Pradhan, Alka - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Male

We're rolling.

0:05

Interviewer

Okay. Good afternoon.

0:06

-

Good afternoon.

0:07

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in a witness to Guantanamo project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:14

and your involvement with detainees and others

0:16

at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, Cuba.

0:19

We are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

0:23

to tell your story in your own words.

0:25

We are creating an archive of stories

0:28

so that people in America and around the world

0:30

will have a better understanding

0:33

of what Guantanamo was all about.

0:34

And future generations will also know

0:37

what happened with Guantanamo.

0:39

And by telling the story, you contributing to history.

0:41

And we're very grateful you're here today.

0:44

And if you wanna take a break at any moment,

0:46

please let us know.

0:48

And if there's something that you say

0:49

that you realize maybe you shouldn't have said it,

0:50

if you let us know (indistinct) we can remove it before.

0:54

-

Thank you.

0:57

Interviewer

And we'd like to begin

0:58

by having you tell us your name

0:59

and a little bit about your background,

1:00

and where you were born and age.

1:04

-

Of course. My name is Alka Pradhan.

1:06

I am currently an attorney

1:09

at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions

1:12

Defense Organization.

1:13

I was born in Canada actually.

1:18

And very soon after that, moved to the United States

1:21

with my family.

1:24

I grew up kind of all over the place.

1:26

My father was a professor

1:28

and so we lived in Colorado for a while.

1:30

We lived in England, we moved to Ohio.

1:32

And so, I grew up partially in Ohio

1:34

and then ended up in college in law school

1:39

on the east coast,

1:44

went to England for a couple of years

1:45

and did an LL.M. in human rights

1:47

and found myself after a series of positions

1:49

in Washington D.C. working for the government.

1:56

(Alka laughs)

1:57

Interviewer

Well, let's back up a little bit.

1:59

When were you born?

2:00

-

I was born in 1981.

2:01

Interviewer

And that makes you how old?

2:03

-

35 years old.

2:05

Interviewer

And where did you go to college

2:07

and law school

2:09

and how did that lead into the current work you're doing?

2:10

-

I went to college at Johns Hopkins University

2:14

in Baltimore.

2:17

I then actually did a joint degree BIMA program.

2:18

And I did my master's at the Johns Hopkins School

2:22

of Advanced International Studies in Washington

2:25

where my concentration was international law

2:28

in south Asia studies.

2:30

And then after that, I went straight to law school.

2:32

I went to Columbia Law School in New York

2:35

and actually ended up doing another joint degree program

2:37

there.

2:39

I did a J.D. LL.M. with the London School of Economics,

2:41

which is where I did my LL.M. degree in human rights.

2:45

I chose human rights really, actually long before that.

2:51

When I was 16 years, I attended a summer program

2:56

at which one of the major speakers was a prosecutor

3:02

from the then newly formed International Criminal Tribunal

3:07

for the former Yugoslavia.

3:11

And she was just absolutely magnificent.

3:12

She spoke to us for about a half an hour about the tribunal

3:15

that the new legal issues that they were dealing with,

3:20

this new field of international criminal law

3:22

and her particular specialty,

3:25

which was gender issues and gender crimes at the tribunal.

3:27

And so at that point,

3:31

I knew that I had always had an interest

3:34

in international law and at that point,

3:36

I knew that I wanted to focus on human rights.

3:38

Interviewer

And after Columbia, what did you do?

3:40

-

After I graduated from Columbia,

3:43

I actually went to White & Case in New York,

3:46

a big international law firm for almost four years.

3:48

And I always, again,

3:53

I had my interest in international law

3:56

and I had a background in it.

3:58

And so, I was the squeaky wheel

3:59

who always wanted the cases on foreign sovereign immunities

4:00

and alien tort statute

4:05

and all of those, and the partners were very indulgent

4:07

and actually encouraged me to go after those cases.

4:13

So, whenever I'd see a new matter come into the firm

4:16

that had touched upon any of those issues,

4:20

I would go and knock on their doors and say,

4:22

"Can I do the research?

4:25

"Can I do the discovery, whatever it is, I'll do it."

4:25

I also was lucky enough

4:28

to be encouraged to do a lot of pro bono work.

4:31

And at that time,

4:34

I started working with several organizations

4:35

including human rights first

4:38

and the open society justice initiative

4:39

on areas that were starting to touch upon national security

4:42

such as looking into the legality

4:49

of certain provisions of the Patriot Act

4:53

and looking into the CIA's rendition program

4:56

which at the time,

5:00

in about 2008 2009 was just starting to be reported

5:01

in the public.

5:06

So, I sort of became interested

5:07

in the juxtaposition of human rights and national security

5:10

at that time while I was still in private practice.

5:13

Interviewer

And which led you to work?

5:17

-

So, I moved to Washington D.C. in 2010

5:19

actually after I got married

5:23

and decided that would be as good a time as any

5:25

to switch paths.

5:28

And at that time, I ended up moving to an organization

5:32

in Washington called the Constitution Project,

5:35

which is a small bi-partisan organization.

5:38

And they were just starting a two-year project

5:40

called the Task Force on Detainee Treatment.

5:45

And they had put together a task force

5:47

of 11 experts in their various fields,

5:50

former politicians, former judges, former diplomats,

5:53

Ambassador Tom Pickering was on the task force,

5:59

Judge Patricia Wald, now Governor Asa Hutchinson.

6:02

So, it was really across the board.

6:06

We had liberals and conservatives and everyone in between.

6:08

And the purpose of the task force

6:12

was to examine U.S. detention operations since 2001,

6:15

and really make it the most comprehensive examination

6:20

of detention operations since 2001.

6:25

And that made it sort of double important

6:28

that the study be done by a bipartisan organization

6:32

so that whatever we found

6:35

would have that stamp of authenticity

6:37

that this is not coming from the Democrats

6:39

or the Republicans.

6:42

This is coming from people who know their field

6:43

who have looked at the evidence,

6:46

whatever evidence we could get our hands on

6:47

and have come to these particular conclusions.

6:52

So, my position was as counsel to the task force,

6:55

evolved over time.

7:00

I started out for the first year

7:01

doing a lot of original investigation.

7:03

I went abroad. I interviewed foreign government officials,

7:06

former detainees,

7:10

attorneys for current and former detainees.

7:13

And here at home,

7:17

interviewed current and former foreign government officials

7:18

and tried with a couple of other counsel

7:22

and a couple of other investigators,

7:29

tried to put together as full a picture as we could.

7:30

And it ended up being,

7:33

I think we ended up with about 13 chapters,

7:34

one chapter on Guantanamo,

7:38

one chapter on the CIA rendition program,

7:39

a chapter on operations in Afghanistan,

7:41

a chapter on recidivism,

7:45

a chapter on the use of medical professionals

7:46

in the torture.

7:51

So, really trying to get every aspect of it covered.

7:52

And my particular specializations were Guantanamo

7:57

and rendition, in CIA rendition.

8:00

So, we spent two years on this project

8:02

and the result was, I think fairly lengthy report

8:05

that was published in 2013

8:10

that I think still holds up pretty well.

8:12

I still refer to it in my current work.

8:14

It was pretty detailed.

8:18

And from there,

8:19

I had worked with so many Guantanamo adjacent organizations

8:21

to gather up this information.

8:27

I'd worked with organizations

8:29

ranging from the Center for Constitutional Rights

8:32

to people at the state department, people in Congress,

8:35

people in Reprieve

8:38

that when it came time to figure out

8:40

what I was gonna do next,

8:43

I thought I now have a pretty good knowledge

8:44

of what has happened and I'm a litigator at heart.

8:48

That's the one thing I miss from private practice.

8:54

I'd like to go back to litigation.

8:55

And luckily,

8:57

I had met so many people that Reprieve asked if I would,

8:59

Reprieve is a UK-based organization.

9:04

They asked if I would do a little bit of work for them

9:07

representing some of their clients at Guantanamo

9:11

from Washington and kind of help to open their U.S. office.

9:15

And so, it was very exciting.

9:19

And I took on some of the clients that they already had

9:22

at Guantanamo

9:27

and also worked a little bit on their drone work,

9:28

representing civilian drone strike victims

9:32

from Pakistan and from Yemen,

9:34

and had some really interesting experiences,

9:36

in that regard, bringing over civilian drone strike victims,

9:40

a family from Pakistan

9:45

whose mother and grandmother had been killed

9:47

in a drone strike.

9:52

The village midwife who is 60 something years old,

9:53

clearly not a militant,

9:57

wasn't close to any militants,

9:59

was standing in a field by herself

10:01

when she was hit by a drone

10:02

and her grandchildren ranging in age from seven

10:05

to, I think, 14 or 15, all hit by shrapnel.

10:08

None of them died. Thank goodness.

10:12

But two of those children

10:13

and their father whose mother had been killed,

10:16

we brought over and had a briefing for them in Congress

10:19

which was really very moving

10:23

because the children spoke about how they're afraid now

10:25

to go to school, which is exactly the opposite

10:28

of what we should want in a counter-terrorism program.

10:31

They're afraid to go outside.

10:34

They don't like sunny days

10:36

because those are the drones days when drones fly.

10:38

They prefer cloudy days and rainy days.

10:41

So, that was very moving.

10:44

And the second really interesting drone-related experience

10:46

I had was a gentleman named Faisal Bin Ali Jaber

10:50

from Yemen, came over, was given a visa

10:53

and came over to speak with members of Congress

10:58

and really anyone he could

11:02

about the fact that his brother-in-law,

11:03

who was a well-known anti-Al-Qaeda Imam in Yemen

11:06

who had a bully pulpit and used it to speak against Al-Qaeda

11:12

was killed in a drone strike.

11:17

And immediately when that happens in rural Yemen,

11:19

the suspicion is that, "Oh. you must have been a militant

11:22

"or you must have had something to do with it."

11:24

And really all this gentlemen wanted, still wants,

11:26

is an acknowledgement from them the U.S. government

11:30

that this happened and it was a mistake.

11:32

And so, he's a lovely gentleman.

11:36

He's in his 50s, he came over

11:38

and we put him through a really exhausting routine.

11:40

We met something like 11 members of Congress

11:42

including Senator Durbin,

11:45

members of the judiciary committee.

11:49

And he met with members of the national council as well

11:51

and told them his story.

11:54

And interestingly, shortly after his visit to Washington,

11:56

he works for the government

12:01

or used to work for the former government of Yemen.

12:02

Someone showed up on his doorstep with a bag of money

12:06

in U.S. dollars and said, "Here you go."

12:09

And he said, "Okay, look,"

12:13

obviously in Yemen, his brother-in-law has a wife.

12:18

He has children. He was the breadwinner.

12:22

Obviously, money is helpful.

12:25

But he had said from the beginning

12:27

that's not what they were looking for.

12:29

They were looking for just an apology,

12:30

just an acknowledgement that he wasn't the intended target.

12:33

And he still has not received that to this day.

12:39

We actually filed suit on his behalf for declaratory relief

12:44

in Washington just for an apology,

12:48

just for an acknowledgement.

12:52

And that case, I think is still pending.

12:53

Reprieve is still taking that forward.

12:55

But it's just such a tragic story because then,

12:58

sometime after his visit,

13:03

there was an acknowledgement from the White House.

13:05

And President Obama, I think gave a very public speech

13:08

from the White House when there were two Western casualties

13:11

of drone strikes in Pakistan,

13:15

two gentlemen who were very tragically killed

13:17

and deserved every moment of recognition that they got,

13:19

but it sent a very strange, confusing,

13:23

and ultimately really negative message

13:29

to people like Mr. Bin Ali Jaber

13:34

and the (indistinct) family in Pakistan

13:37

about who deserves apologies and who doesn't miss mistakes.

13:40

Interviewer

Do you know who was the American

13:44

who brought the money? Do you know that?

13:45

-

I don't.

13:49

We don't know exactly what the chain of custody was

13:49

of that money.

13:52

I believe it was in U.S. dollars.

13:54

Interviewer

And do you know why,

13:57

did the administration never explained to you

13:59

why they wouldn't apologize?

14:01

You never got any responses?

14:03

-

No, we did receive,

14:04

when Mr. Bin Ali Jaber met with Senator Durbin for example,

14:08

he did receive sympathies.

14:12

And I don't wanna put words in the senator's mouth

14:17

but almost tacit acknowledgement

14:22

that this shouldn't have happened to you

14:24

but it was never overt.

14:26

And certainly in the meeting

14:29

with members of the national security council,

14:31

it was very much, we are happy to meet with you.

14:33

We are happy to listen to what you have to say

14:36

but we can't say very much

14:38

about anything because this is all classified.

14:40

Interviewer

And so,

14:43

how do you address this with yourself

14:44

watching this over time

14:47

as you seem to get more and more involved in these issues?

14:49

What was your own personal experience back then?

14:53

-

I have never wanted to see race

14:57

as the primary motivating factor

15:02

in something that the U.S. government does

15:05

because I'm an American, patriotic, I'm a lawyer.

15:09

I believe in the rule of law.

15:13

I believe that this country has done a lot of great things

15:15

and stands for a lot of great things.

15:17

And I have always up until maybe the past few years

15:20

really shied away

15:24

from attributing decisions like that to race.

15:26

I have always tried to look for the security rationale,

15:29

right?

15:34

There must be a security rationale.

15:35

But after seeing that

15:37

and now having been really in the nuts and bolts

15:40

of Guantanamo representation for a number of years

15:45

and having seen the way in which the United States

15:48

has built a separate legal system

15:52

for non-citizen, Muslim men, there is no other rationale.

15:54

I can't talk myself out of that.

16:00

It is simply the fact that, I'm sorry to say this,

16:02

but it is simply the fact that most Americans

16:07

don't really care that brown people across the seas

16:11

somewhere far away are being killed

16:18

or that brown men who maybe don't have a lot in common,

16:20

who don't look like them, who don't share their religion,

16:25

don't speak the same language

16:28

are for all intents and purposes foreign to them

16:30

are subjected to a separate set of laws.

16:33

It doesn't matter.

16:35

And that is...

16:37

It's deeply hurtful and it's just makes me angry

16:39

and it makes me very, very sad.

16:43

But I can't come to a different conclusion.

16:45

Interviewer

How did you come to that conclusion?

16:49

Was it over time or was it momentous?

16:52

-

It was slowly over time, really.

16:55

Particularly because of the previous president.

17:00

There's a certain cognitive dissonance

17:03

in watching a president like President Obama

17:06

who came in on such a tide of anti-racism

17:10

and promotion of civil rights and promotion of human rights

17:15

and promotion of international law,

17:20

that it is just internally still.

17:22

So dissonant to think of this president

17:26

who stood for these values,

17:30

putting into practice or continuing a practice

17:32

of overt racism.

17:35

And so, for a very long time,

17:38

it's not that I wanted to rationalize what was happening

17:42

but I wanted to understand how this could happen.

17:44

How he could continue policies of force-feeding

17:48

at Guantanamo that were clearly punitive,

17:53

that were clearly torture,

17:55

how he could continue to oppose habeas petitions

17:57

from Guantanamo prisoners who had been cleared for release

18:01

for years.

18:04

How he could continue a discriminatory drone program.

18:05

And at the end of the day, there is no rationale.

18:11

And that became really stark

18:15

when he gave that press conference

18:18

about those two drone victims,

18:19

the American and the Italian gentlemen

18:22

who died because Faisal had been asking for it,

18:24

I think years at that point and all he...

18:28

We knew, everyone knew, the U.S. government knew,

18:31

members of Congress with security clearances knew

18:34

that Salim Bin Ali Jaber was not supposed to die

18:37

in a drone strike.

18:40

But the fact that a gentleman from Maryland

18:42

got a press conference from the White House

18:46

and it was reported a very large settlement

18:48

and Faisal got a bag of money in the mail and nothing else,

18:52

which was frankly very insulting to them

18:58

was just impossible to ignore.

19:02

Interviewer

Well, go on that.

19:06

Maybe we'll go back to that.

19:07

So, where did that take you next and (indistinct)?

19:07

-

So, once you start representing detainees

19:11

at Guantanamo as I did with Reprieve,

19:17

you become part of a magical in good and bad ways

19:19

organization called the Guantanamo Bar.

19:25

(Alka laughs)

19:27

And it is a real thing.

19:29

No, not officially, but we think of it as a real thing.

19:32

It is sort of this shared experience

19:36

of having to practice law

19:39

in the most lawless place on earth in many ways.

19:41

And we do call ourselves the Guantanamo Bar Association.

19:45

There are list serves that we're on.

19:49

We often consult with each other across organizations.

19:53

And these are people at law firms

19:57

that compete against each other.

20:01

These are people that non-governmental organizations

20:03

that would normally compete for funds and things like that.

20:06

But the Guantanamo experience is something

20:09

that really puts everyone on the same level.

20:15

And so, we try to help each other as much as we can.

20:16

When policies change at Guantanamo,

20:20

when somebody's down there,

20:23

we come back and report it to everybody else

20:24

And take note,

20:26

these particular group of guards is doing this this week.

20:27

And so, you really do grow a sense of comradery

20:31

through that.

20:34

And we have little hats as well

20:35

that say Guantanamo Bay Bar Association

20:36

Interviewer

You should have brought one.

20:39

-

I should have brought one,

20:40

(Alka laughs)

20:41

But we do.

20:43

We have hats and a couple of us have sweatshirts.

20:44

But as part of that,

20:46

you get to know people from different organizations

20:49

including the military commissions lawyers.

20:52

Now, the military commissions lawyers

20:55

are in a slightly different,

20:57

well, a very different situation

20:59

than the so-called habeas lawyers.

21:02

The habeas lawyers, when I was a habeas lawyer,

21:04

my job was to get my clients cleared for release

21:07

and then figure out where they should be released to.

21:11

I came into it late enough

21:17

that the majority of the detainees who were being cleared

21:19

for release were from Yemen or from Syria.

21:22

And so, they could not be released to Yemen or Syria.

21:24

So, that posed a problem.

21:26

And I had to work with the state department

21:28

and with frankly, numerous delegations in Washington

21:30

to kind of promote my clients and say,

21:35

"Look, the state department only gave you

21:38

"this much information about him.

21:41

"I know,

21:43

"don't ask me how that you're considering taking him.

21:44

"Here's his background. Here's where he's from.

21:46

"Here's members of his family,

21:49

"here's the support he would have

21:50

"if he came to your country,

21:52

"here's what he wants to do with his life.

21:53

"Here are the skills he has.

21:55

"Here's a little statement from him.

21:57

"If we've had something declassified from him,

21:59

"that we can give you."

22:01

It is sort of this constant almost press tour.

22:03

And you go around hat in hand

22:09

with dossiers of your clients saying,

22:11

"Please take my client."

22:15

Interviewer

The state department didn't have

22:18

that information, they didn't ask you for it?

22:20

Or if they asked you for it, they didn't ask you for it?

22:22

-

So, we had a very strange relationship

22:24

with the state department.

22:28

The office of Guantanamo Closure was a group of people,

22:29

a group of government employees

22:35

who I think were working very, very hard

22:37

to do the right thing in difficult circumstances.

22:39

It has always been made clear and is now clear to me

22:43

as a DOD employee now myself,

22:45

that the department of defense holds all of the strings

22:47

with regards to Guantanamo at this point.

22:51

They make all the decisions regarding detention.

22:54

They make all the decisions regarding what the public knows

22:56

about Guantanamo,

23:01

and that extends to the state department.

23:03

And so you have this office in the state department

23:05

trying to find, essentially find homes for these men

23:07

and the department of defense telling the state department

23:12

what they can and cannot say about the detainees.

23:15

And so, we would find out, usually on our own

23:18

just from sniffing around

23:22

and sometimes reporters would tell us

23:23

what they were hearing.

23:26

And sometimes members of the Guantanamo Closure office

23:27

would tell us quietly which countries they were talking to

23:31

and say, "Look, we can really,"

23:35

all they were allowed to tell these delegations

23:38

were the names of the detainees, where they were from

23:41

and a short kind of two-line blurb

23:46

about maybe how long they'd been there

23:48

and where they were picked up.

23:50

Now, the problem with that is that

23:52

when WikiLeaks came around,

23:55

WikiLeaks, one of the things that they released

23:59

were the very early 2002, 2003 assessments

24:02

of Guantanamo detainees.

24:08

And those are now all over the internet.

24:10

Those assessments by and large, right?

24:12

A great deal of the information in those assessments

24:15

can be traced to a couple of informants at Guantanamo.

24:18

Really just a handful of men who were given everything

24:22

from McDonald's Happy Meals to pornography at Guantanamo

24:26

to give up information about these other detainees.

24:31

And they made up so many things.

24:36

If you go to those assessments,

24:39

you'll notice that I think half of them

24:43

say that they're, either a Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law

24:45

or fought with him at Tora Bora.

24:49

I really didn't know we had 800 people in Tora Bora

24:51

with Osama bin Laden,

24:55

but really you start to see the similarities

24:58

among these assessments.

25:00

And that's because it can all be traced to a few people.

25:02

And so, these assessments were released by WikiLeaks.

25:05

And so, you fast forward a few years to 2013, '14, '15

25:08

and you're telling delegations, "Go search for Emad Hassan.

25:14

"We'd like to give you Emad Hassan."

25:18

Emad Hassan was a client of mine.

25:20

And you look up Emad Hassan

25:22

and I think his assessment says something like,

25:23

fought at Tora Bora or something like that,

25:27

or went to an Al-Qaeda training camps, something like that.

25:29

And so, you'd give...

25:32

When the state department just gives you just a name,

25:35

what are you gonna do? You're gonna Google it.

25:38

Like how else are you gonna find anything?

25:41

And the first thing that comes up

25:42

is this man is a terrorist.

25:44

He slept next to Osama bin Laden.

25:47

and drove him around and was instrumental.

25:49

I mean, at the end of the day,

25:53

he was instrumental in September 11th, right?

25:54

That's what it all comes back to.

25:55

And every single one of these guys was tarred with that.

25:56

And so, then delegations came back to the state department

26:01

and said, "No, thank you. We don't want them."

26:04

And the state department would say,

26:08

"Look, they've been cleared for release."

26:09

And I don't know the state department really fully explained

26:13

what clearance meant.

26:16

But clearance meant, under President Obama,

26:17

meant that these men,

26:20

each of the men had to be unanimously cleared

26:22

by six government agencies.

26:25

Now, I think everybody now knows how difficult it is

26:28

to get six government agencies to agree on anything,

26:31

but it is impossible.

26:35

It really is. It's an impossible task.

26:37

So, if someone has been cleared for release

26:39

in the Obama administration, it means they really are clear.

26:41

It means everyone has looked at them,

26:46

the intelligence community, DOD, DOJ, state department,

26:47

joint chiefs, everyone has looked at these men.

26:51

And so, the state department would say,

26:54

"Look, they've been cleared. That's all we can tell you.

26:55

"We can't tell you how they were cleared,

26:59

"why they were cleared,

27:01

"what evidence was given to show they were cleared,

27:01

"but they were cleared."

27:04

And the delegations would say, "Prove it."

27:06

And that all of that information was considered classified.

27:10

So, they couldn't.

27:15

So really, it was just the state board and saying,

27:17

"Please take them. We promise they're not a threat."

27:18

And these delegations saying, "It's a risk.

27:22

"It is. It's a risk."

27:25

So, that's where we came in.

27:28

And we would try to go to delegations and say,

27:29

"Look, like you know what has been happening at Guantanamo.

27:33

"You know these men have been tortured.

27:37

"You know that a lot of this information is fake.

27:39

"We can't obviously give you classified information

27:41

"but what we can do is give you a bit more background

27:44

"about where they come from,

27:47

"we can give you contacts for their families.

27:48

"We can show that they never were,

27:51

"for majority of them, never involved in anything, right?"

27:55

So, that's where we came in.

28:00

And that's what we did.

28:02

And sometimes that was with the blessing of individuals

28:03

at the state department.

28:07

And sometimes it was just behind their backs,

28:09

and I make no apology for that.

28:11

Interviewer

And you never went

28:14

to the department of defense and asked them if you could?

28:14

-

No. We mentioned it sometimes.

28:19

They have the universal periodic reviews

28:23

where the United States is reviewed by the United nations,

28:27

really.

28:30

And they have to answer questions every time

28:31

about Guantanamo.

28:32

And as part of that process,

28:33

they hold civil society briefings.

28:36

And by they,

28:38

I mean literally all agencies of the U.S. government.

28:39

And so, there are always representatives from the DOD,

28:41

their representatives, the state department, DOJ, etc.

28:44

And so, I've been to a few of those

28:47

and have asked the representatives

28:50

from the department of defense,

28:52

usually the office of detainee policy,

28:53

why is it that you don't give more complete information

28:56

about the men who've been cleared for release?

28:59

And their answer is usually something very simple

29:01

like, we give what we can and everything's classified

29:05

and it's a national security risk.

29:09

And if there's national security assessment,

29:11

you wouldn't understand.

29:12

And so, that's where the conversation begins and ends.

29:17

Interviewer

So, you were at Reprieve for two years?

29:21

-

I was, yeah. I was at Reprieve for two years.

29:24

Interviewer

And then why did you move on to Guantanamo?

29:25

-

So, as I said, being a member of the Guantanamo Bar,

29:28

you get to know everybody.

29:32

You get to know all of the attorneys

29:34

working on all these very different cases.

29:35

So, I was a habeas lawyer

29:37

but I knew lawyers at the military commissions

29:39

and on the defense side,

29:43

I had either been with them at Guantanamo at the same time

29:44

or had talked to them about some of my clients

29:47

on the habeas side,

29:51

maybe knew some of the the guys who are now,

29:52

before the military commissions.

29:57

So, we'd cross paths.

29:59

And somebody from the military commissions

30:01

defense organization who had known for a few years

30:04

came to me all of a sudden in 2015 and said,

30:06

"We are suddenly being given funding

30:10

"for civilian attorneys."

30:13

Up until that point,

30:15

it had been pretty much only military attorneys.

30:17

And the only civilians were the so-called learned counsel

30:20

who are the death penalty experts,

30:25

death penalty qualified lawyers who lead each team

30:27

because the 911 case particularly is a death penalty case.

30:31

And so they said, "We're suddenly hiring civilian lawyers,

30:35

"are you interested?"

30:39

And I said,

30:41

"Well, there's no way to get any deeper into Guantanamo

30:42

"than by joining the military commission."

30:48

(Alka laughs)

30:51

that's the oblique. That is it.

30:52

And I'd studied and litigated

30:57

and heard so much that point

31:04

about this particular group of detainees

31:08

who these, of course, are the CIA detainees, right?

31:11

These are the guys who were in the rendition program.

31:16

And I had studied the rendition program.

31:18

I'll close in personally in the constitution project.

31:20

I knew what they had been through.

31:24

I knew what kind of torture they'd faced.

31:26

I knew that they'd been flown all over the world,

31:27

that they'd been kept in secret prisons.

31:30

And it was the kind of thing...

31:32

It was sort of the kind of challenge

31:35

that I really, as a lawyer, I couldn't pass up.

31:38

And it was also just the opportunity to,

31:43

several of my clients at Reprieve were tortured,

31:46

were brutally tortured.

31:49

And so this was the opportunity

31:53

to kind of really just further my work with torture victims.

31:54

When you joined the military commissions,

32:03

you join one person's team.

32:04

You really don't work for more than one client,

32:06

particularly with regards to the 911 case

32:09

which is the biggest criminal case in U.S. history.

32:12

And so, I joined the team of Ammar Al-Baluchi.

32:16

And so, I represent just Ammar.

32:21

And in the course of sort of prepping for this job,

32:25

read up on everything that he had been through, who he was,

32:32

where he'd come from,

32:37

what the allegations were, all of that.

32:38

But I will say, nothing really prepares you

32:41

for meeting your client face to face

32:45

and getting that information from him.

32:49

Interviewer

Well, I'd like to know

32:53

first time you met him what that was like,

32:54

but just for the audience,

32:56

can you give us a brief background

32:57

and who he is or what you first (indistinct)

32:58

before you met him?

33:00

-

Of course. Ammar is a Pakistani citizen.

33:01

He grew up in Kuwait.

33:06

He was born in Kuwait and lived in Kuwait and Iran

33:09

and then Dubai.

33:13

He worked as a computer,

33:14

basically a computer specialist, computer engineer in Dubai,

33:16

he's educated.

33:22

He's very good at computers,

33:26

and he's kind of very interested in technology

33:28

and all of that.

33:31

But he was living in Dubai for several years

33:33

prior to 2001.

33:36

His computer company wrapped up operations in 2001.

33:39

And then he moved back to Pakistan or he had family.

33:43

Now...

33:48

Interviewer

(indistinct).

33:48

-

At that time in 2001, he was 20...

33:49

This is, goodness now. It's 16 years ago.

33:53

He was 23.

33:56

Now, Ammar's uncle is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

33:59

who a name that many people know as the alleged mastermind

34:03

of September 11th.

34:08

And so, he moved back to Pakistan,

34:10

and he has a large family

34:14

and they're spread out all over the place.

34:16

But he was in Pakistan on September 11th.

34:19

He watched September 11th with the rest of the world

34:22

really when it happened on TV.

34:25

And then in 2003, he was arrested in Pakistan.

34:29

He was shortly after his arrest in April, 2003.

34:39

He was transferred to CIA custody where he disappeared,

34:43

and he disappeared until September 6th, 2006,

34:49

when he and several other so-called high-value detainees

34:54

were transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

34:58

During the time that he was in CIA custody,

35:00

it was three and a half years,

35:03

he was held incommunicado.

35:05

His family had no idea where he was.

35:08

He very early in his custody,

35:11

he suffered a traumatic brain injury

35:13

from the CIA essentially bashing his head against the wall

35:15

repeatedly.

35:21

And he talks about this.

35:22

I actually have a couple of visuals.

35:24

So, this is Ammar prior to his arrest and disappearance

35:27

by the CIA.

35:33

He's clearly very young, 22 in this picture.

35:34

And then early, as I said,

35:40

early during his time in CIA custody,

35:42

he has this header injury.

35:47

And he's written a little bit about this

35:50

because this has continued to impact him even now,

35:52

16 years later.

35:57

And so, he wrote this a couple of years ago,

35:58

and this is a recollection from, as you can see,

36:02

the end of May early June, 2003.

36:04

And he calls this The Head Trauma Incident.

36:06

Interviewer

Do you know when he wrote that?

36:10

-

Yeah. He wrote this in August, 2015.

36:12

And it says, he signed it here,

36:16

Ammar Al-Baluchi Guantanamo Bay, 6th August, 2015.

36:18

Interviewer

And did he write it for your purposes

36:22

or for defense purposes or for himself?

36:24

-

It's not for specific defense purposes.

36:26

One of the things that we are trying to do for Ammar

36:29

is of course, we need to get evidence of his torture.

36:34

And so, this is part of that.

36:37

But it's also really to try and find ways to alleviate

36:39

the impact of torture on him

36:46

because he does continue to suffer from physical

36:49

and mental effects of torture.

36:52

And I'm happy to go into detail about all of that.

36:53

But he does not receive medical rehabilitation

36:57

for the torture that he underwent

37:00

at the hands of the United States.

37:03

And so, as his defense team,

37:05

one of the things that is a very high priority for us

37:10

is finding ways in which we can however unofficially,

37:14

try to alleviate those symptoms.

37:20

And one of the ways in which we do that

37:21

is to try and get him to talk about it,

37:23

to recollect things

37:26

so that we can then take whatever we can that's unclassified

37:29

and talk to doctors and talk to specialists

37:33

in these kinds of tortures

37:36

and see what kind of therapies,

37:38

little things he can do for himself in his cell

37:40

or that we can find for him,

37:44

what medications we might be able to find

37:46

that we can then ask to be administered to him

37:48

at Guantanamo.

37:51

Interviewer

I would talked about that

37:53

but maybe you can read that to us (indistinct).

37:55

-

Of course. Of course.

37:55

And so, one of the things I wanna say

37:58

is that this particular incident was a result

38:01

of the technique called walling.

38:06

And a lot of people familiar with the CIA techniques

38:08

and the legal memoranda

38:12

that governed the CIA torture program,

38:14

understand walling to be, as described in the memo,

38:16

where you just lightly tap somebody

38:19

and knock them off balance a little bit

38:22

against, maybe a fake wall or something,

38:24

just to knock them off balance, very gentle.

38:27

It's supposed to be very gentle.

38:30

It's supposed to be a,

38:31

I think a first tier interrogation technique.

38:32

Ammar describes walling as what actually happened.

38:36

What actually happened is, often they would take a towel

38:39

and I'll read to you what he said.

38:44

But basically, what they'll do first is they'd take a towel

38:46

and they'd roll it up and they'd wrap it around his neck

38:49

and use that as leverage to knock him against,

38:53

usually a cement wall,

38:58

just knock him against the wall to get answers.

39:00

And so, that's what he says here.

39:04

He says, "In the very first days,

39:05

"U.S. government agents shaved my head

39:07

"and they smashed my head against the wall repeatedly.

39:10

"It continued until I lost count.

39:12

"As my head was being hit each time,

39:15

"I would see sparks of light in my eyes.

39:17

"As the intensity of these sparks was increasing

39:20

"as a result of repeated hitting.

39:23

"Then all of a sudden I felt a strong jolt of electricity

39:25

"in my head. I couldn't see anything.

39:29

"Everything went dark and I passed out."

39:31

The next thing, he wakes up.

39:35

He finds themselves in a different place

39:37

suspended into the ceiling in a dark cold cell.

39:39

He doesn't know how long he was unconscious.

39:42

He doesn't know what happened to him in the interim.

39:43

And his legs were swollen as a result of extended standing.

39:48

Talks about how the handcuffs were cutting his wrists

39:53

which were pulled over his head.

39:57

He also talks about extremely loud and disturbing music

40:00

with a mixture of grading, screeching shrill sounds

40:05

cutting into my ears.

40:09

One of the things that he emphasizes at every point

40:12

in these statements that we have from him

40:17

is how many of these techniques were used at the same time.

40:20

And I think he actually states in one of these

40:24

that when you read, he says here,

40:27

"When you read the list of EIT,"

40:33

which refers to enhanced interrogation techniques,

40:36

which is the term that I never use,

40:39

(Alka laughs)

40:42

because it's a really terrible euphemism.

40:43

And I don't think anybody should use it.

40:45

But when you read the list of EIT,

40:47

you would find prolonged standing or even suspension.

40:51

And it misleads to think that the U.S. government agents

40:54

were using one torture method at a time.

40:57

He says, "I wasn't just being suspended to the ceiling.

41:02

"I was naked, starved, dehydrated, cold, hooded,

41:04

"verbally threatened, in pain from the beating

41:08

"and water drowning as my head was smashed

41:11

"by hitting against a wall dozens of times.

41:14

This particular one, he says,

41:18

"I was sleep-deprived for weeks.

41:20

"I was shaking, trembling.

41:21

"My legs barely supported my weight."

41:23

Then he says, he started screaming.

41:27

The doctor came with a tape measure,

41:29

wrapped it around my leg and to my shock,

41:33

the doctor told the interrogators,

41:36

"That wasn't enough. That his legs should be more swollen."

41:38

And he says, "A doctor would check me

41:46

"before I walk into each torture chamber

41:51

"and tell the interrogators what methods to use for torture.

41:54

"And then as I was brought out,

41:58

"the doctor would check me again

42:00

"and tell the interrogators what more to do

42:01

"in the next room."

42:04

And these are doctors.

42:05

Interviewer

I assume you do this before he wrote it?

42:11

I assume he told you this verbally before, or...

42:13

-

A lot of these, we're still learning.

42:18

A lot of this,

42:21

we're still finding out what exactly happened to him.

42:22

Partially because there were so many things

42:24

happening to him at once

42:28

that he wasn't necessarily conscious for all of them,

42:30

fully conscious for all of them.

42:34

And because he had an injury, a head injury so early on

42:36

that then affected,

42:42

and has continued to affect his detention since then,

42:43

it really messed with his cognitive abilities.

42:47

It really messed with his, which was,

42:49

I'm sure was their intention,

42:52

it really messed with his ability to tell

42:53

how much time had passed,

42:57

what was happening at the same time,

42:59

who was in the room, all of that.

43:01

And so, one of the things that we're trying to do now,

43:03

and that he's very diligently

43:08

and sort of methodically trying to do

43:12

is bring back all of those memories

43:15

all of these things that may have been suppressed

43:17

or may have sort of blended together over time

43:20

as just one ugly three and a half-year nightmare.

43:24

Now three and a half year, 16 year,

43:27

however, 13 years at this point, almost 14.

43:29

And really try to separate them out

43:34

and figure out who did what at what time.

43:35

And I'll tell you,

43:40

we're in the middle of pre-trial hearings for this trial

43:41

which is a death penalty case.

43:45

And we rely on the government to give us discovery for that.

43:47

And one of the things that we've asked for is this category,

43:50

very large category of torture evidence, right?

43:53

Of everything that was done to him

43:56

by the CIA at the black sites.

43:58

And the government has at every possible opportunity

44:01

withheld all of that as much of that evidence

44:05

as they possibly can.

44:09

It has been a struggle to get even the most basic details.

44:10

And that is by design,

44:16

the military commissions act

44:17

and the rules governing the military commissions

44:20

allow the government to make substitutions for information

44:23

that's classified.

44:28

Now, I hold a top secret security clearance.

44:30

I hold the same security clearance as the prosecution does,

44:32

but under the military commissions rules,

44:36

the prosecution may look at the whole body of evidence

44:38

and they may take a document

44:42

that has something about Ammar Al-Baluchi in 2003, 2004,

44:44

and they can make a substitution.

44:48

They can make a summary of it.

44:49

Now, the judge has to approve the summaries,

44:52

but the result of this has been...

44:54

The government would like to say they've given us

44:57

all the CIA medical records.

45:00

What the CIA medical records look like,

45:02

and this is something we've been litigating recently,

45:04

our sheet of paper that actually have headings

45:07

very similar to this, right?

45:11

Mid 2003, right?

45:13

And the list of one sentence non-sequitors, right?

45:15

So, there's one page in particular

45:19

that I used as an example when we litigated this,

45:22

I think this was in October of last year,

45:25

that says mid 2003.

45:27

And one of the lines is

45:29

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, which is Ammar's birth name,

45:34

administered Ensure after 86 hours of prolonged standing.

45:41

Okay? It's just one sentence.

45:46

All right.

45:48

And I said, I looked at this and as a lawyer, right?

45:50

Or as just a human being, reading this sentence,

45:54

there are a thousand questions that you have, right?

45:58

Why was he given Ensure?

46:02

Ensure, of course, is the nutritional supplement, right?

46:04

Why was he given Ensure?

46:07

Why wasn't he just given a meal?

46:08

How is it administered?

46:10

Was it administered through feeding tube?

46:11

What happened? Did he drink it?

46:14

Why would he been standing for 86 hours?

46:16

Was he shackled while he was standing for 86 hours?

46:18

Was he naked? Was he hooded?

46:22

Was he beaten? Who was in the room?

46:24

Was there a doctor present?

46:26

I mean, was he interrogated while he was standing

46:30

for 86 hours?

46:32

Was he allowed to sleep at any point?

46:33

Had he already been sleep-deprived before they strung him up

46:35

for 86 hours?

46:38

I mean, the possibilities, as you can see, are just endless

46:39

for that kind of thing.

46:42

So, for the government to give me a sentence like that

46:43

and say, "Now you have his medical records,"

46:47

and that's the evidence that I'm supposed to use

46:50

in a death penalty trial

46:54

where my client is on trial for his life

46:55

is just astonishing.

46:58

Interviewer

Did the judge approved this summary?

47:02

-

The judge approved that particular summary,

47:05

but of course, we then went back and said,

47:08

"Here are the many problems, judge, with this summary."

47:10

And I think he's still considering

47:14

what more to do about that.

47:16

Interviewer

Why do you think the government declassified

47:17

what you read to us so far?

47:20

-

So, that's actually a really interesting question

47:23

because it follows a timeline

47:27

set by the Senate selected committee on intelligence.

47:28

Up until the the intelligence committee report

47:32

was declassified,

47:38

or really the executive summary of the report

47:39

which is much smaller than the actual report was redacted

47:43

and declassified in December, 2014,

47:47

none of these were declassified.

47:50

None of these statements were considered to be releasable

47:53

by the government.

47:56

The government essentially classified

47:57

all of Ammar's memories of his own torture,

48:00

literally everything in his mind about what had happened

48:04

to him was considered classified by the U.S. government.

48:10

Now, ask yourself what the reason for that might be.

48:13

And the reason is just because it is shameful

48:16

and it is illegal.

48:19

And so, what happened was after that long prolonged fight

48:21

between the CIA and the intelligence committee

48:29

to release that little portion,

48:31

and that portion was released.

48:33

And that portion of course, went into some detail

48:34

about the horrific techniques that were used.

48:37

At that point, the government said,

48:40

"Okay, we really don't have an excuse anymore

48:42

"for not declassifying things like this

48:47

"that talk exclusively about treatment."

48:50

Now, you'll notice in some of these,

48:56

there are still redactions,

48:58

there are still portions that have black lines over them.

49:01

And actually, there's one here that's kind of amusing

49:08

because Ammar has redacted it himself

49:12

because he knew if it says in black site, blank,

49:16

during, blank,

49:20

because the government of course, considers the locations

49:22

of the black sites to be classified.

49:24

So, basically, anything treatment-related

49:28

is now considered to be technically releasable,

49:33

but it still has to go through

49:36

a lengthy declassification process.

49:38

I mean, these statements from the ones that were given to us

49:40

in 2015 to maybe six months or so to go through

49:44

declassification.

49:47

I've had items in for months and months and months

49:51

at a time.

49:53

So, it's still quite a process

49:54

but it really wasn't until then that we started out this.

49:56

Interviewer

So, were you (indistinct) along that term.

49:59

Did you ever get a definition of what that exactly entailed?

50:04

-

So, no.

50:08

And actually one of the reasons that we now know

50:10

more about the techniques that were used on Ammar

50:15

is because of a movie called "Zero Dark Thirty."

50:18

And this is a movie that was,

50:22

it's a Hollywood movie, big-budget film

50:24

that was made about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

50:28

It was made by Kathryn Bigelow,

50:32

was very famous Hollywood director, Oscar-winning director,

50:34

and a screenwriter named Mark Boal.

50:39

And what happened was Mark Boal essentially went to the CIA

50:43

some years.

50:48

The movie was released in 2012.

50:48

So, this would have been 2009, 2010,

50:50

about, I think he initially approached the CIA

50:54

about doing a movie on another topic.

50:57

And then of course, Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.

51:00

And the focus of the movie changed to that.

51:03

And the CIA at this point,

51:06

we now know from documents that have been released

51:08

from the SSEI report that at this point,

51:12

the CIA was starting to panic about the rendition program

51:15

about the fact that the intelligence committee

51:19

was going to try and release this report,

51:21

that the world was gonna find out

51:25

how many illegal things DCI had been engaged in

51:27

and they needed to go on the offensive.

51:30

And I think there's there's actually a document that's cited

51:32

in the intelligence committee report

51:34

where CIA officials says we either eat or get eaten.

51:36

We have to be aggressive

51:41

about what the public knows about this.

51:42

And so they saw in this an opportunity

51:47

to basically propagandize what they had been doing.

51:50

And over the course of the next, however period of time,

51:54

they had a number of meetings.

52:01

I think from the unclassified information we've had

52:04

through other organizations that have filed foyer requests,

52:08

something like 23 meetings between filmmakers

52:12

and CIA officials and hundreds of communications.

52:16

I think we were able to count

52:20

upwards of a hundred communications.

52:21

We don't have the communications,

52:25

we're kind of litigating to get them,

52:26

but there were communications.

52:28

And there have been now many stories written by journalists

52:29

about the collaboration between the CIA and the filmmakers

52:34

on this movie.

52:39

So, when this movie came out,

52:41

I was not part of Mr. Al-Baluchi's team at this point.

52:44

But a member of the team apparently saw it and said,

52:47

"Hang on."

52:51

The first 25 minutes are almost exclusively the torture

52:52

of a detainee, the torture of a detainee named Ammar.

52:56

And this team member came back and said,

53:00

"That's Ammar. That's Ammar Al-Baluchi."

53:02

There are many factual parallels in the film

53:07

between the character Ammar and Ammar Al-Baluchi.

53:11

It says in the film

53:16

that he's Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew.

53:17

Yeah. It talks about him being a money guy for Al-Qaeda.

53:21

And of course, several of the allegations

53:27

against Mr. Ammar have to do with finances.

53:29

And so, there are those parallels.

53:33

And there are several reasons that we now know a lot more

53:35

about what the CIA told these filmmakers

53:41

specifically about Ammar.

53:44

One has to do with the water torture

53:47

that you just asked about.

53:49

In the film,

53:50

the character Ammar notably is not waterboarded.

53:51

Now at the time, and even now,

53:54

waterboarding is what everybody associates with the CIA,

53:57

right?

54:01

So, if you're going to depict the torture by the CIA,

54:02

why would you not show a man on a board being waterboarded,

54:07

right?

54:11

That's not what they show in the film.

54:11

They show essentially what is called water dowsing.

54:13

They show the character of Ammar being doused

54:18

with cold water while on a mat, while on a tarp.

54:21

And that tarp was important

54:25

because that's exactly how Ammar was tortured with water.

54:28

He was put on a tarp and that tarp was then used

54:32

to move the water to further drown him.

54:36

That's exactly the way he was tortured,

54:39

the way they show in the movie.

54:42

Interviewer

Was he head down

54:43

or when you said the water drowned him?

54:44

-

So basically, the water would be poured on this tarp

54:47

and you could then manipulate kind of the tarp

54:50

to move the water to cover his face.

54:53

So, that's one.

54:58

Yeah, that was one parallel.

55:00

Another is there's a scene in the movie

55:03

where one of the interrogators says,

55:06

"You step off this mat and I hurt you."

55:10

Now, this is not a technique that's written about

55:14

in the legal memos.

55:17

This is not a technique that anybody had talked about

55:18

publicly before this movie came out.

55:21

It is a however a technique that was used on Ammar,

55:23

my client Ammar,

55:28

where you create a prison within a prison

55:30

and you have to stand on this one mat

55:32

and you can't step off or pain is coming.

55:35

These are very specific things that show up in this movie

55:40

that were certainly not made public

55:45

until the movie came out.

55:50

And even then, several of them weren't really confirmed

55:51

until we had the SSEI report which came out in 2014,

55:54

two years later.

55:58

And so, it raised a lot of very interesting questions

56:01

about just how much so-called classified information

56:04

the CIA shared with filmmakers making a propaganda movie

56:09

that was gonna show the CIA in a positive light

56:14

when they withhold that same information

56:17

from the defense attorneys

56:19

trying to prevent Mr. Al-Baluchi from being put to death

56:21

by the U.S. government.

56:24

Interviewer

Why would the CIA

56:25

and the filmmakers use his name

56:28

and describe him as if he was the person

56:30

that you're representing?

56:33

-

I think because at the time,

56:36

and this is speculation on my part,

56:39

but at the time the CIA was aware

56:40

that the intelligence committee report

56:44

was going to come out.

56:47

And one of the claims that the CIA made

56:48

that is reported in the intelligence committee report,

56:51

well, there's several claims that the CIA made,

56:54

factual claims about how the use of torture techniques

56:56

on Ammar led to X breakthrough

57:03

right in the search for Osama bin Laden

57:08

or X information about so-called other plots

57:10

and all of that.

57:15

Now, we don't know any of that to be true.

57:16

In fact, if the movie is true,

57:18

then what we see in the movie is actually the implantation

57:22

in one scene of false memories in the character of Ammar.

57:25

And so, we have no idea how much of this is truth.

57:28

And we know that the CIA told a lot of lies in this as well

57:31

that were specifically debunked

57:34

by the intelligence committee.

57:35

But with speculating one reason for them

57:37

to have collaborated with us

57:42

and to try to have specifically Ammar

57:44

or specific individuals depicted in this movie

57:49

is to essentially poison the well,

57:53

to set out the battlefield before we even start the war,

57:56

right?

58:01

And to, speaking as a litigator,

58:01

influence the jury pool ahead of time.

58:05

Interviewer

When people watched that movie,

58:09

I remember reviewers often said,

58:12

"This is really torture life.

58:14

"This is really not as bad as it really is."

58:15

Do you have any thoughts about that?

58:19

-

Yes.

58:21

As disturbing as that film is,

58:22

and as much as certainly those parts of it

58:25

should never have been made,

58:28

my belief based on what I now know

58:33

about what happened to Ammar

58:36

and what happened to some of these men,

58:36

it does not come close to depicting the horror

58:40

of what happened to them at the black sites

58:46

by U.S. officials.

58:48

I mean, and you can hear some of it really

58:51

in Ammar's own words, right?

58:54

When he says things like,

58:56

the U.S. government had my both hands tied together

58:58

for 120 days straight.

59:01

And then when my torturers decided to move me

59:06

to black site X, they had to cut the handcuffs off

59:09

by bolt cutter because the handcuffs were so rusted.

59:12

They wouldn't open with the keys anymore, right?

59:15

Now, again, we know while he was handcuffed like this,

59:17

he was being beaten, he was naked.

59:21

They used sexual torture on these men.

59:23

He was sleep-deprived

59:26

to a point where he has not slept a full night of sleep

59:27

since before he was arrested.

59:33

He cannot sleep anymore.

59:35

He's incapable of sleeping more than a couple of hours

59:37

at a time,

59:40

because at the black sites,

59:41

they intentionally kept him sleep-deprived.

59:44

They would play loud music.

59:47

They would play heavy metal and all of that constantly.

59:49

And they would make sure that he never slept enough

59:53

to be fully refreshed or really try to really recover

59:56

from anything that had been done to him.

1:00:02

And he cannot sleep now.

1:00:04

There are days he comes that when I see him

1:00:06

when he has not slept a wink all night.

1:00:09

And this is a man who, again,

1:00:13

who is supposed to be trying to participate

1:00:14

in his own defense

1:00:17

Interviewer

Does he wake up and from nightmares

1:00:19

or from flashbacks

1:00:23

or what just caused him not to sleep anymore?

1:00:24

-

What he says is that he still hears the music in his head

1:00:27

when he tries to sleep.

1:00:33

It comes back to him and it plays in his head

1:00:35

and he can hear the music.

1:00:38

He can hear what the guards are yelling at him.

1:00:40

It just never leaves him.

1:00:43

And he started to explore more now

1:00:45

the impact of particularly the music torture

1:00:49

and he's trying very hard to understand

1:00:52

what kinds of sounds, what songs were used.

1:00:57

He's trying to remember specifics about it

1:01:00

in the hopes that he can find some sort of way

1:01:02

to almost purge that, I certainly hope he can

1:01:06

for his own health,

1:01:10

because it's at a point where he's very functional.

1:01:11

He's actually very, well-spoken, he's educated.

1:01:16

He's very participatory in his case.

1:01:21

But you can see the effect on him

1:01:26

and you can see I've worked on his case now for a year

1:01:28

and a half.

1:01:30

And I can see the difference in him

1:01:31

just over that year and a half.

1:01:33

Interviewer

What do you see?

1:01:35

-

He's a young man, he's 39 years old, right?

1:01:38

And he's just a few years older than me.

1:01:41

And when I sit with him for a full day,

1:01:43

whether in court or in a meeting cell,

1:01:47

over the course of that time

1:01:53

if we talk about difficult subjects,

1:01:57

if we talk about his torture, for example,

1:01:59

he'll need to stop.

1:02:02

He'll need silence after a period of time.

1:02:03

He'll need to maybe put dark glasses on

1:02:06

because his eyes are very sensitive under fluorescent lights

1:02:08

because they used fluorescent lights at the black sites.

1:02:14

He'll need to change subject.

1:02:18

Sometimes he has trouble despite his best efforts.

1:02:20

You could almost see him visibly wrestling to focus

1:02:24

on a particular task or a particular topic.

1:02:29

And he has real trouble finishing small tasks,

1:02:33

writing us letters, writing statements,

1:02:37

finishing kind of a thought from start to finish

1:02:41

because of that,

1:02:46

because of sort of these constant things

1:02:47

that are swirling in his head.

1:02:50

And you see it, you see the frustration on his face.

1:02:53

The little bit of independent medical assessment

1:02:58

that we've had done on him,

1:03:02

we know he has PTSD, severe PTSD.

1:03:03

We know he has anxiety.

1:03:06

We know that he's obviously sleep-deprived.

1:03:09

He can't sleep properly. He has neurological...

1:03:13

Interviewer

How do you know

1:03:16

he was traumatically (indistinct)?

1:03:17

What does that mean?

1:03:19

-

So, one of the things that we've been trying to get

1:03:20

for a very long time is an MRI of his brain.

1:03:23

And for years, we've been asking for this

1:03:26

because that would be definitive.

1:03:28

What we have had done is we've have had a doctor

1:03:30

with a security clearance examine him,

1:03:34

over a length of time, meet with him several times.

1:03:38

And that doctor has said, unequivocally,

1:03:40

that all of the symptoms that he shows,

1:03:43

including like the pain, when he has pain,

1:03:46

the flashing in his eyes, the shooting pains,

1:03:49

things like that,

1:03:55

all of these things taken together

1:03:56

are unequivocally pointing to a traumatic brain injury,

1:03:59

which is a very specific element, right?

1:04:03

It's a very specific thing that can be dealt with,

1:04:06

that can be treated.

1:04:11

But without that MRI, you can't begin the treatment,

1:04:14

without a proper medical assessment,

1:04:19

without the constant care of a psychiatrist

1:04:21

and a psychologist, proper medications, sleep studies,

1:04:27

that kind of thing.

1:04:32

You can't begin to treat it.

1:04:33

And all of that is after they spent three and a half years

1:04:36

breaking his trust in United States government officials

1:04:41

and doctors

1:04:44

Interviewer

You had said earlier

1:04:45

that he wasn't getting medical treatment.

1:04:47

Why wouldn't the government now provide him

1:04:50

medical treatment?

1:04:53

What's the government (indistinct)?

1:04:53

-

Over time, there have been different answers to this

1:04:56

from different government officials.

1:05:00

We know that the official department of defense line

1:05:04

is that they receive excellent medical treatment.

1:05:08

The department of defense likes to say

1:05:11

in their press briefings that they receive

1:05:14

better medical treatment than they would get at home, right?

1:05:16

As if they're much better off at Guantanamo

1:05:19

than they would be with their families

1:05:21

after 14 years of detention without charge.

1:05:25

The reality is,

1:05:31

the government did in fact build something like a,

1:05:33

what they call a $20-million medical facility at Guantanamo.

1:05:37

I can't figure out for the life of me

1:05:42

what they spent that money on.

1:05:45

(Alka laughs)

1:05:47

I can't.

1:05:48

I have now represented a number of detainees

1:05:49

some with very serious medical problems

1:05:52

and I cannot tell you what the money is being spent on

1:05:55

because it's not the medical staff,

1:06:00

the medical staff rotate in and out every few months

1:06:03

because Guantanamo, I think is considered a hardship station

1:06:07

and they can't spend too much time there.

1:06:10

So, there's no continuity of care.

1:06:12

It's not the equipment because again,

1:06:14

I think in Mr. Ali Nashiri has court ordered MRI.

1:06:21

We can't get an MRI machine to Guantanamo.

1:06:24

It's not medications or therapies or any anything like that

1:06:28

because they don't have those.

1:06:32

They're not given those.

1:06:33

Mr. Al-Baluchi when he complains of pain

1:06:36

or anything like that,

1:06:41

they basically just throw painkillers at him.

1:06:42

He tries to tell them what I've just told you about.

1:06:46

Look, this goes back 14 years.

1:06:49

This goes back to this head injury.

1:06:52

And he has been told by medical professionals

1:06:55

that we can't talk about that, we can't address any of that.

1:06:57

So in other words, they won't take medical history of him

1:07:03

because they don't wanna talk about the torture.

1:07:07

Now, I don't know why that is.

1:07:09

They all have security clearances.

1:07:11

They have to, to be in any kind of proximity with these men.

1:07:12

But they won't.

1:07:18

Ammar has tried.

1:07:20

Ammar has actually tried many times

1:07:21

over a long period of time.

1:07:25

He's been at Guantanamo now for over 10 years to get help,

1:07:26

that's his priority.

1:07:32

And he just can't do it.

1:07:34

Interviewer

Maybe wanna go back to this

1:07:40

but you made me think again about something you said earlier

1:07:41

when you read about the doctor took a tape measure

1:07:43

of his leg, and then the doctor said

1:07:46

you can continue to torture him

1:07:48

because was just swollen up.

1:07:49

So, what can you say about the complicity

1:07:51

of the medical profession in all of this?

1:07:55

-

Well, we know, I have a lot to say on this topic.

1:07:58

Great deal to say. I try to decide where to start.

1:08:03

So, as I would say, as a start,

1:08:09

we know that doctors designed the torture program,

1:08:13

the CIA torture program.

1:08:17

It was designed by two psychologists named James Mitchell

1:08:20

and Bruce Jessen, whose names were classified

1:08:24

or considered classified by the government

1:08:28

until very recently.

1:08:30

I had to refer to them previously as Swigert and Dunbar,

1:08:32

which are their aliases in the SSEI report.

1:08:36

You can probably tell how I feel about that.

1:08:41

But these two psychologists who had really no experience

1:08:44

with interrogation or torture or anything like that,

1:08:51

decided to take a technique called learned helplessness

1:08:56

which is a psychological sort of doctrine that's been...

1:09:00

It was developed over time by a series of psychologists

1:09:08

and tested on dogs, right?

1:09:12

When you give a dog an electric shock,

1:09:14

when they step off a mark, for example,

1:09:19

they learn to be helpless

1:09:22

so that even when there is no barrier

1:09:24

and they're not going to be shocked, they don't try,

1:09:27

they don't try to help themselves.

1:09:30

They don't try to get off the mat.

1:09:31

They don't try to get out of their circumstances

1:09:32

because they learned to be helpless.

1:09:34

So, these two men, Mitchell and Jessen took this idea

1:09:36

and turned it into an interrogation program.

1:09:43

They said, "We are going..."

1:09:46

And the most egregious thing about this

1:09:48

is that James Mitchell then had the audacity

1:09:53

to write a book about it, which was released late last year

1:09:57

in which he talks about how he took the concept

1:10:00

of learned helplessness

1:10:05

and decided to use it on human beings.

1:10:06

And decided to use it on human beings

1:10:11

in the most painful way possible.

1:10:14

And he discusses in great detail in his book

1:10:16

how essentially they were conducting medical experiments

1:10:20

on the detainees at the black sites.

1:10:24

They were tweaking the program as they went.

1:10:28

They were trying to figure out

1:10:31

what combinations of techniques worked best

1:10:33

to get so-called truths from these individuals.

1:10:37

We now know, thanks to the torture report,

1:10:42

that a great deal of the information that they got

1:10:46

led to dead ends or was just simply false information

1:10:49

because tortured men will say anything.

1:10:53

But that's where the involvement of doctors begins.

1:10:57

And from what I've read you from Ammar's statements,

1:11:01

Ammar saw doctors all the time.

1:11:05

They were in the interrogation rooms with him.

1:11:07

They told the interrogators how to torture him.

1:11:09

So, you can imagine what that does to psychology of someone

1:11:14

who would then at a later date has to put his trust

1:11:18

in doctors again.

1:11:23

And that deep seated distrust of doctors

1:11:25

really extends to all of the detainees now.

1:11:30

I have not represented a single person at Guantanamo,

1:11:33

and I've represented more than 10 people

1:11:36

who is happy to see a doctor,

1:11:38

who believes that a doctor is going to help them.

1:11:42

They are some who are more willing to try

1:11:45

like sir Baluchi because he simply has no other way

1:11:48

to get better.

1:11:54

He just wants to get better.

1:11:55

And he has the right to do that.

1:11:57

So, that was CIA use of doctors.

1:12:00

We also know that doctors were involved

1:12:03

at various stages in the torture at Guantanamo

1:12:06

of the non-CIA detainees,

1:12:09

ones who were brought over from Afghanistan,

1:12:11

from Pakistan and other places

1:12:15

and that they were intimately involved

1:12:16

in the early interrogations at Guantanamo.

1:12:20

They had behavioral psychologists take part

1:12:23

and sort of design the interrogation programs at Guantanamo.

1:12:25

And we also know in recent years,

1:12:28

doctors have been involved in the force feedings

1:12:32

at Guantanamo.

1:12:36

There have been a number of mass hunger strikes

1:12:37

at Guantanamo,

1:12:40

primarily on the habeas side of the men

1:12:41

who are being cleared for release

1:12:45

or being detained without charges for really no reason

1:12:46

whatsoever.

1:12:50

And they have engaged in hunger strikes.

1:12:52

And what happens is when the men go on hunger strike,

1:12:53

they're force-fed,

1:12:56

because the policy of the United States government

1:12:58

is not to let anybody die.

1:13:01

And this is a policy that comes from the Bureau of Prisons.

1:13:04

When prisoners go on hunger strike in prisons

1:13:07

in the United States, they are also force fed.

1:13:11

This is a practice that is contrary

1:13:13

to basically international consensus on ethics,

1:13:16

on what you do when someone is hunger striking

1:13:23

and in their right mind and you let them hunger strike.

1:13:26

That is the ethical consensus.

1:13:31

But United States has always been an outlier on this.

1:13:33

And so, they have continued to apply this policy

1:13:36

of force-feeding at Guantanamo,

1:13:37

but the way they do it at Guantanamo is much more brutal

1:13:39

and much more punitive than it is anywhere else.

1:13:44

They designed a special force-feeding chair for Guantanamo

1:13:48

that immobilizes you, right?

1:13:53

It's basically a seven-point restraint,

1:13:55

your head, shoulders, your arms, legs.

1:13:57

It looks very much like an electric chair

1:14:02

and it immobilizes you,

1:14:06

which is the most painful way to be force-fed

1:14:08

because then you have to have a tube placed down your throat

1:14:10

and anybody who's had to have a feeding tube

1:14:14

put down their throat will tell you

1:14:17

you need to be able to move your neck

1:14:18

and kind of swallow and get it down there.

1:14:20

It's not a pleasant thing.

1:14:24

And so, when you're completely immobilized,

1:14:26

it's just a medical person,

1:14:28

not even a doctor, usually.

1:14:32

Usually just somebody qualified somehow

1:14:33

to do this jamming a tube down your throat.

1:14:36

Oftentimes, the tubes were too big I think by design

1:14:40

because they were trying to make this a punishment.

1:14:44

They were trying to make it so painful

1:14:47

that they would end their hunger strikes.

1:14:50

And that was stated I think by,

1:14:52

it was stated by one of the former camp commanders.

1:14:56

I think it was John Bogdan a few years ago at Guantanamo

1:14:59

during one of the hunger strikes.

1:15:03

He said straight out,

1:15:05

it was either him or one of the previous commanders

1:15:07

who said straight out to the New York Times,

1:15:08

"We're gonna make this as an inconvenient for them

1:15:10

"as possible."

1:15:12

So, they came up with these procedures

1:15:13

and something astonishing happened

1:15:15

during my representation of a man named Abu Wayo Diab

1:15:19

who had been on hunger strike for seven years.

1:15:23

He'd been forced-fed basically for years.

1:15:28

One of the nurses at the medical facility said,

1:15:31

"I can't do this anymore."

1:15:37

And he refused, and he was almost court martialed for it.

1:15:39

But that was the first time that we heard of...

1:15:44

And I think in the years since,

1:15:48

I've heard of that other medical professionals

1:15:50

have refused to do this at Guantanamo.

1:15:52

That was the first I'd heard

1:15:54

that it was so bad that these people,

1:15:57

I think he was a Navy enlisted, refused.

1:16:00

He just refused to do it at great personal cost.

1:16:03

Interviewer

Just one before I forget what to ask you,

1:16:08

is Ammar still writing these kinds of statements

1:16:10

that you read just today and are you encouraging it?

1:16:13

And...

1:16:16

-

Yes, very much so.

1:16:18

I think it is incredibly as you can probably imagine,

1:16:20

it's incredibly difficult for him to write these statements.

1:16:27

Partially just because these are very painful memories

1:16:31

for him,

1:16:35

partially because it brings it back

1:16:36

and he then has to cope with the feelings

1:16:39

that that brings back.

1:16:42

And also partially because again,

1:16:43

as a result of his torture,

1:16:46

he has a very difficult time focusing

1:16:48

and writing a story or an experience from start to finish.

1:16:52

But for that reason, we think it's quite good.

1:16:59

And I think he recognizes that it's a very good exercise

1:17:03

for him to continue, to keep himself engaged,

1:17:07

to keep his brain working,

1:17:11

to give keep his cognitive functions.

1:17:14

And also for us to try

1:17:16

and put together the story of what happened to him.

1:17:20

Interviewer

Are you present when he writes this?

1:17:23

-

Sometimes.

1:17:25

Sometimes he starts to tell a story,

1:17:27

his memory will be jogged, or, and I'll say,

1:17:33

"Can we write this down, please?

1:17:36

"Because it'll help me to understand it better.

1:17:38

"And maybe it'll help you remember more."

1:17:41

And so, sometimes it's when I'm there.

1:17:44

And sometimes it's just on his own.

1:17:45

He'll remember something,

1:17:49

he'll spend some period of time trying to work on it

1:17:50

and write it and then when we get it,

1:17:55

we'll have to put it through classification review.

1:17:58

(Alka laughs)

1:18:00

So, it may be a long, long period of time

1:18:01

from when he initially thinks of it and starts writing it

1:18:04

to when we can finally share it with the public.

1:18:06

But yes, we are trying to get as much of this information

1:18:10

as we can

1:18:16

Interviewer

And you're doing it as I understand

1:18:17

for two reasons.

1:18:17

One is for his mental health

1:18:19

and one is to let the public know about how he was treated.

1:18:20

Is that?

1:18:25

-

Really three reasons. The first is for him,

1:18:25

for his mental health and as a form of therapy.

1:18:28

The second reason is for the case,

1:18:35

we need to know what happened to him

1:18:40

and the government is trying to withhold every detail.

1:18:42

And so, we still need all of this confirmed.

1:18:45

We need the records from the CIA and we need all of that.

1:18:51

But whatever we can get from him goes a long way

1:18:55

to try and to put together that story

1:18:58

and there is still so many missing pieces.

1:19:01

And then the third is what you mentioned

1:19:05

with regards to the public is,

1:19:08

the military commission is perhaps the only forum

1:19:12

that may ever exist for any sort of torture accountability

1:19:20

for what happened to these men.

1:19:26

There will never be, at least my belief,

1:19:29

is that there will never be trials

1:19:31

of the CIA officials who engaged in torture.

1:19:34

We're never gonna see Dick training on trial

1:19:39

or Donald Rumsfeld on trial.

1:19:41

There will not even be any sort of truth

1:19:44

and reconciliation commission on this.

1:19:47

The closest we have ever gotten

1:19:49

is the highly redacted executive summary

1:19:51

of a 6,000-page report.

1:19:55

The 6,000-page report contains a chapter on Mr. Al-Baluchi

1:19:56

that I can't read.

1:20:00

So, that's as far as we've gotten.

1:20:03

So, this military commission,

1:20:05

whatever we can say in open session,

1:20:08

whatever we can take to the public is the best form

1:20:11

that we have of torture accountability.

1:20:18

Interviewer

Can you explain to the public

1:20:24

and people are watching just generally

1:20:26

why does it help to make your case to expose

1:20:28

how he was treated?

1:20:31

-

First because from the beginning,

1:20:34

from basically, September 12th, 2001,

1:20:38

a lot of things happened after September 11th.

1:20:47

Some of them very understandable,

1:20:51

and some of them over time, not so understandable.

1:20:53

After September 11th, as we all know,

1:20:59

we were all upset, angry,

1:21:01

touched in different ways by the enormity of this tragedy.

1:21:08

And it led us in some ways to put in place measures

1:21:13

that would keep us safe, right?

1:21:22

To improve.

1:21:24

In other ways, it brought out some of the worst aspects

1:21:27

of our country.

1:21:33

And one of those is what I mentioned before

1:21:36

is the creation, not necessarily the creation,

1:21:38

but the highlighting, the emphasizing of the other,

1:21:42

of the other in society, right?

1:21:46

The brown, non-white, the non-Christian,

1:21:49

non-American, other.

1:21:54

And so that shift in mindset,

1:21:59

or perhaps that emphasizing post September 11th

1:22:03

is what allowed the creation of Guantanamo Bay,

1:22:09

is what allowed the creation of the military commission.

1:22:13

Something that hasn't never been considered legal, right?

1:22:18

In international law or anywhere else,

1:22:23

the creation of a special court

1:22:26

for a particular group of human beings,

1:22:28

that's never been considered legal.

1:22:31

That is anathema to everything that we stand for,

1:22:33

but people still think it's okay.

1:22:38

They thought it was okay in 2001

1:22:41

and they think it's okay now.

1:22:43

So, the more details we can put out in the public

1:22:47

about not just how Ammar was treated,

1:22:52

not just how all of these men were treated,

1:22:57

and not just because it was wrong because it's wrong,

1:23:03

because it's illegal

1:23:06

and because it diminishes us as a country

1:23:07

and as a moral authority,

1:23:09

but also because it made us less safe,

1:23:12

it led to the wrong conclusions.

1:23:16

It led to the wrong alleyways.

1:23:18

It led to false intelligence.

1:23:21

It led us into wars we shouldn't have been in.

1:23:22

It led to in some ways, further destabilization

1:23:26

of an entire region.

1:23:32

It undermined our security.

1:23:34

it undermined our counter-terrorism efforts.

1:23:36

And that's what people really need to understand

1:23:40

on a macro level that this is not just about one person,

1:23:43

Ammar's experience,

1:23:47

Ammar's torture is representative of all the mistakes

1:23:49

that we made post September 11th.

1:23:53

The military commission is the best sort of crucible

1:23:55

of all of those mistakes.

1:24:01

You have non-citizen Muslim men being tried

1:24:04

in a courtroom in a small part of an island we don't own

1:24:08

specifically to get them out from U.S. law

1:24:14

which is supposed to be blind,

1:24:20

specifically to put them outside of the reach of justice,

1:24:22

just to circumvent all of those values.

1:24:29

And it is now being held up by, frankly, our enemies, right?

1:24:32

People who we want in jail, in legitimate jail,

1:24:36

as an example of how we have unclean hands.

1:24:43

And that is something that the public

1:24:47

still doesn't understand.

1:24:51

They still don't understand

1:24:53

how the walling of Ammar Al-Baluchi makes us less safe

1:24:54

and has just diminished us in the world.

1:25:06

Interviewer

People might ask,

1:25:13

and I have heard people ask so I'll ask you.

1:25:14

Why does that help his trial?

1:25:20

Why does it help not convict him if he was guilty?

1:25:21

Maybe you could tell us what charges he was charged with,

1:25:26

but is his guilt somehow connected

1:25:30

to what you just described? I think people (indistinct).

1:25:32

-

In many ways.

1:25:36

One of the interesting things about the military commissions

1:25:38

is that as we know,

1:25:43

the rules have been written from scratch.

1:25:45

One rule in any system of law

1:25:48

is that you may not use torture-acquired evidence, right?

1:25:52

That's going back 500 years, 600 years.

1:25:56

Even during the Spanish inquisition,

1:25:59

they were careful about using torture-acquired evidence.

1:26:01

They still did it but they understood

1:26:04

that this was not something that should be done.

1:26:06

Now, the military commissions act as now written,

1:26:11

it was written once before,

1:26:15

thrown out 'cause it was unconstitutional

1:26:17

and then it was sort of retooled.

1:26:18

As now written, does not allow torture-acquired evidence.

1:26:21

What it does do though,

1:26:24

and kind of a Coda that's been hidden

1:26:25

is it allows torture-derived evidence.

1:26:28

It allows for the admission of so-called coerced-evidence

1:26:30

that the judge finds to be of probative value.

1:26:34

And they're talking about,

1:26:38

they wrote this provision very specifically

1:26:39

because they had in mind a very specific situation.

1:26:43

And that is what happened to Mr. Al-Baluchi

1:26:48

and the other defendants

1:26:50

after they were brought to Guantanamo Bay.

1:26:52

They had at this point been tortured by the CIA,

1:26:54

interrogated, re-interrogated, re-interrogated,

1:26:57

re-interrogated for years.

1:26:59

They're brought to Guantanamo,

1:27:02

they still don't have lawyers.

1:27:04

They don't have any representation.

1:27:05

They sit at Guantanamo for about six months

1:27:07

and then they are re-interrogated by the FBI this time,

1:27:10

not by the CIA.

1:27:15

And the FBI makes it clear to them.

1:27:16

"Hey, you understand, we're not the CIA,

1:27:18

"you're not being tortured right now, right?

1:27:21

'You're not being tortured. You're fine.

1:27:23

"You've had a cup of coffee this morning at breakfast.

1:27:25

"You're sitting in a chair,

1:27:27

"we're just talking. You're good."

1:27:28

And then they proceed to ask then what I can only imagine

1:27:32

are exactly the same questions that these men were asked

1:27:37

at the black sides, right?

1:27:44

And even if they weren't the same questions,

1:27:45

these guys know what the right answers are by now, right?

1:27:47

You step off the mat and I'll hurt you.

1:27:50

You watch that movie, you see them planting false memories.

1:27:53

You see them beating them to a pulp.

1:27:57

You see the water torture,

1:28:01

you see what they say under duress.

1:28:03

And now they're being asked again by U.S. officials,

1:28:06

like I don't know that an FBI agent looks different

1:28:09

from a CIA agent necessarily.

1:28:11

Throughout being asked at Guantanamo Bay,

1:28:15

still in detention by U.S. officials, the same questions.

1:28:17

And that is the evidence

1:28:21

that the government would like to admit against these men.

1:28:23

That is very clearly to me, torture-derived evidence.

1:28:28

It may not be tortured-acquired. It is torture-derived.

1:28:32

And that would fall squarely within that coercion provision

1:28:34

of the military commissions act.

1:28:40

And so, when you ask,

1:28:42

what is the publication of the Ammar's torture

1:28:47

do for his case?

1:28:52

I think it, aside from just provoking outrage,

1:28:54

which is something I absolutely want to do.

1:28:58

I want people be angry and upset and horrified

1:29:00

and understand how grotesque this was.

1:29:04

But aside from that, it needs to plant that doubt,

1:29:08

that very legitimate doubt

1:29:13

about how much of this evidence is actually true.

1:29:15

How much of it can really be substantiated, right?

1:29:19

Just because it's the FBI sitting in the room with them

1:29:23

doesn't mean that these are the right answers,

1:29:26

that this is anything close to what really happened.

1:29:29

The point is the only fact, even now,

1:29:33

14 years later that has been proven about Ammar Al-Baluchi,

1:29:38

is that is a torture victim, that's it.

1:29:43

They've had 14 years

1:29:46

and that's all that has been established.

1:29:48

Interviewer

You had mentioned that he was a nephew

1:29:51

of KSM, you think that plays into this?

1:29:54

-

Of course.

1:29:57

of course.

1:29:59

And I don't represent Mr. Mohammed

1:30:00

and I will say of course as a lawyer,

1:30:03

nothing has been proven against him.

1:30:07

He remains innocent until he's proven guilty.

1:30:09

But public reports, right?

1:30:13

Always talk about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

1:30:15

as the alleged mastermind of September 11th.

1:30:16

And there is a very pervasive narrative

1:30:18

about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

1:30:23

And so, absolutely, there is an element of that.

1:30:25

But all we can do as Mr. Al-Baluchis lawyers,

1:30:31

and as lawyers in a trial in which five men are being tried

1:30:34

jointly, right?

1:30:42

Is emphasize the fact that we are the United States.

1:30:44

We consider these men to be innocent

1:30:48

until they're proven guilty.

1:30:50

That's the end of it. That is it.

1:30:53

It is up to the government

1:30:55

to bring whatever evidence they have

1:30:57

against any of these men.

1:30:59

And it hasn't happened yet.

1:31:01

Interviewer

You seem like an incredibly strong person

1:31:05

having gone through what you just described over these,

1:31:07

how do you handle it?

1:31:11

-

Well, I have to preface it by saying

1:31:15

it is always easier to be the person on the periphery

1:31:19

than it is to be the person who's undergone it.

1:31:22

One of the things that continually astonishes me

1:31:27

about Mr. Al-Baluchi is his resilience.

1:31:30

He has been tortured worse than almost any other person

1:31:37

I have ever met.

1:31:41

I've met a lot of former detainees

1:31:43

and represented a lot of former detainees.

1:31:44

He has been tortured more than almost all of them

1:31:46

put together.

1:31:50

And he remains,

1:31:52

I know people look at me funny when I say this,

1:31:58

but it remains the absolute truth.

1:32:01

He remains considerate, well-spoken,

1:32:03

he is interested in the world around him.

1:32:07

He is interested in his team members about my life,

1:32:09

about my interests.

1:32:14

He asks about my family.

1:32:16

He understands the team dynamics.

1:32:18

He tries to improve the team dynamics.

1:32:22

He wants to learn about the law,

1:32:24

about the strategy that we are pursuing.

1:32:27

We run every decision by him and he makes the final calls.

1:32:29

We talked to him about advocacy.

1:32:35

He weighs in on all of that.

1:32:37

And that every time I meet with him is astonishing to me

1:32:39

because many of my former clients who had all been tortured

1:32:44

but had not been maybe through the intensity of torture

1:32:49

that he has been through were far less able,

1:32:52

understandably far less able to participate,

1:32:57

far more just angry, far more incoherent.

1:33:01

And I say that not in a pejorative way

1:33:08

but in a truly, truly empathetic way.

1:33:10

When you see what these men who have been through

1:33:16

and the fact that they've been essentially isolated

1:33:18

or in solitary confinement for over decade,

1:33:20

completely understandable that they would be like that.

1:33:24

And the fact that Ammar is not is stunning.

1:33:27

So that, when you talk about, what is my experience?

1:33:33

How do I cope?

1:33:38

That's always at the back of my head,

1:33:41

that I get to leave Guantanamo.

1:33:44

I go home, I have the ability to watch TV

1:33:48

or to go walk to the bookstore and buy a book

1:33:56

or to read people magazine,

1:34:00

which I do and I report on various aspects of pop culture

1:34:03

to Ammar who kind of looks at me and says,

1:34:07

"How can you possibly be interested in any of that?"

1:34:10

(Alka laughs)

1:34:12

But I can do that.

1:34:15

And he can't.

1:34:17

he can't pick up the phone and call his mother.

1:34:19

I can. He can't talk to his siblings.

1:34:23

I can. If I'm upset, I can call my brother.

1:34:28

I can send an email to my husband,

1:34:32

and he just can't do that.

1:34:35

So, that helps to put things in perspective.

1:34:37

Aside from that, anybody who knows me

1:34:42

will tell you that I am constantly angry.

1:34:45

And I say that with a smile.

1:34:50

I say that with a smile on my face.

1:34:51

(Alka and Interviewer laughs)

1:34:52

I am never not angry.

1:34:54

And I've learned to smile while I say that.

1:34:56

I am always angry, I am always angry about all of this.

1:35:01

And it never leaves you.

1:35:07

I talk about it. My specialization is human rights.

1:35:09

And I litigate and I advocate for Mr. Al-Baluchi.

1:35:14

I travel a lot. I speak to students.

1:35:21

I speak to human rights advocates, UN officials,

1:35:23

and I have to tell his story in the best way that I can

1:35:29

to make people understand

1:35:34

the horror of what happened to him.

1:35:36

And you can't tell it without being angry.

1:35:38

And very sad at the bottom of that, but angry.

1:35:45

I mean, to my core at what this means for the country,

1:35:49

what this means for him on a personal level.

1:35:55

I know him.

1:35:58

He's my client. I represent him.

1:36:00

He is a human being who I spend time with

1:36:02

what it means for him on a personal level

1:36:05

all the way out to to what this means for my country

1:36:07

and how we move forward from this.

1:36:10

So, now, I'm always angry,

1:36:15

something that my husband comments on sometimes.

1:36:17

(Alka laughs)

1:36:21

But I work with a great team.

1:36:22

There are other attorneys on my team.

1:36:26

We have paralegals, we have investigators

1:36:28

all of whom work around the clock just on this.

1:36:30

And so, we lean on each other a lot.

1:36:35

I lean on my colleagues in the Guantanamo Bar

1:36:37

some of whom have been doing this for far longer

1:36:41

than I have and I read a lot of people magazine.

1:36:42

(Alka laughs)

1:36:47

Interviewer

Where do you see yourself going?

1:36:49

Do you see yourself...

1:36:50

Is this ever gonna to trial

1:36:52

and you see yourself staying with it till the end

1:36:54

or where are you going after that?

1:36:56

-

We will eventually go to trial.

1:37:01

I don't, again, it's a parallel universe down there

1:37:04

in which we go to trial in any normal universe.

1:37:08

There would be no way.

1:37:11

But we've been in pretrial hearings now

1:37:12

for four and a half years,

1:37:15

four and a half years roughly, maybe more than that.

1:37:18

And if I were to guess in a normal courtroom

1:37:20

given the amount of discovery we have gotten

1:37:28

and have yet to receive, we'd be decades from trial.

1:37:30

A fair estimate would be four years,

1:37:38

five years still from trial.

1:37:41

The government would very much like to start trial

1:37:43

next year.

1:37:46

That's what they've recently asked the judge to do,

1:37:47

is to set a trial date for next year.

1:37:50

I don't think that's gonna happen.

1:37:51

There's no way, we don't even have the infrastructure.

1:37:53

Just getting to the nuts and bolts of it.

1:37:54

There's only one courtroom at Guantanamo.

1:37:57

And there are two cases

1:37:59

one of which predates the 911 case, the Nashiri case

1:38:01

that they're tryna find dates.

1:38:05

There's just not space.

1:38:06

They're not even enough beds at Guantanamo

1:38:08

(Alka laughs)

1:38:11

for everybody down there.

1:38:11

So, there's a lot to work out before this happens,

1:38:13

but someday this will go to trial.

1:38:17

The system is so rigged.

1:38:21

It is so biased that I don't see how these men

1:38:26

who are not convicted by it, right?

1:38:34

They are making it as impossible as they can

1:38:39

for us to put on a defense.

1:38:43

They are doing that by withholding evidence.

1:38:46

They are doing that by driving wedges between the attorneys

1:38:48

and these men who already have very deep trust issues.

1:38:51

They are doing it by preventing people from having access

1:38:58

to the sessions, being able to properly observe

1:39:05

what's happening,

1:39:08

and a thousand different ways they are rigging this trial.

1:39:10

And they did it from the moment they wrote

1:39:15

the Military Commissions Act.

1:39:17

So, we will see,

1:39:19

but we're fighting hard, as hard as we can.

1:39:21

We've recently mounted major challenges

1:39:29

to the jurisdiction of the commission.

1:39:31

It's a war tribunal, right?

1:39:34

It's essentially a war court.

1:39:38

That's the prosecution calls it all the time.

1:39:39

As far as I know, we were not at war in 2001,

1:39:43

we were not in a war.

1:39:48

Nobody considered us to be in a war.

1:39:49

And so, when you really go

1:39:52

and you look at the legal minutiae, right?

1:39:53

Devil is always in the details and for better or worse,

1:39:57

there are facts around what happened and what did not happen

1:40:01

on September 11th and prior to September 11th.

1:40:04

So, there are very real questions

1:40:06

about where are we actually at war?

1:40:08

Does this court actually have jurisdiction?

1:40:10

The court does have jurisdiction.

1:40:13

What kind of crimes can it try?

1:40:15

Can it only try work crimes?

1:40:18

'cause it's a war court?

1:40:20

Was conspiracy a war crime on September 11th, 2001?

1:40:22

The law says no. Was terrorism as standalone crime?

1:40:27

Was that a war crime on September 11th?

1:40:31

All international experts say no.

1:40:35

Hijacking? And hijacking we know is a crime,

1:40:38

was it a war crime?

1:40:41

No. So, these are kind of some of the major questions

1:40:42

that we're going to be litigating over the next months

1:40:47

and years.

1:40:51

And we are trying very hard to chip away

1:40:53

at some of the more blatantly unfair aspects.

1:40:56

I mean, the entire thing is illegal.

1:41:01

Interviewer

But it sounds to me like you're an in it

1:41:04

for the long haul.

1:41:06

(Alka laughs)

1:41:08

-

Until I drop, I think.

1:41:10

It is impossible to tell at any given point

1:41:16

whether the commissions are gonna exist tomorrow

1:41:19

or what is going to happen.

1:41:24

But the legal challenges and the personal connection

1:41:26

with the client are such that it is

1:41:33

probably the most difficult job I will ever have

1:41:39

and weirdly the most fulfilling.

1:41:43

Interviewer

And most important to you I'm sure.

1:41:48

-

Yes.

1:41:49

Interviewer

Before, I wanna, and get it.

1:41:51

And when I do, I like to have you read those letters.

1:41:52

So, like have him on film and show him on film.

1:41:55

But I just want to,

1:41:57

you mentioned something before we started

1:41:58

about communications with witnesses overseas

1:42:00

and I thought it might be using for the viewer to understand

1:42:03

what that is about.

1:42:07

-

Of course.

1:42:09

So, one thing that I often say when I describe the trial

1:42:10

is that the 911 case which is a specific case

1:42:17

being tried before the military commissions

1:42:23

against five descendants, one of whom is Mr. Al-Baluchi.

1:42:24

That case is being brought against the alleged perpetrators

1:42:28

of 911.

1:42:34

Now, as such, it is the biggest criminal case

1:42:35

that has ever been tried in U.S. history.

1:42:39

And it is the biggest both in terms of import

1:42:41

for the country

1:42:45

and just in terms of literally how many years, countries,

1:42:46

pieces of evidence it encompasses.

1:42:53

It is alleged to have been a worldwide conspiracy.

1:42:56

It involves a large number of countries.

1:42:59

If you include the countries reported to have,

1:43:03

in which people Al-Qaeda operatives and, etc,

1:43:08

are reported to have operated

1:43:11

and post September 11th, the number of countries

1:43:14

maybe in which they were to which they were transferred

1:43:19

or that may have participated in their interrogations.

1:43:22

It's an enormous number of countries.

1:43:27

It is an enormous number of people

1:43:30

who were cycled through these black sites,

1:43:32

who were held at Guantanamo,

1:43:37

who may have known Mr. Al-Baluchi or the other defendants

1:43:40

maybe before they were kidnapped and disappeared.

1:43:45

So, there are aspects of the actual charges against them

1:43:53

that have to be investigated,

1:43:57

the so-called conspiracy.

1:43:59

There are aspects of mitigation

1:44:01

that have to be investigated.

1:44:04

There are aspects of the torture

1:44:07

that have to be investigated.

1:44:09

It takes us everywhere, which is partially why

1:44:10

each individual has such a large team.

1:44:14

And honestly, we don't have nearly the number of people

1:44:17

that we need to fully investigate this,

1:44:20

which is another reason that this is taking so long.

1:44:22

So, I work a lot on the torture issues

1:44:27

and that involves speaking to former detainees.

1:44:33

It involves speaking to experts on torture,

1:44:37

medical, psychological, historical.

1:44:40

It involves speaking to foreign government officials,

1:44:44

current government officials, human rights officials.

1:44:50

We have investigators

1:44:56

who are looking into Mr. Al-Baluchi's personal history,

1:44:58

right?

1:45:02

As anybody would in this kind of criminal case.

1:45:03

So, it takes us all over the world.

1:45:06

And I have to emphasize again

1:45:09

that part of the reason we have to do so much

1:45:11

of this investigation ourselves and we have to do it right

1:45:15

is because the government is continuing to withhold

1:45:18

so much information.

1:45:20

Interviewer

And you were saying something

1:45:22

about government possibly interfering

1:45:24

with those communications.

1:45:26

-

Oh, yes. The government has a history

1:45:28

as long as the military commissions

1:45:32

of interfering in the attorney client privilege.

1:45:34

Now, I will say, the only positive thing

1:45:40

you will ever hear me say about the military commissions

1:45:44

is that I recognize that it is a privilege to be employed

1:45:48

by the government to litigate against the government.

1:45:56

And that is a privilege that you don't have

1:46:00

in many countries.

1:46:02

And so, I recognize that, and I appreciate it.

1:46:03

That said,

1:46:07

if you're going to employ a prosecution and a defense,

1:46:10

you have to try to make it fair for both sides.

1:46:15

And the government has consistently stacked

1:46:19

the playing field against the defense.

1:46:25

They've done this in various ways.

1:46:28

One of them was

1:46:29

perhaps the most kind of the most outlandish one,

1:46:31

was in the placement of listening devices

1:46:36

in attorney-client meeting rooms several years ago

1:46:40

over a long period of time.

1:46:44

This was before I came to the commissions

1:46:47

but several of my colleagues were there at the time.

1:46:49

And basically they're these devices

1:46:53

that were disguised as smoke detectors

1:46:56

in attorney-client meeting rooms,

1:46:58

in rooms that are used only for meetings

1:47:00

between defense attorneys and these particular detainees.

1:47:04

And people were curious, people said,

1:47:08

"What are those? What are they?"

1:47:12

And we were told there were smoke detectors.

1:47:14

And finally one enterprising counsel looked closely at it

1:47:16

and then went, and I think just looked up the brand name

1:47:21

that she saw on it

1:47:26

and found out that actually, they're listening devices.

1:47:27

And the government's,

1:47:32

well, the prosecution's response was, we had no idea

1:47:36

and we didn't listen to anything.

1:47:40

And we don't have any records

1:47:42

and they're taking them out right now, right?

1:47:43

Now, I laugh about it but here's the thing,

1:47:47

when you've been held incommunicado

1:47:50

for years at a time, right?

1:47:53

With no legal representation, with nobody on your side.

1:47:55

And then all of a sudden,

1:47:59

somebody walks in and says,

1:48:01

"I work for the U.S. government.

1:48:06

"And by the way, I'm here to represent you."

1:48:07

Okay? There are major issues to overcome.

1:48:10

When you then find out that the same government

1:48:14

that employs your lawyer

1:48:16

is listening in on the conversations

1:48:19

in which you are saying very private things to your lawyer,

1:48:21

it really does destroy whatever trust may have built up

1:48:27

to that point.

1:48:33

And it is a struggle to overcome that.

1:48:34

That's just one example.

1:48:38

There are examples of Mr. Al-Baluchis legal materials

1:48:39

being seized from his cell, right?

1:48:44

Legal materials are clearly marked.

1:48:46

There are very specific markings.

1:48:48

You can see it on one of his letters,

1:48:51

attorney-client privileged communication.

1:48:53

He has waived this privilege,

1:48:55

which is why I'm able to show this.

1:48:57

But at the big top and bottom of this page,

1:48:59

it says attorney-client privilege communication, right?

1:49:03

That's one of the things.

1:49:06

They have to have these markings on them.

1:49:07

They also have to have markings of his detainee number.

1:49:10

They're given numbers just like any other prison.

1:49:14

His number is 10018.

1:49:17

So, it has to say 10018.

1:49:19

These are all clearly marked,

1:49:22

these legal materials we mark diligently

1:49:23

every single piece of paper.

1:49:25

And so, when guards from the joint task force at Guantanamo

1:49:28

go into his cell and just take his legal materials,

1:49:33

confiscate them.

1:49:37

Lord knows what with them, right?

1:49:38

We don't know if they're reading them.

1:49:40

If they're mining information from them

1:49:42

to give to the prosecution, we have no idea,

1:49:44

but just that act, right?

1:49:48

Destroys in a moment that trust. It's so fragile.

1:49:50

And there have been countless incidences like that.

1:49:55

Interviewer

Are these materials returned?

1:49:59

-

Some of them eventually are returned but...

1:50:01

Interviewer

You have no idea what happened to them?

1:50:05

-

No idea what happened in between.

1:50:07

Some of them have been kept.

1:50:09

And this is something that comes up very often

1:50:10

in the pre-trial litigation

1:50:12

and just at the last hearing in March.

1:50:14

One of the other defendants counsel

1:50:17

was talking about how the gentleman's legal papers

1:50:18

were taken and kept for weeks, right?

1:50:21

And he raised the alarm and they were still held.

1:50:25

(Alka laughs)

1:50:28

And these are things that nobody's supposed to touch

1:50:30

other than him and his lawyers.

1:50:33

This is just a basic tenant of criminal law.

1:50:35

Interviewer

You also mentioned,

1:50:41

which I thought it'd be interesting just for our viewers

1:50:42

that people in Guantanamo,

1:50:45

the detainees get to watch legals from our project.

1:50:48

-

Yes.

1:50:54

So, they obviously don't have any kind of internet access

1:50:54

or anything appropriate, anything like that.

1:50:58

But they do have basically access to media

1:51:02

that their lawyers send them

1:51:08

and everything goes through privilege review

1:51:10

and things like that

1:51:13

to make sure that nothing contraband and anything like that.

1:51:15

But yes, they do have access to some media

1:51:18

that we can send to them.

1:51:23

And the wide world of Guantanamo literature

1:51:24

and resources are all relevant to them.

1:51:30

And so, yeah, a large number of detainees at Guantanamo,

1:51:33

Ammar included have seen some of the videos

1:51:38

and the content on your website and are really very grateful

1:51:43

for the spotlight and the recognition.

1:51:49

I would say that there is something wrong happening

1:51:56

at Guantanamo because over time,

1:52:01

Guantanamo has against the best efforts of a lot of people

1:52:06

become normalized, right?

1:52:11

Guantanamo, it's a thing that's there,

1:52:13

it's in Cuba, it's a prison.

1:52:15

It's where we keep bad guys.

1:52:17

That's the narrative about Guantanamo.

1:52:18

And for these guys who have now been in there for,

1:52:21

I think all of them would have been there over a decade.

1:52:24

For all of them,

1:52:28

just the fact that there are people out in the world

1:52:30

who maybe don't represent them,

1:52:33

don't have any particular, anything to gain from it

1:52:35

but recognize and talk about the fact that,

1:52:38

"Hey, this is still wrong.

1:52:43

"This still not right. You're 13, you're 16.

1:52:45

"This is still not right."

1:52:51

It means a lot to them.

1:52:53

And I think it it goes a long way

1:52:54

in maintaining their resilience.

1:52:56

Interviewer

Do they watch it on a cell phone

1:52:59

just copying on twitter?

1:53:02

-

No. Some of them have computers.

1:53:03

(Alka clears throat)

1:53:09

Like Mr. Al-Baluchi because he's a defendant,

1:53:10

he's military commissions has his own kind of laptop

1:53:13

that's obviously locked down from all sorts of things.

1:53:18

He has no internet access or anything like that.

1:53:20

But he does have the ability to watch materials.

1:53:23

Interviewer

Watch a DVD or a thumb drive?

1:53:27

-

Yeah. Not a thumb drive

1:53:28

but he does have the ability to watch from DVDs

1:53:30

and he has the ability to to watch videos

1:53:34

and things like that.

1:53:37

So, yeah.

1:53:38

So, he's been able to see them

1:53:39

and some of the other guys who have the same capability

1:53:41

of these mails has been able to see them.

1:53:45

Interviewer

So, okay.

1:53:48

Is there something that I didn't ask you

1:53:50

that you came you wanted to share with us

1:53:51

just about yourself or your clients in Guantanamo?

1:53:56

And then I do wanna not end until we read those documents

1:54:00

that you're filming.

1:54:04

Is there something that I didn't ask you

1:54:05

that you thought about?

1:54:06

I think what you said about President Obama was very telling

1:54:08

and interesting.

1:54:11

I don't know whether you wanna say anything

1:54:12

about the kinds of administration of President Trump

1:54:13

or whether you wanna say anything about Guantanamo

1:54:17

going forward if it's always gonna continue or whether,

1:54:20

(indistinct) about that.

1:54:23

-

Well, President Trump in a lot of ways

1:54:25

in this administration are easier to deal with in many ways

1:54:28

than the previous administration,

1:54:36

because they've made clear from the beginning

1:54:38

what their position is on Guantanamo.

1:54:41

I think the attorney general has,

1:54:44

aside from showing a profound lack of knowledge

1:54:48

about anything on Guantanamo

1:54:51

and demonstrating that numerous times to the press

1:54:52

and just repeating blatantly false facts about it

1:54:56

has made clear that he considers Guantanamo

1:55:02

to be a great solution for what's happening.

1:55:04

Also demonstrating his lack of knowledge

1:55:07

about counter-terrorism.

1:55:08

And so, that in many ways makes it very easy.

1:55:12

We know they're not going to close Guantanamo.

1:55:17

We have no interest in doing so.

1:55:19

They have no interest in learning about the history

1:55:21

of Guantanamo.

1:55:23

They have no interest in learning

1:55:24

about how Guantanamo undermines our safety.

1:55:26

They have no interest in it.

1:55:30

And so, it's very, very sad for the men

1:55:31

who are left at Guantanamo, but we know it,

1:55:35

which is a certainty that not exist

1:55:39

in the previous administration.

1:55:44

And that was almost a form of torture in and of itself

1:55:45

for some of these men.

1:55:52

To have that hope that they will be released,

1:55:54

to have that, not hope.

1:55:58

I mean, that guarantee that they were gonna be released,

1:55:59

that President Obama is here, they're going home.

1:56:04

And then year after year, after year, after year

1:56:07

to not just have that hope dashed,

1:56:11

but have President Obama litigate against them going home,

1:56:13

force-feed them.

1:56:20

And at the end of the day, leave a whole bunch of them there

1:56:22

to be kept there indefinitely by this administration

1:56:27

was worse in some ways.

1:56:30

Because it really did break a lot of those men.

1:56:33

A lot of my clients who kept having their hopes dashed,

1:56:43

it just broke them down completely.

1:56:49

The last suicide we saw at Guantanamo was in 2012

1:56:51

and it was on non-Latif

1:56:55

and that was a really very tragic story

1:56:59

of a man who had been cleared.

1:57:01

Interviewer

Several times.

1:57:06

-

Several times. And just tryna go home to meet his son,

1:57:07

didn't pose a threat to anybody.

1:57:12

And the government, just for the sake of taking him,

1:57:15

just for the sake of taking him,

1:57:19

for no reason other than they were the government

1:57:20

and they had to be right

1:57:23

forced this position that any evidence they put forward

1:57:26

no matter how dubious,

1:57:32

was to be given the presumption of truth, right?

1:57:34

And so, even though it didn't matter

1:57:38

that other non-statements had been mistranslated,

1:57:40

didn't matter that we didn't have people on the ground

1:57:43

who spoke proper Arabic or whatever dialect,

1:57:46

didn't matter.

1:57:49

It just mattered that they were the U.S. government

1:57:51

and they could say whatever they wanted

1:57:53

about this little brown man from Yemen.

1:57:55

And he killed himself,

1:57:58

and he killed himself because of that.

1:58:00

And I think had they not really cracked down

1:58:02

on prison security after that,

1:58:07

there would have been more suicides.

1:58:09

And I hate to have to say that

1:58:11

because I don't mean for my clients

1:58:13

or any of my former clients to appear to be weak

1:58:17

because they live through a great deal.

1:58:20

But at a certain point, you break.

1:58:25

Interviewer

Did you break it?

1:58:31

Did you go in there with a hope? There were no (indistinct).

1:58:32

-

Oh, yeah. That was the first thing.

1:58:35

The morning after,

1:58:39

I still remember those so vividly,

1:58:40

the morning after President Obama was elected,

1:58:43

no, I'm a liberal.

1:58:46

I don't identify with any particular party

1:58:48

but I'm very liberal and I'm happy to say that.

1:58:50

The first thing I went to work,

1:58:55

I was still at White & Case at this point.

1:58:57

I burst into the office of my mentor,

1:58:59

a partner who I'm very still very close with.

1:59:03

And I said, he's got a (indistinct) came out.

1:59:05

It's the first he's doing,

1:59:09

like he's gonna put in an executive order.

1:59:11

Like it's the first thing he's gonna do.

1:59:13

It feels like a weight has lifted. That's what I said.

1:59:17

Like it feels like a weight has lifted,

1:59:19

like this horrible thing that has existed

1:59:23

in the back of our heads.

1:59:26

And I wasn't even involved in Guantanamo at the time.

1:59:27

I didn't represent anybody.

1:59:30

It was this horrible thing

1:59:32

that had been at the back of our consciousness

1:59:34

for years now.

1:59:36

Like it was finally going away.

1:59:38

And then he came into office

1:59:43

and he issued the executive order and I go,

1:59:44

"Oh my God. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen."

1:59:47

And then a year passed and it hadn't happened

1:59:51

and healthcare was on the table.

1:59:58

(Alka laughs)

2:00:00

and we're talking a lot about healthcare,

2:00:01

which, big fan of healthcare.

2:00:01

Everybody should have healthcare.

2:00:04

But then the conversation became,

2:00:07

well, he can either do healthcare or he can do Guantanamo.

2:00:10

And at that point, I was fairly certain

2:00:13

Guantanamo was not gonna happen.

2:00:17

But for the men who were there,

2:00:20

there were still being led out in trickles.

2:00:23

And so, when you see one or two people being let out,

2:00:25

you think maybe I could be next.

2:00:28

Maybe it could be me.

2:00:30

And so, it was just infinitely harder for them.

2:00:31

Interviewer

So, would you took it on,

2:00:38

I mean, we'll pretty much know when you took it on

2:00:41

in spite of that disappointment and (indistinct).

2:00:43

-

I think because of that disappointment

2:00:46

I mean, it really, it drove home the point, right?

2:00:49

That this issue, it's not a liberal issue

2:00:52

or a conservative issue.

2:00:55

It's just a right or wrong issue.

2:00:56

And all three administrations have been wrong so far.

2:00:59

We haven't had one that's been right.

2:01:03

I couldn't tell you if the election had got another way.

2:01:05

I can't tell you that it would have gone the right way

2:01:08

necessarily.

2:01:12

We know that Democrats and Republicans

2:01:14

all support Guantanamo by and large.

2:01:17

So, yeah. I mean, it's really whether you are willing

2:01:21

to look at the facts and the law

2:01:27

and admit that this is wrong or not.

2:01:29

And so far, I haven't seen a public official

2:01:32

who's really willing to stand up and say no.

2:01:35

And I think it's because of that that I wanted to do this.

2:01:40

I'm a bit of a contrarian.

2:01:49

(Alka laughs)

2:01:50

Interviewer

And also very inspiring.

2:01:51

I'm sure people who watch this will be very inspired by you

2:01:52

(indistinct).

2:01:55

-

I hope so. We need help.

2:01:56

(Alka laughs)

2:01:57

We need all the help we can get.

2:01:58

Interviewer

So, why don't you show us

2:02:01

what you're holding

2:02:02

and so that we can get a closeup of it (indistinct)

2:02:03

wanna do that.

2:02:07

And then...

2:02:09

-

Well, one of the things I just wanted to raise really fast

2:02:10

as we're now...

2:02:14

I wanted to actually show you Ammar now.

2:02:16

Interviewer

Good.

2:02:20

-

We have, you saw this picture of him.

2:02:20

It seems a lifetime ago when he was young

2:02:25

and this is him now.

2:02:28

This is in one of the most recent photos that was taken

2:02:33

by the ICRC.

2:02:36

It's allowed to take photos of him every once in a while.

2:02:38

Interviewer

And then we're allowed

2:02:41

to publish that photo?

2:02:42

-

Yes. He's allowed to have photos taken by the ICRC

2:02:44

and we're allowed to publish those particular photos

2:02:49

we are not able to take any other kind of photos of him.

2:02:51

But you can see obviously the passage of 17 years

2:02:57

and the infliction of torture.

2:03:02

Interviewer

Did he (indistinct)

2:03:06

when he was first captured?

2:03:07

-

No.

2:03:08

And often those glasses are dark glasses

2:03:11

to shield his eyes from the light.

2:03:14

Interviewer

Do you wanna give better shuttle there?

2:03:17

-

Yeah.

2:03:19

And this is actually from our current amnesty campaign

2:03:20

to get him torture rehabilitation which he is entitled to

2:03:24

under the convention against torture,

2:03:29

which last I checked we are still a party of,

2:03:31

last I checked.

2:03:34

And even if we're not, is customary international law

2:03:35

therefore binding on the United States.

2:03:38

But really, what I wanna do,

2:03:42

in an ideal world, Ammar would be honestly released

2:03:45

from medical rehabilitation.

2:03:54

He would be given the rehabilitation that he deserves.

2:03:57

There is no manner in which he can be given a fair trial.

2:04:00

There is no manner in which any of this can take place now

2:04:08

in a way that is consistent with our law.

2:04:14

And so, we need to recognize that

2:04:18

and we need to remove the death penalty

2:04:22

and we need to give these men at the very minimum,

2:04:27

the medical treatment that they need.

2:04:31

Interviewer

And can I just establish,

2:04:34

does the government deny that he needs medical treatment

2:04:36

or they say that he gets all that he needs

2:04:39

or what's their response?

2:04:42

-

The government's response is really very...

2:04:44

It depends on who you mean by the government really.

2:04:48

The prosecution's response is essentially,

2:04:51

that's not our problem.

2:04:54

We don't have anything to do with that.

2:04:57

That's a detention center issue.

2:04:58

The department of defense says,

2:05:01

"Yeah, he gets everything he needs."

2:05:03

There have been isolated occasions

2:05:05

when we have made request for certain things.

2:05:07

Like we've made requests for him to see,

2:05:11

say, an ophthalmologist or a sleep specialist

2:05:14

or something like that.

2:05:18

And occasionally, they will grant that

2:05:19

or say that they may be in the future

2:05:21

or something like that.

2:05:23

It's just been recently reported.

2:05:26

We have received an order for him to get an MRI.

2:05:28

But again,

2:05:32

that involves the actual bringing of an MRI machine

2:05:33

to Guantanamo which has not happened yet.

2:05:36

We would like him to undergo a sleep study

2:05:40

to see if there's any way that we could improve his sleep.

2:05:42

Interviewer

And do they respond to that?

2:05:47

Or what do they say when you...

2:05:48

-

We haven't had a response to that.

2:05:49

So, yeah,

2:05:52

I mean, sometimes these things just languish for years

2:05:53

at a time and we keep hammering on it.

2:05:56

We take it to the public as much as we can.

2:05:59

And we say, "Look, this man has been tortured."

2:06:01

That's indisputed that he was tortured.

2:06:03

He needs help. He needs care.

2:06:07

He needs medical treatment.

2:06:09

I don't care what you think based on what false information

2:06:11

about what he did or anything else.

2:06:16

Like the fact of the matter is he was tortured,

2:06:18

he needs treatment.

2:06:20

Interviewer

And you had said something

2:06:23

about his handwriting. You felt was interesting to you.

2:06:26

-

I just, what I meant was I can talk until I lose my voice

2:06:29

about everything that happened to Ammar.

2:06:37

I can tell you how he's was walled.

2:06:39

I can try to demonstrate that for you.

2:06:42

I can talk about all the techniques.

2:06:44

I can describe to you the scenes in "Zero Dark Thirty,"

2:06:46

that show for entertainment purposes,

2:06:49

the torture of my client.

2:06:52

It's like medieval bear baiting.

2:06:55

The fact that that has been made into popular entertainment.

2:06:57

I can do that.

2:07:03

But, I don't think it's anywhere near as effective, frankly,

2:07:04

as when you see it in his own words.

2:07:09

When you see, this is his handwriting.

2:07:13

This is what he has written down on a piece of paper,

2:07:17

laboring to write every single word of this

2:07:20

and to recall what happened to him.

2:07:24

You can see in his handwriting

2:07:28

and how cramped it is, how it's...

2:07:31

Some words are bigger than others.

2:07:34

You can see how it affected him

2:07:37

and the impact that it still has on him

2:07:42

to recall all of this.

2:07:45

Interviewer

(indistinct).

2:07:49

-

And so, I can talk for hours about it

2:07:55

but it's not nearly as effective as spending a minute

2:07:59

or two minutes just reading it in his own words.

2:08:02

Interviewer

Does he know you are showing this

2:08:13

to the public?

2:08:17

And I guess he supports that.

2:08:18

-

He does. Everything that he shares with us,

2:08:20

I get his permission

2:08:24

before we share it with the public,

2:08:25

because some of the details of what happened

2:08:27

are very private.

2:08:30

He has been very forthcoming with those details

2:08:31

but they are his, they are his memories,

2:08:34

his experiences to share or not.

2:08:36

And he is again, in the interest of getting better,

2:08:39

like getting the treatment he needs,

2:08:43

he is very supportive of any advocacy we can do

2:08:45

to get that for him.

2:08:50

Interviewer

Do you wanna show us the other writings

2:08:52

again just so we can have that (indistinct)?

2:08:54

-

Of course.

2:08:57

So, this is the one about prolonged restraining.

2:08:58

This is the one about how he was handcuffed

2:09:04

for 120 days straight.

2:09:09

And when he had to be moved from one black site to another,

2:09:12

they had to cut the handcuffs by bolt cutter

2:09:15

'cause they were so rusted

2:09:19

that they wouldn't open with keys.

2:09:20

And he actually goes on to talk about how,

2:09:23

because he had both his hands tied together,

2:09:26

he says during that time, half of my body,

2:09:28

either the left side or the right would go numb

2:09:31

because I couldn't move my arms away from each other.

2:09:34

Until this day, I'm suffering from this symptom

2:09:38

along with multiple neurological pains all over my body

2:09:42

as the handcuffs and restraints

2:09:47

are still being used on me daily.

2:09:48

And this is true.

2:09:50

He's still...

2:09:51

Interviewer

Why would they still be using them?

2:09:52

-

Oh, at Guantanamo, anytime they're moved,

2:09:54

they are handcuffed and restrained.

2:09:57

In the courtroom, when he sits in the courtroom with us,

2:09:59

he has a leg restraint on at all times.

2:10:03

Now, they have two guards for each detainee

2:10:06

standing right next to the table,

2:10:09

but he is restrained at all times.

2:10:11

And when we meet with him, he is restrained.

2:10:14

When they move them from wherever,

2:10:17

their cells or to the meeting rooms or to the courtroom,

2:10:21

they are handcuffed and restrained.

2:10:24

And I think there's some sensory deprivation as well.

2:10:28

Interviewer

Do they get any time to meet with other men

2:10:32

in that facility?

2:10:36

-

Very seldom.

2:10:38

Now, the conditions at Camp Seven, I believe,

2:10:42

and I don't know because I haven't been there,

2:10:46

but I believe them to have marginally improved

2:10:48

over a period of years,

2:10:51

but they are still in something very close

2:10:54

to solitary confinement.

2:10:58

The former special repertoire on torture Juan Mendez

2:11:00

defined solitary confinement is about 22 hours a day

2:11:02

without any other human contact really.

2:11:06

And these men have about 21 hours of solitary.

2:11:09

And they've been there for more than 10 years.

2:11:12

I believe they can occasionally kind of speak through

2:11:16

what they call the bean holes in their doors

2:11:21

with the other detainees.

2:11:26

And of course, when these five men come to court,

2:11:27

they are sitting in the courtroom together

2:11:32

and they can speak to each other at that point.

2:11:34

Interviewer

And you have one more?

2:11:37

-

I do. This is the one where he talks about doctors,

2:11:38

and it's actually called Doctors of the Dark Sites.

2:11:47

And this is the one where he starts off

2:11:52

talking about how all of the techniques were used together.

2:11:53

It was never just one.

2:11:58

It was always multiple techniques being used together.

2:11:59

And so, he describes all of the techniques.

2:12:02

"I wasn't just being suspended of the ceiling.

2:12:05

"I was naked, starved, dehydrated, cold, hooded,

2:12:08

"verbally threatened, in pain from the beating

2:12:13

"and water drowning as my head smashed

2:12:18

"by hitting against the wall for dozens and dozens of times.

2:12:21

"My ears were exploding from the blasting harsh music

2:12:25

"which is still stuck in my head, sleep-deprived for weeks.

2:12:28

"I was shaking and trembling.

2:12:32

"My legs barely supported my weight

2:12:33

"as my hands were pulled even higher above my head

2:12:35

"after I complained that the handcuffs were so tight

2:12:38

"as if cutting through my wrist.

2:12:41

"Then my legs start to swell as a result of long suspension,

2:12:43

"started screaming.

2:12:48

"And then the doctor comes, the doctor comes.

2:12:50

"The doctor came with a tape measure,

2:12:53

"wrapped it around my leg.

2:12:56

"And to my utmost shock, the doctor told the interrogators,

2:12:57

"No, that wasn't enough.

2:13:01

"My legs should get more swollen."

2:13:03

And he continues this, he's saying,

2:13:06

"Imagine the doctor tells the interrogators

2:13:09

"the leg wasn't swollen enough."

2:13:11

The medical doctor actually advocating for more torture.

2:13:13

And you can see in his language here

2:13:16

how he's getting more agitated.

2:13:20

"The medical doctor actually advocating for more torture.

2:13:21

"And this is what America came to.

2:13:25

"'Cause this doctor and other doctors are back home

2:13:27

"in America and they will be doing,

2:13:30

"the U.S. government train them to do.

2:13:32

"No doubt every now and then

2:13:34

they will miss long for their sadistic practice.

2:13:35

"And the American people may be the next victims."

2:13:39

I mean, logical conclusion.

2:13:42

And then here at the bottom, he just recalls

2:13:47

I think, oh yeah, he recalls he'd be checked out

2:13:50

by a doctor before he walked into each torture room.

2:13:53

The doctor would tell the interrogators

2:13:57

which methods they could use.

2:13:59

And then as he came out, the doctor would check him again

2:14:00

and then tell the interrogators

2:14:05

what else they could do in the next room.

2:14:07

Interviewer

Yeah.

2:14:09

The doctor is actually making decisions.

2:14:10

Is that how you understand it?

2:14:12

-

Yes.

2:14:14

I understand it as medical doctors who were on site

2:14:17

were making decisions about what techniques could be used,

2:14:21

how they could be combined

2:14:25

and really kind of horrifyingly how they could be combined

2:14:27

in order to get information from these men, right?

2:14:35

So, it's not just that there were doctors on site

2:14:39

to ensure that nothing happened.

2:14:43

It was not just that they were doctors in site

2:14:47

to check their pulse.

2:14:49

There were doctors on site to actively participate

2:14:51

in the torture of detainees.

2:14:54

Interviewer

One of the pieces that he wrote

2:15:00

talked about how the irony of it being classified,

2:15:02

if it will be done by random people.

2:15:08

Could you talk to that?

2:15:13

-

Yeah. So, he's talked a lot about the classification

2:15:15

of his memories and how even though these are his memories

2:15:22

or his experiences,

2:15:30

the government continues to classify them

2:15:32

and continues to prevent him

2:15:34

from being able to tell the world about them.

2:15:37

And he says that...

2:15:39

Interviewer

They were random.

2:15:43

They were random and they wouldn't be classified.

2:15:45

-

Yeah.

2:15:47

Well, he basically says like if this had happened to...

2:15:50

He makes the point often that if this had been other people,

2:15:54

right?

2:15:58

Anybody but these detainees, this is not classified.

2:15:59

Like since when, right?

2:16:03

I mean, you see police brutality

2:16:05

on a daily basis in our country, right?

2:16:08

I mean, arguably, that does not make the police look good

2:16:11

but people are not, I mean, it does happen

2:16:13

but people are not considered gagged

2:16:17

just because what they say may be contrary

2:16:21

to the government.

2:16:25

That's not a thing that happens.

2:16:26

It is not illegal, but by virtue of being him,

2:16:28

by virtue of being again, brown, non-citizen, Muslim,

2:16:32

detainee in the CIA system,

2:16:38

everything he says is classified.

2:16:41

Everything he thinks is classified.

2:16:43

Any Joe on the street, right?

2:16:47

Can talk about the CIA rendition program,

2:16:50

can look up what happened there,

2:16:54

who was reported to have been held there.

2:16:58

They can even look up all the public reports

2:17:00

about maybe where the black sites were.

2:17:03

Something that I can neither confirm nor deny, right?

2:17:05

As a government official.

2:17:09

But he can't, he can't talk about any of it.

2:17:13

And he's the one who it happened to.

2:17:16

James Mitchell, one of the psychologists,

2:17:21

one of the doctors who designed this program

2:17:23

can write a book giving out all sorts of details

2:17:26

that the government would classify

2:17:31

if they came from Ammar Al-Baluchi.

2:17:34

If Ammara Al-Baluchi wrote that book from his perspective,

2:17:36

we tried putting that through classification review,

2:17:40

that wouldn't see the light of day.

2:17:42

But because James Mitchell wrote it

2:17:43

and it makes the government look good,

2:17:45

made it past all the sensors.

2:17:48

He's on a book tour right now.

2:17:49

On top of the $40 million he got from the CIA,

2:17:51

he's now earning royalties from his book.

2:17:53

Interviewer

And if you told the stories

2:17:57

that Ammar tells you, what would happen to him?

2:17:59

-

About?

2:18:03

Interviewer

About his torture.

2:18:05

-

Yeah. I try to tell these stories every chance I get.

2:18:06

Interviewer

And some of them are classified

2:18:11

you can't reveal them out.

2:18:12

-

Oh, some of them, I can't.

2:18:13

Yeah, certainly the ones that Ammar...

2:18:15

The specifics that Ammar tells me

2:18:18

that have not specifically gone through

2:18:20

classification review, I can't share.

2:18:22

There are many details that I cannot share.

2:18:26

There are many details,

2:18:30

there actually comparatively very few things

2:18:33

that the government has given me that I can't share.

2:18:36

'Cause the government,

2:18:39

despite my security clearance

2:18:40

which I spent quite a lot of time getting

2:18:42

(Alka laughs)

2:18:46

and have strictly adhered to

2:18:47

because I'm not interested in undermining national security,

2:18:50

quite the opposite.

2:18:53

That's why I do this job.

2:18:54

They have given me relatively little classified information.

2:18:56

They don't trust me with it apparently.

2:18:59

But Ammar, anything he say,

2:19:03

just by virtue of being who he is,

2:19:06

everything he says is classified.

2:19:07

So, there is quite a bit that unfortunately,

2:19:10

I can't talk about that I would like to share about,

2:19:13

not just about the terrible things that happened to him,

2:19:17

but about him, about who he is as a human being,

2:19:19

but his interest about his views on things

2:19:23

that I would love to be able share.

2:19:26

But that I can't.

2:19:27

Interviewer

That's also classified.

2:19:29

-

Yeah. It's everything out of his mouth.

2:19:30

Everything that he writes down,

2:19:32

everything that comes out of his brain is classified

2:19:33

by the government until I get somebody with a rubber stamp

2:19:36

to stamp it and classify.

2:19:43

Interviewer

Well, I like to end with your big smile.

2:19:47

(Alka and Interviewer laughs)

2:19:48

-

Because it's so ludicrous.

2:19:51

Interviewer

(indistinct) what you're really feeling like

2:19:54

with your anger.

2:19:55

-

That's one way to channel it.

2:19:56

(Alka and Interviewer laughs)

2:19:58

-

Well, we need to take 20 seconds of room tone

2:20:01

before we finally shut down.

2:20:04

So, (indistinct).

2:20:05

-

Okay.

Pradhan, Alka - Interview master file

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