because right now, you know, you're in the cell on your own.

1:45:58

And then like, there's this enmity.

1:46:00

And then the guards, they weren't shy

1:46:02

about showing their enmity.

1:46:05

They really weren't.

1:46:07

First of all, like the first two weeks,

1:46:08

they take every day, I think it was every day,

1:46:10

that the corpsman, this is,

1:46:14

I did my best to stay away from these medical people.

1:46:18

All of a sudden, for two weeks,

1:46:22

they're taking my blood pressure or heart rate, et cetera.

1:46:23

Every day they're checking it.

1:46:27

And I'm wondering why.

1:46:28

I'm wondering why.

1:46:30

I'm getting worried there's stuff being put in my food.

1:46:31

Because when you're in population, you know,

1:46:33

they can't slip drugs and so forth in your food and so forth

1:46:36

because, you know, they just hand it out, et cetera.

1:46:38

Now it's, you know, specifically,

1:46:41

I'm specifically targeted in that way.

1:46:43

The soldiers, they have this idea

1:46:47

that, you know, because I'm up for the military commissions

1:46:49

and so forth, I must be Al Qaeda or something like that.

1:46:52

So it was, they're showing enmity.

1:46:56

And you know, it was a really bad situation.

1:46:58

Really bad situation.

1:47:00

When I got there, I believe, you know,

1:47:01

like when you're a detainee,

1:47:03

you've got to like work with minimal information.

1:47:08

You know, you don't know what's going,

1:47:13

happening around you.

1:47:14

But I believe they injected me with something there

1:47:16

that made me go, you know, like crazy in a way.

1:47:20

And you know, I really believe it for a number of reasons.

1:47:23

One reason is that when you're talking in interrogation,

1:47:28

you're just talking about general stuff.

1:47:31

So, you know,

1:47:32

you don't think that, you know, there's a malicious intent

1:47:35

by the people that you're talking to.

1:47:37

It's only later on you learn that, you know,

1:47:39

they're using what you're saying against you.

1:47:41

I remember them asking me, you know,

1:47:44

like the situation, you know, it must be bad.

1:47:45

It must be a bad situation.

1:47:48

And I said, no.

1:47:49

I said, you know, like, you know,

1:47:50

"This situation is bad, but you know,

1:47:51

the worst time of my life was my teenage years."

1:47:54

So that was worse than Guantanamo.

1:47:56

I mean, yeah, it was worse than Guantanamo, seriously.

1:47:57

And they said, "Why?"

1:48:00

Because they expected me to say to, you know,

1:48:01

"This is the worst time in my life.

1:48:02

I never, like this, yeah."

1:48:03

And I said, "I don't know,

1:48:05

maybe because of the testosterone."

1:48:06

And I think they caught on to that, you know,

1:48:08

like they caught into that.

1:48:10

And then that was,

1:48:11

that was kind of like a leveraging thing.

1:48:12

You know, as you do, men, medically,

1:48:16

some men might be embarrassed by this,

1:48:19

but you're supposed to check yourself,

1:48:20

you know, et cetera,

1:48:22

so that there's nothing growing

1:48:24

or whatever cancer and so forth,

1:48:25

on your genitals and so forth, for health reasons.

1:48:26

I remember specifically checking,

1:48:29

'cause I was isolated at that time,

1:48:31

checking, you know, like you know, myself obviously.

1:48:33

Obviously I was worried that in Guantanamo,

1:48:35

something's gonna happen to me.

1:48:37

And like, you know, for instance, medically.

1:48:38

You know, you worry about those things

1:48:41

because you have to, you know,

1:48:42

you have to, you don't want to go to them.

1:48:43

So, you know, in that regard.

1:48:46

In Camp Echo, there was this thing

1:48:50

about, okay, it's time for your immunization shots.

1:48:52

They gave us shots, immunization shots,

1:48:54

like, I don't know how regularly,

1:48:55

maybe four to six months,

1:48:57

every four to six months immunization shots.

1:48:58

So it wasn't something,

1:49:00

and if you refuse, they'll IRF you

1:49:01

and they'll give it to you anyway.

1:49:02

So it's something regular.

1:49:03

But two weeks after the immunization shots,

1:49:04

all of a sudden there's a cyst on my testicle.

1:49:07

There's a growth on my testicle, like that.

1:49:10

Now I'm figuring out,

1:49:13

now I could have thought to myself, you know what,

1:49:14

you know, like it's been there for a long time, et cetera.

1:49:16

But because I'd check myself beforehand,

1:49:19

you know, like so all of a sudden now,

1:49:21

between being in isolation and being in Camp Echo,

1:49:22

there's this growth on my testicle.

1:49:25

Then I start to have panic attacks.

1:49:27

Panic attacks, as though something in my cell

1:49:31

is attacking me, and I start to defend myself.

1:49:34

Now, this is very strange for me,

1:49:36

because I'm the type of person that, okay,

1:49:37

no one can deal with isolation,

1:49:40

but some people can do with isolation better than others.

1:49:41

And you know, I'm a person who can,

1:49:43

you know, I'm not very talkative

1:49:45

in the sense that I'm one of those people

1:49:48

that needs to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk talk.

1:49:49

You know, I can be quiet

1:49:52

for long periods of time and so forth.

1:49:53

But the cell there was affecting me in that way.

1:49:54

And I don't know why, but it came to the point,

1:49:57

after like maybe a month of that injection,

1:49:59

then I started to have panic attacks,

1:50:02

like something is attacking me and I have to defend myself.

1:50:03

You know, strange things were happening,

1:50:06

like thoughts in my head that weren't my own.

1:50:09

And I could distinguish,

1:50:11

because there was me, my rational thoughts,

1:50:12

and there was other thoughts

1:50:14

that were just coming into my head,

1:50:16

emotions that I felt they were just dislocated from myself,

1:50:17

in that regard.

1:50:22

When, you know, the doctor,

1:50:24

she would come, I don't know,

1:50:26

like every week maybe or something like that.

1:50:27

When the doctor, 'cause I had a panic attack,

1:50:29

and you know, it was this panic attack,

1:50:32

like you know, I was sleeping.

1:50:33

All of a sudden I felt something was attacking me.

1:50:36

I defended myself, and there was nothing there.

1:50:39

But rationally, I could rationalize.

1:50:41

I could think to myself, well, there's nothing there.

1:50:43

So why are you doing this?

1:50:45

But I didn't have control of my body.

1:50:46

It was just, I was just defending.

1:50:48

There was a kind of, kind of like a survival response.

1:50:49

I didn't say anything to the doctor,

1:50:55

because I'm thinking to myself, you know,

1:50:57

these people will have set me up,

1:50:58

they're giving me injections to unhinge my sanity.

1:50:59

This is it, this is the big frame-up, you know,

1:51:03

this is how they're gonna get out of this situation, yeah?

1:51:06

They've incarcerated me without any evidence.

1:51:08

I'm an innocent man.

1:51:11

They want to save face,

1:51:12

and they're gonna do it by taking away my sanity.

1:51:14

So I didn't want to say anything to the doctor,

1:51:17

the same doctor who gave me these injections.

1:51:18

Obviously the MPs there, they'd seen,

1:51:21

they had seen the panic attack.

1:51:24

The doctor came, asked, do I need medical treatment or not?

1:51:26

I said, "No, no, I'm fine," and et cetera.

1:51:29

The MP pulls her aside and says,

1:51:32

you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:51:33

"He had a panic attack."

1:51:35

She comes running back, says,

1:51:36

"Oh, by the way I didn't tell you,

1:51:38

you got to have another immunization shot.

1:51:40

Now this is very strange, because the period of time

1:51:43

between one immunization shot and another

1:51:45

would at least be four months.

1:51:48

Now this is like maybe a month.

1:51:49

So that's very strange to me,

1:51:51

like you know, all of a sudden, immunization shots.

1:51:53

And the doctor was walking away.

1:51:55

And when she was told that,

1:51:56

all of a sudden she starts to tell me,

1:51:58

runs back and says, "Oh, in the next day

1:51:59

you're gonna have immunization shots."

1:52:02

So I'm thinking, okay, right.

1:52:03

This is minimal information I've got,

1:52:04

but you know, if they gave me another shot,

1:52:06

I'm gone, that's finished, that's my sanity gone,

1:52:08

I got to preserve my sanity.

1:52:11

So she comes back that night,

1:52:13

not the next day, that night.

1:52:15

She comes back and she tells me,

1:52:18

whatever she told me she's gonna give me,

1:52:19

wasn't the same thing that she told me in the morning.

1:52:21

Okay?

1:52:24

So she doesn't even know what I'm scheduled for.

1:52:24

Like she doesn't,

1:52:26

she doesn't know what she told me.

1:52:27

Like, you know, in that morning, whatever,

1:52:29

she told me one thing.

1:52:31

And then that night she tells me another thing.

1:52:32

So I said no.

1:52:34

Okay, no, I said, "You're not gonna send me crazy

1:52:35

by this stuff, so that's it."

1:52:38

And I knew I was gonna get IRFed.

1:52:40

I knew I was gonna get IRFed.

1:52:42

And it would be, you know,

1:52:43

it would be the first time of resisting.

1:52:46

Normally when you're IRFed,

1:52:48

when you're IRFed you know,

1:52:49

you just kind of put your hand on your head

1:52:49

and turn around on your knees and then they come.

1:52:51

They just knock you down, if they're being nice,

1:52:53

and then they just take you away.

1:52:54

This was basically, I'm gonna resist, et cetera.

1:52:56

The consular guy had come already.

1:53:00

He'd brought a picture of my mother.

1:53:03

I ripped up the picture, threw it down the toilet,

1:53:05

and flushed it 'cause I didn't want these people,

1:53:07

you know, making fun of it and doing whatever, et cetera.

1:53:08

The Quran, I couldn't do anything with my Quran.

1:53:11

They came to take my comfort items away.

1:53:13

I gave them the comfort items,

1:53:14

except for the picture and the Quran.

1:53:16

The Quran, you know, I can't,

1:53:18

you can't flush it down the toilet.

1:53:20

So I put it right in the corner of my bunk, underneath,

1:53:21

you know, just to preserve it.

1:53:25

This was it, this was my last stand.

1:53:27

And you know, the panic attacks just kept on happening,

1:53:31

like in that regard.

1:53:33

So they're getting the stuff, the MP has got the stuff.

1:53:35

They put it outside the cell,

1:53:39

the IRFing gear for me to see.

1:53:41

The situation's getting bad,

1:53:43

I'm having my last stand, this is it.

1:53:45

They're gonna send,

1:53:47

they're gonna take my sanity away from me.

1:53:48

And, you know, just you know,

1:53:50

you can't imagine that situation.

1:53:51

I'm having these panic attacks.

1:53:53

Now I'm conscious.

1:53:55

And you know, I feel that, you know,

1:53:56

I'm being attacked and I'm defending myself.

1:53:57

And I can rationalize,

1:53:59

like I know full well there's nothing there.

1:54:00

So why am I defending myself?

1:54:02

But I defend myself in that regard.

1:54:04

And then, you know, the thing is dragging on

1:54:07

and I don't know, it just, it's strange.

1:54:11

But I had, in that situation under that pressure,

1:54:13

I didn't know a way out, but I had a dream.

1:54:16

I had a dream, you know, I had a dream.

1:54:19

And then for some reason, after that dream,

1:54:22

I thought to myself, you know what,

1:54:24

I'm gonna have to just call in the interrogators.

1:54:25

This is, they've won.

1:54:28

They've won, basically.

1:54:29

Call in the interrogators.

1:54:30

This is it, like that.

1:54:32

So I call in the interrogators.

1:54:33

Now it's, what name did he give?

1:54:35

Antony, was it Antony?

1:54:42

It was Underwood.

1:54:44

He said Underwood.

1:54:46

And he was kind of something.

1:54:47

He was kind of military, whatever,

1:54:48

you know, joint terrorism force intelligence.

1:54:52

And then it was, was it Gary?

1:54:55

Gary Washington from the FBI.

1:54:58

He was a black guy, the first black FBI guy I see.

1:55:00

And then they're called in.

1:55:04

Basically, Robert Iorio had gone back.

1:55:06

Highlander or Highland, whatever his name was,

1:55:09

he left the island.

1:55:12

So these were interrogators.

1:55:14

So basically I just,

1:55:16

I come out of my cell and say, "You know, I've had enough.

1:55:17

I had enough, I want to go home."

1:55:19

And that was the first time that I said

1:55:20

to the interrogators, "I want to go home."

1:55:22

Every other time, if I ask them for something,

1:55:24

I said, "You know what, just bring me

1:55:26

in front of a court of law.

1:55:27

Let me have my day in court.

1:55:29

You're telling me you're accusing me of all these things,

1:55:31

telling me 100 years, 50 years, 70 years, 20 years,

1:55:33

et cetera, let me have my day in court."

1:55:37

That's what I said to them.

1:55:39

But at that time they'd broken me.

1:55:40

And you know, I said them,

1:55:42

I told them, you know, that situation,

1:55:43

you know, this is the situation, et cetera.

1:55:45

So they said, "Look, have the immunization shots,"

1:55:47

et cetera, "You'll be okay," and as well, whatever.

1:55:50

So that was the way of getting out of the situation.

1:55:52

So the next day, very strangely, they come.

1:55:54

Now, interrogators don't come for your immunization shots,

1:55:57

but they came, just to make sure it happened.

1:55:59

And I was given I think three shots.

1:56:01

And if I remember rightly, at least one

1:56:03

maybe might've been in a tricep.

1:56:04

I'm not sure whether one in the tricep.

1:56:06

And the panic attacks, they didn't come anymore.

1:56:09

Didn't come anymore.

1:56:12

But it seems that I think there was a lasting effect.

1:56:13

There was a lasting effect.

1:56:16

But it didn't come anymore except for one moment,

1:56:17

like I felt something grab, I grabbed my throat,

1:56:20

like as though I was defending myself, then I held myself.

1:56:23

But it wasn't as bad as before,

1:56:26

because I'd gotten full motion.

1:56:27

Interviewer

And did you talk to interrogators then,

1:56:29

say something?

1:56:32

-

Well, what else could I do?

-

You did, yeah.

1:56:33

-

I had to talk to them.

I had to talk to them, I'd broken my silence.

1:56:34

And you know, that was it.

1:56:37

They broke me, that's how they broke me.

1:56:38

Interviewer

And after that, you stayed at Echo anyway?

1:56:40

-

Yeah, I stayed at Echo.

1:56:43

I was supposedly being held for military commissions,

1:56:45

but you know, it never happened.

1:56:47

But I stayed there for like, you know,

1:56:50

for a good part of the time I was there.

1:56:51

Interviewer

But you felt better

1:56:53

than you felt, did you-

1:56:54

-

Not really, because it wasn't,

1:56:56

you know, the panic attacks had gone,

1:56:59

except for that brief moment.

1:57:01

For some reason I just started drawing hearts

1:57:04

and stupid, stupid stuff, girly stuff in my letters.

1:57:06

And I don't even understand what's going on.

1:57:10

I can't make sense of this.

1:57:13

So I don't know, I don't understand what was happening.

1:57:14

But there was a sense that, you know, I could feel

1:57:18

like there was split personality in a way,

1:57:23

that you know, there was me

1:57:25

and then there was something else, like in that regard.

1:57:26

But that kind of dissipated over time.

1:57:29

And then there was a sense that there was maybe

1:57:31

three people existing within me, in a way.

1:57:32

But it wasn't like in a way that would impede my everyday,

1:57:37

but you know, just the sense that it was happening.

1:57:40

And it was very strange.

1:57:42

It was like an old man, a woman, and a child.

1:57:43

Just weird.

1:57:46

I can't make sense of all of this.

1:57:47

I don't know if a psychiatrist has to do that.

1:57:49

I can't make sense of all of this.

1:57:51

And then over time, it just kind of dissipated.

1:57:52

But I don't know.

1:57:54

I feel there's a lasting effect of that,

1:57:57

in that situation.

1:57:59

But for two years, roughly, I remained in Camp Echo.

1:58:01

Interviewer

Why was it a lasting effect?

1:58:06

-

It's just like, I don't...

1:58:09

Interviewer

Do you still feel it?

1:58:13

-

I don't think I've really recovered,

1:58:14

really recovered from that situation.

1:58:16

I really, I can't make sense of it.

1:58:18

I'm not a psychiatrist, I can't psychoanalyze myself.

1:58:19

I don't think I've really recovered from that situation.

1:58:22

You know, it's like...

1:58:26

I don't, like...

1:58:29

For instance, I don't feel the same.

1:58:32

I don't feel the same.

1:58:34

When I was in Camp X-ray, the guy,

1:58:37

you know, the guy with the shotgun decided one time

1:58:39

to point the shotgun at my,

1:58:41

you know, shotgun at my head.

1:58:43

You know, obviously you don't try to show fear.

1:58:46

You don't show fear, et cetera.

1:58:49

So you just, you know, like you know,

1:58:50

you just try and brave it out.

1:58:51

When in Camp Echo, after the incident,

1:58:53

there used to be a patrol of infantry outside.

1:58:55

And one of the idiots over there, MPs,

1:58:58

he loved, every time anyone new came,

1:59:01

to run to them and say, "This guy's Al Qaeda.

1:59:02

So he told them.

1:59:05

So they put, they're outside,

1:59:06

but there's a gap between the fencing.

1:59:07

And then they'd put the gun on the ground.

1:59:08

And obviously they lift it up in a way

1:59:10

that I could see that it was pointed at me.

1:59:11

Fear, but a fear that I haven't felt before.

1:59:14

But this is why, you know, I scolded myself.

1:59:17

Why are you being like, this is a kind of fear

1:59:21

that, you know, it was shameful for me.

1:59:24

And, but why is that?

1:59:28

Why is it?

1:59:29

This is, I changed, I changed.

1:59:31

So why is it I can, you know,

1:59:33

a shotgun can be pointed at my head at close range,

1:59:34

you know, and I can at least kind of,

1:59:36

you know, I can think to myself,

1:59:38

well, the guy's just being an idiot.

1:59:40

He's not gonna shoot me, yeah?

1:59:42

Not gonna shoot, he's only being an idiot.

1:59:44

So I'm not gonna be afraid.

1:59:46

To when an infantry man puts his gun on the floor

1:59:47

and points it at me, and I'm terrified.

1:59:50

Terrified, just strange things like that.

1:59:52

It's not something you can put your finger on,

1:59:53

but it's just very strange.

1:59:55

I don't feel the same.

1:59:57

I don't feel the same.

1:59:58

Interviewer

You know, Mozan told me

2:00:01

when he was in that similar situation,

2:00:02

that he was so desperate for having somebody to talk to,

2:00:05

and he asked for somebody to talk to him,

2:00:10

and they finally sent him a psychologist,

2:00:11

a psychiatrist to talk to.

2:00:13

Did they ever send someone like that for you to talk to, or?

2:00:15

-

Well, supposedly Bush himself sent a psychiatrist.

2:00:18

Interviewer

That's what they told you?

2:00:23

-

Yeah, yeah, I believe it.

2:00:24

He sent a psychiatrist from Washington,

2:00:25

and he came and he spoke to me,

2:00:27

after all of this incident.

2:00:28

And I told him, I told him about the panic attack,

2:00:30

you know, et cetera, and being in,

2:00:32

because I was held in building four

2:00:35

and they took me out of there.

2:00:37

And then, because they'd expanded Echo by the time,

2:00:38

and then they took me into one of the other buildings.

2:00:40

Building four, that was a nightmare.

2:00:44

The other buildings were a bit better.

2:00:46

And I told him about the panic attacks and so forth.

2:00:48

He was supposed to evaluate my mental health,

2:00:50

in order to check whether I can go up

2:00:52

for the military commissions,

2:00:53

and he's gonna go, he said himself,

2:00:55

he's gonna go straight back to Bush.

2:00:56

And I think he was actually documented,

2:00:57

like yeah, by the media and so forth.

2:00:59

And there was this thing about, I wasn't mentally capable,

2:01:01

you know, like to go up before a trial.

2:01:03

And then, you know, that I had to be assessed.

2:01:06

And he, the psychiatry said he's come from,

2:01:08

he's spoken to Bush, and he's come from Bush.

2:01:10

You know, he was gonna go back to Bush

2:01:13

with an assessment on my mental health.

2:01:14

Interviewer

And did you feel better

2:01:17

after that conversation?

2:01:19

Did you feel like that went?

2:01:20

-

Well, he had his own agenda.

2:01:23

He wasn't there to take care of my welfare, no.

2:01:24

Interviewer

So how much time after that

2:01:26

did you realize you were gonna go home?

2:01:28

-

Well, it's a long time in Camp Echo.

2:01:33

And then...

2:01:38

Actually, it was...

2:01:43

I think it was, I think he called himself Underwood.

2:01:47

Underwood, this new interrogator,

2:01:49

he said, I think it was him who said,

2:01:52

or one of the interrogators said

2:01:54

that you're gonna receive a target letter.

2:01:55

Actually, no, the target letter is, okay.

2:02:00

I can't remember whether the target letter

2:02:03

is because of lawyers, that your lawyer,

2:02:04

you're gonna get a lawyer, an attorney,

2:02:06

or it's because of the military commissions.

2:02:08

Anyway, news came that we're gonna have lawyers and so forth

2:02:11

and we're gonna get legal representatives, et cetera.

2:02:15

Now, you know, these are civilian lawyers, et cetera.

2:02:18

I didn't believe it until I saw the lawyer myself.

2:02:22

-

Well-

2:02:29

-

Yeah?

Interviewer

I guess what I'm thinking is,

2:02:30

after you said to them you want to go home,

2:02:31

if that somehow changed?

2:02:33

You might not have known it,

2:02:35

but if that made a difference to them,

2:02:36

and they started looking to see whether you could come home?

2:02:39

-

No, no, it wouldn't have made a difference.

2:02:42

They don't really care.

2:02:44

They don't really care.

2:02:45

That wouldn't have been it.

2:02:46

If you want to know specifically the time

2:02:48

when I knew, in a way, when I believed them,

2:02:50

because I mean, the military came

2:02:54

and then they had their announcement,

2:02:55

but you don't believe them because they always lie to you.

2:02:56

You know, they took one detainee on the plane itself,

2:02:59

telling him he's going home, going home.

2:03:02

And then they tried to interrogate him on the plane,

2:03:03

and then they took him back to, you know, his cell.

2:03:06

Was when, okay.

2:03:09

I know his name, but I forgot his name now.

2:03:15

Okay, from Reprieve.

2:03:19

-

Clive?

2:03:21

-

Clive, that's it.

-

Clive Stafford Smith.

2:03:22

-

How could I forget his name?

Interviewer

He came to visit you?

2:03:24

-

No, he, what he did in Camp Echo,

2:03:25

he would act like he didn't know

2:03:28

which cell to go to, which cage.

2:03:29

So he'd just go into any one,

2:03:31

and he happened to go into mine.

2:03:33

And, you know, I happened to be waiting

2:03:34

for someone like, you know, to come.

2:03:36

So he kind of looked at me,

2:03:39

and then he didn't recognize me at first.

2:03:40

And he said, you know, "Who are you?"

2:03:43

And (laughs) I think he was a bit surprised

2:03:44

that I spoke English to him.

2:03:45

You know, like, and I'm thinking to myself,

2:03:46

this is like an interrogator.

2:03:48

And he said, "Oh, don't worry.

2:03:49

The news is true, you're going home."

2:03:52

And then like, he kind of had to leave

2:03:54

'cause he was in the wrong cage, but he did that.

2:03:55

And then obviously Gita Guitierrez,

2:03:57

she came and, you know, I think she told me as well

2:04:00

that the news is true.

2:04:03

And whether she came and told me or not, I can't remember.

2:04:05

And then they took us out of Camp Echo,

2:04:06

and then into population again, Camp Delta again.

2:04:09

But they separated us,

2:04:11

'cause we were the military commission people.

2:04:12

So they had us separate.

2:04:14

Interviewer

Us meaning you and Mozan?

2:04:16

-

Well, us meaning the military commission people

2:04:18

from the actual, the rest of the detainees, in that regard.

2:04:20

But obviously you don't really believe them.

2:04:24

I didn't really believe them.

2:04:27

Even when they come to measure you up.

2:04:29

They've done that to many detainees.

2:04:31

I think they did to Mozan when he first got to Camp Echo.

2:04:33

'Cause they asked me whether I got measured up

2:04:38

for a suit or something like that.

2:04:40

You know, I don't know.

2:04:42

But they do that for military commissions as well.

2:04:43

But you know, I didn't really believe it

2:04:47

until it was actually happening.

2:04:48

And you know, that's the best policy you can have.

2:04:52

You know, they can tell you whatever.

2:04:55

But until you set foot and you're free,

2:04:56

that's the only time, you know.

2:05:00

Interviewer

When you were taken out of Echo

2:05:01

and sent it back, did you feel better, just to leave Echo?

2:05:02

Did you think that was a good start?

2:05:05

-

Yeah.

2:05:07

I mean, Camp Delta is, you know,

2:05:08

it's not the best of places to be.

2:05:11

But you know, you can get by.

2:05:13

You can get by.

2:05:15

Interviewer

By the way, how did you know

2:05:16

that one man was taken and told he was going home

2:05:18

and then just interrogated on the plane and put back?

2:05:21

-

Oh, because the stories get around. (laughs)

2:05:24

The stories, the detainees will tell you the story.

2:05:26

I mean, he obviously told other people,

2:05:30

and then they pass on the story.

2:05:31

They shout over the blocks and then pass it on.

2:05:33

Or you get moved enough to get the new news

2:05:35

from other people in the next camp.

2:05:37

Interviewer

Do you know who that detainee was?

2:05:39

-

I don't.

2:05:41

I don't know who that detainee was.

2:05:41

But you probably can find out, you know,

2:05:42

if you speak to someone who was close to them.

2:05:44

Interviewer

So it sounds like things,

2:05:48

I guess I just want to just ask this.

2:05:53

So after you told the,

2:05:55

that you were willing to talk,

2:05:57

do you know how much time passed

2:05:59

before you finally got moved to?

2:06:00

-

Oh, it had to be a year or something.

2:06:04

Interviewer

Another year?

2:06:05

So you had another year

2:06:06

-

It had to be

-

still in Echo?

2:06:07

-

at least a year.

Had to be at least a year, yeah.

2:06:08

Interviewer

But you were better in Echo then,

2:06:09

because least you weren't having,

2:06:10

except for that one incident, the panic attacks?

2:06:11

-

Because they took me out of building four.

2:06:13

Building four.

2:06:17

Interviewer

And now you were with other people again?

2:06:17

-

No, I mean, in a different kind of,

2:06:19

I'm still in Echo, so you're still isolated.

2:06:21

The guards changed, so they weren't the same mean ones.

2:06:23

The whole push for the military commissions

2:06:26

kind of flopped, I think.

2:06:28

And it just became like, you know, everyday.

2:06:30

And then like for instance, the guards,

2:06:32

you'd speak to them and you know,

2:06:34

the others were just mean.

2:06:36

They didn't want to speak to you.

2:06:37

The way the other buildings were set up

2:06:38

was that the guard would be closer to you.

2:06:40

So obviously, you know,

2:06:42

you couldn't avoid having conversation with them.

2:06:43

So when you have conversation, then the barriers go down.

2:06:46

They didn't have this idea that, you know,

2:06:49

you're such a bad person, whatever, like you know.

2:06:50

I know what you did, you know,

2:06:53

it's about, you're nearly there

2:06:55

to have your head being chopped off,

2:06:57

you know, like by the military commissions,

2:06:59

it's just a long drawn process.

2:07:01

They found you there, you know, and then that was it.

2:07:02

So that was their life for them.

2:07:05

And then, you know, it wasn't good.

2:07:07

Because like for a long time in Camp Echo,

2:07:09

I didn't see sunlight

2:07:12

except from coming under the door.

2:07:13

Recreation, they used to take us out at night and so forth.

2:07:16

You know, yeah, for a long time.

2:07:19

Interviewer

Could you see the Red Cross

2:07:21

during that time?

2:07:22

-

I don't remember seeing the Red Cross during that time.

2:07:31

Interviewer

And the British Consulate,

2:07:34

did they come by in there?

2:07:35

-

Yeah, they came a little.

2:07:36

Interviewer

But they didn't...

2:07:39

-

They didn't care, they didn't care.

2:07:41

The guy didn't care.

2:07:43

He once said to me, "I don't care

2:07:43

about your emotional health,

2:07:45

all I want to know about is your physical health."

2:07:45

And when you told him about what was happening,

2:07:47

he tried to put it, construct it in a way

2:07:49

that, you know, he just constructed it

2:07:51

in a way that was in favor of the administration.

2:07:53

So I was telling him about my thumb,

2:07:55

the color, you know, like on my thumb,

2:07:56

started to discolor

2:07:59

because of not being out in the sunlight, you know.

2:08:01

Like a patch here started, you know, because I'm black.

2:08:04

So it started to go, you know, like non-black.

2:08:06

I told him about that.

2:08:10

He just wanted to construct it in a different way.

2:08:12

Like, you know, it was the soap or something like that.

2:08:14

He didn't want to hear, he didn't want to hear anything.

2:08:16

He didn't care.

2:08:17

Didn't want to know about emotional mental health.

2:08:19

Just wanted to know about physical health,

2:08:21

and all you're supposed to say is,

2:08:22

you know, I'm fine, I'm great,

2:08:23

you know, they're treating me wonderfully.

2:08:24

Interviewer

So I ask most of the men I speak to,

2:08:26

how did you endure that?

2:08:29

Was there something in you that kind of,

2:08:30

I think you obviously said part of it,

2:08:33

by saying that you finally decided

2:08:37

you were gonna talk to the interrogators

2:08:38

to help you, is that, is there anything else

2:08:40

that kind of kept you going through that time?

2:08:42

I mean, like-

2:08:47

-

The first thing,

the first thing that will keep you going,

2:08:48

not the first thing in terms of importance,

2:08:52

just

2:08:54

in a sense of chronologically, maybe,

2:08:59

is your innocence.

2:09:02

Because an innocent man incarcerated,

2:09:04

that keeps you buoyed in a way.

2:09:09

It keeps your head up, keeps a sense of your self-respect.

2:09:11

You feel that you're being mistreated, unjustly,

2:09:15

and injustice won't last, it won't get its way.

2:09:20

You know, the truth will prevail in that way.

2:09:23

That's the first thing, chronologically.

2:09:27

The second thing is...

2:09:30

You know, it's,

2:09:36

there's many, you can look at it

2:09:38

in many different levels, but

2:09:39

on a personal level, I saw it as, you know,

2:09:45

this is from, this is what Allah has decreed for me,

2:09:48

what God has decreed for me.

2:09:52

There's a reason for him decreeing this for me.

2:09:54

And you know, you can't,

2:09:56

there's a wisdom and mercy behind it,

2:09:58

and I don't understand it.

2:10:00

I don't understand why I'm going through this situation,

2:10:01

but I know that, you know,

2:10:04

that there's a reason why God has put me here

2:10:05

and through this situation.

2:10:08

In that way, you have to humble yourself.

2:10:09

And you know, I'm a revert to Islam.

2:10:11

So I haven't been Muslim like the whole of my life.

2:10:14

I reverted when I was 19 years old.

2:10:16

And you know, reading Malcolm,

2:10:18

I actually read Malcolm X over there,

2:10:21

'cause one of the soldiers gave it to me.

2:10:22

You know, you know,

2:10:25

in the book "Malcolm X," he says,

2:10:27

"Only guilt admitted accepts truth."

2:10:29

And that resonates with me,

2:10:31

because the reason why I became Muslim was,

2:10:32

you know, I mean, I was 17.

2:10:34

Well, actually I was 19.

2:10:36

And I looked back on my life, which was very short.

2:10:38

And I said to myself, you know what,

2:10:40

you're not really a good guy.

2:10:42

You can't say to yourself, you're such a great guy.

2:10:43

So you need to just humble yourself

2:10:46

and you know, like, you know,

2:10:47

try to seek repentance and so forth.

2:10:49

So when you're in that situation,

2:10:51

if someone has an arrogant attitude to the situation,

2:10:52

they say, "I don't deserve this,

2:10:55

and why is God treating me like this?"

2:10:56

They won't survive.

2:10:58

But if you think to yourself, you know what, you know,

2:10:59

"I'm not the best of people,

2:11:01

and you know, like I can't challenge God in this situation."

2:11:02

You know, I can't say, "I'm the best,

2:11:06

I'm the greatest person on earth.

2:11:07

Therefore being treated like this

2:11:08

is such a great injustice."

2:11:10

You know, that you can't do that.

2:11:12

So you had to humble yourself in a way,

2:11:13

and accept it, and not be arrogant in front of God.

2:11:14

So that was one aspect.

2:11:20

And the last aspect was,

2:11:21

not so much in Camp Delta, because I didn't realize

2:11:25

how much the soldiers were suffering.

2:11:30

But my thing was, if they're suffering,

2:11:32

then I'm willing to suffer too. (laughs)

2:11:35

So in Camp Echo, they used to whine.

2:11:38

You know, they only had us to talk to,

2:11:41

'cause the other soldiers won't listen to them.

2:11:43

And if they did listen, then you know,

2:11:45

they would just say, "Serves you right."

2:11:46

So, you know, they have to whine to us,

2:11:48

and I realized how much they were suffering.

2:11:50

And you know, that kind of, I thought to myself,

2:11:52

you know what, if it was just us suffering

2:11:54

and you guys having it good,

2:11:56

that would be hard to deal with.

2:11:57

If we're suffering and you're suffering,

2:11:59

then you know, like fine, bring it on. (laughs)

2:12:00

Yeah.

2:12:03

Interviewer

And another thing I ask is,

2:12:04

I have only a few more questions,

2:12:07

and we're just about done.

2:12:09

But you know, there's always,

2:12:09

there's a lot of negativity that you've experienced

2:12:13

that comes out of Guantanamo.

2:12:16

And you can, if you want, just tell me some more of that.

2:12:17

But sometimes people think there was something positive

2:12:20

that came out of that experience.

2:12:23

And I often wonder if you could ever...

2:12:24

-

Okay, it's, you know, okay.

2:12:33

In Islam, you know, there's a general trend,

2:12:37

like not a trend, but kind of...

2:12:40

How to put it?

2:12:44

It's like...

2:12:45

Okay, okay.

2:12:49

Islamically, you know, there's the tradition

2:12:50

of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.

2:12:53

He says, "Paradise."

2:12:54

Paradise, that's, you know,

2:12:57

like I think Christians call it heaven.

2:12:58

But we make a distinction

2:13:00

between heavens as in skies and so forth.

2:13:01

But heaven, "Paradise is surrounded by hardship,

2:13:04

and hellfire is surrounded by ease."

2:13:07

So, you know, Islam tries to instill in you

2:13:11

that if you're going through hardship,

2:13:15

you're actually going through that veil to paradise,

2:13:17

that in order to get to paradise,

2:13:20

you have to go through hardship.

2:13:21

So, you know, Guantanamo, if you said to me,

2:13:23

"You know what, do you want to go to Guantanamo?"

2:13:26

This, that, and the other, et cetera,

2:13:28

and you have a choice, I would say no.

2:13:29

I would say no, I would say that now.

2:13:31

You know, I would never want to go to Guantanamo.

2:13:33

You know, as human beings, that's how we are.

2:13:36

But sometimes God doesn't give us the choice.

2:13:39

And you know, the positive thing

2:13:42

that comes out of Guantanamo, I guess,

2:13:44

is that, that you know, you go through hardship

2:13:47

and then you realize, for me, it's been...

2:13:50

Right now, I look at the world in a different way.

2:13:55

I really, it's like the veil has been lifted off the world.

2:13:57

And what I see, you know, what the world is,

2:14:02

it is about, it is pain, it is suffering.

2:14:06

Guantanamo is the real face of the world and life.

2:14:09

That's how I see it.

2:14:12

Coming back, that veil has been placed back,

2:14:16

and I'm expected to like accept society

2:14:19

as though, you know,

2:14:23

things like Guantanamo Bay aren't happening,

2:14:24

or you know, even worse.

2:14:25

But I can't do that, because I've seen beyond the veil.

2:14:28

So that's another thing, that it's shown me the reality.

2:14:31

That, you know, before Guantanamo,

2:14:33

before this happening, maybe I was kind of deluded in a way,

2:14:35

that the world is a place

2:14:39

that, you know, in reality as I see it,

2:14:42

that's not the way the world is.

2:14:45

Interviewer

Is there, since we're just about done,

2:14:50

is there something else that maybe I didn't ask you?

2:14:52

That, you know, 'cause you're very thoughtful.

2:14:55

And if there's something else that maybe, to finish?

2:14:58

-

Yeah, well,

2:15:04

I mean, there's a lot to say.

2:15:06

You know, there's a lot.

2:15:09

In Guantanamo, I wrote down a lot of it

2:15:10

before, you know, we were released.

2:15:13

So-

2:15:17

-

Will you make it

into a book, or you just have notes?

2:15:18

-

No, I just have notes.

2:15:20

And you know, I've just,

2:15:21

I've just recently typed them up.

2:15:23

'Cause they were handwritten.

2:15:25

They're, all of them are not there,

2:15:27

but a large chunk of of what happened is there.

2:15:28

So that's the reason why there's a lot of detail.

2:15:30

Because when I wrote it

2:15:34

would have been in the same situation,

2:15:36

and you know, there would have only been three years passed,

2:15:39

and obviously you're in the same situation,

2:15:41

so your mind doesn't.

2:15:43

When you leave, then you start forgetting things

2:15:43

because you're not in the same situation.

2:15:45

The neurons are not used and so forth in that regard.

2:15:46

So there is a lot, and you know.

2:15:50

So I can't really identify anything in particular,

2:15:52

'cause we've covered like just generally what's happening.

2:15:55

And I know you can only do so much

2:15:58

with, you know, like just speaking for me.

2:15:59

Interviewer

I have one question, though.

2:16:01

How did it feel reading those notes after all these years?

2:16:03

-

To tell you the truth,

2:16:06

it has taken me five years to deal with.

2:16:07

Five years.

2:16:11

First of all, when they brought me here,

2:16:12

I was really depressed.

2:16:14

I was really, I was really sad.

2:16:15

And I've made a conscious effort not to deal with it,

2:16:17

because the way I am is that, you know,

2:16:22

with kind of things that are emotionally hard to deal with,

2:16:24

I know I can box them away.

2:16:28

So I can put it in a little box and put it away.

2:16:29

And it's up, I'm gonna have to deal with it,

2:16:31

but it's my choice when I deal with it.

2:16:33

And it's taken me five years, taken me five years.

2:16:35

I've kept myself busy.

2:16:38

So when I came out, I just,

2:16:39

I did my, you know, I went,

2:16:42

I went back to college, to university.

2:16:43

And that was like, that's already four years.

2:16:47

And it's only now I've started working with Cageprisoners.

2:16:50

And that is the part of the process

2:16:53

where I'm unpackaging things.

2:16:54

And in fact, this is part of the process as well,

2:16:56

where I'm actually talking about it.

2:16:58

But I really kept away away from, you know,

2:17:00

even looking at the news

2:17:02

or seeing that kind of thing in the paper and that.

2:17:04

I didn't keep up to it.

2:17:06

I just tried to shut it out, you know, as best as I could.

2:17:08

So the questions were, again?

2:17:12

Interviewer

Are you finding it, then,

2:17:14

therefore valuable to read those notes

2:17:15

and to talk about it?

2:17:17

-

Yeah.

So it's taken me this long.

2:17:18

And you know, it's only like in the last,

2:17:20

in last week that I actually picked up those notes

2:17:24

and started going through them in detail,

2:17:26

typing them up.

2:17:29

I'm having to type them up for a reason.

2:17:31

But that's when, and it has been hard.

2:17:34

Because you read about things that, you know just,

2:17:36

it reminds you of things that happened to you

2:17:40

that you kind of buried away and tried to forget.

2:17:42

And it is hard to read those things.

2:17:44

But you know, I'm not helping myself

2:17:46

by not actually dealing with it.

2:17:49

And you know, if I don't deal with it,

2:17:50

I'm gonna have to deal with it sometime.

2:17:52

So this is part of the process.

2:17:53

So it's been hard reading those notes.

2:17:55

But you know, I've kind of-

2:17:58

Interviewer

But it's important for you

2:17:59

to do that, right now?

2:18:00

-

It is.

After five years, I'm opening the package now.

2:18:02

Interviewer

I think we're done,

2:18:10

unless there's something you want to close with.

2:18:11

That was an amazing interview.

2:18:14

-

Okay, I think that's fine.

-

We're very thankful

2:18:16

-

All right, thank you.

-

and very honored.

2:18:17

-

You're welcome.

All right, thanks.

2:18:19

Man

Can we just do run time, or?

2:18:20

Interviewer

Can we just be quiet for-

2:18:21

Abbasi, Feroz Ali - Interview master file

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