Khadr, Abdurahman - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Yeah, yeah.

0:06

Okay, good afternoon.

0:07

-

Hello.

0:08

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:09

for participating in the Witness To Guantanamo Project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:14

at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:17

We are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

0:19

to tell your story in your own words.

0:22

We are creating an archive of stories,

0:25

so that people in America

0:27

and around the world can form a better understanding

0:29

of what you and others have endured and observed.

0:32

Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo

0:37

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

0:40

And we are very grateful and appreciate your courage

0:44

and willingness to speak with us today.

0:47

And if there's any time during the interview

0:49

you wanna take a break, just let us know.

0:51

-

Will do.

0:53

-

And if there's

something you say you'd like to retract

0:54

we can remove it, just let us know.

0:56

-

Okay, no problem.

0:58

Interviewer

And we'd like to begin,

0:59

if you could tell us your name,

1:00

and your age, and country of origin, and birthdate,

1:02

and nationality, maybe we can start with those.

1:08

-

Okay, my name is Abdurahman Khadr.

1:10

I'm 30 years old.

1:12

I'm of Egyptian origin and I'm a Canadian national.

1:15

I've been in Canada for the last 10 years.

1:20

Interviewer

What year were you born?

1:23

-

I was born December 18th, 1982.

1:25

Interviewer

And what languages do you speak?

1:29

-

I speak Arabic, English, Dari,

1:31

which is the Afghani version of Persian,

1:35

Pashto, also from Afghanistan and Pakistan,

1:38

and Urdu, which is from Pakistan.

1:42

Interviewer

And what religion are you?

1:45

-

I'm Muslim.

1:47

Interviewer

And what's your marital status

1:48

and do you have children?

1:50

-

I'm married and yes, I have one child, Yusef.

1:52

Interviewer

And can you tell us

1:56

a little about your education?

1:57

-

My education, I mean, most of my education

1:59

was in Pakistan, I was going to a school there,

2:02

an Arabic school when we were living there.

2:05

And then, I mean, I only finished eighth grade

2:07

and that was in Canada, we came back for that year

2:11

my dad was injured.

2:13

And after that we went back

2:14

and there was a lot of war and a lot of stuff going on.

2:16

So I never got to continue my education then,

2:19

until I got back to Canada.

2:21

And then when I got back this time, I got my equivalency,

2:23

my GED from my high school.

2:26

And I'm trying to get into some college programs right now.

2:28

Interviewer

And do you know what day

2:33

you arrived in Guantanamo and what day you left?

2:34

-

I remember the day I arrived, it was I think the day after

2:38

the Iraqi invasion in March 23rd, 2003.

2:43

Interviewer

And when did you leave?

2:49

-

And I left on-

2:51

Interviewer

Or what month?

2:53

-

It was October 1st, either October 1st of 2003.

2:55

-

Okay.

3:00

-

Yeah.

Interviewer

So we'd like to begin,

3:02

I guess, since you came to Guantanamo a little late,

3:03

where were you on 9/11 and then how you ended up

3:06

in Guantanamo, who captured you or who?

3:10

-

So, my story is very extended, I've been through a lot of,

3:13

but I'll give you a short version of it.

3:16

So on September 11 I was in Jalalabad,

3:20

when we heard the news and everything.

3:22

And then the American invasion happened

3:24

on Afghanistan and everything.

3:26

I was separated from my family on November 11th, 2001,

3:28

when the Afghan Northern Alliance actually entered Kabul,

3:34

I was separated from my family.

3:37

So I was kidnapped by a former commander

3:39

of the Northern Alliance for money,

3:42

which I tried to get from all kinds of sources,

3:45

where I thought maybe my dad had kept some money

3:47

or left some money.

3:49

It took around two months for us to find some money.

3:51

He took his money and then he's supposed to release me

3:53

or help me reach my family in Pakistan.

3:56

Instead he gave me to the Interior Ministry.

3:58

I spent two months there just as a person staying there.

4:00

One of the aides of the minister there

4:06

recognized my father, remembered my father,

4:11

so I was staying in the ministry for two months

4:13

working as a police officer.

4:15

And then this continued for two month

4:19

until I was translating for them

4:20

because I spoke well English

4:24

and I spoke Farsi and everything.

4:25

And then one day I was translating at the French embassy

4:27

in Kabul for a representative of the French president

4:30

and the Afghani defense minister and Yunus Qanuni,

4:37

which was the vice president of Afghanistan

4:40

and the interior minister.

4:43

And I was sitting there and translating and everything,

4:45

and then somebody, you know, recognized me.

4:47

And then it went back to the person that I was staying with

4:49

at the Interior Ministry that,

4:52

how could you let this Arab get into the embassy,

4:53

the French embassy and everything.

4:56

So they took me and locked me up.

4:57

And then the British intelligence came to see me

5:00

and the French intelligence and the Canadian intelligence

5:02

and everybody in the CIA, FBI.

5:05

And I was put in the intelligence jail in Kabul.

5:07

And from there-

5:11

Interviewer

What year is this?

5:13

-

This is in 2002 beginning, February, March, 2002.

5:14

And then I spoke to the CIA, I spoke to the FBI.

5:20

I agreed to cooperate with them.

5:23

I cooperated with them and they kept me at a safe house

5:25

in Kabul for eight month.

5:29

And then from there, they sent me to Bagram,

5:31

and from Bagram they sent me to Guantanamo.

5:34

Interviewer

What did they want from you

5:38

when you were cooperating with them?

5:39

-

Well, in the beginning they just wanted me to give them

5:41

the locations of like any offices in Kabul of the Al-Qaeda

5:44

or anything like that, and that was sufficient.

5:49

And then they wanted to send me, I guess in the field

5:51

to look for any Al-Qaeda people.

5:55

And that didn't work out.

5:59

And then they decided, okay, they're gonna send me

5:59

to Guantanamo to see if I can like work for them there.

6:02

Interviewer

And they first sent you to Bagram?

6:05

-

Yes.

6:07

-

What were they thinking

when they sent you to Bagram?

6:09

-

Well, they sent me to Bagram

6:10

to put me through the regular channels

6:12

to be sent to Guantanamo through the regular channels

6:13

instead of like, you know, just putting me on a private jet

6:16

and bringing me to Guantanamo.

6:19

They just brought me into Guantanamo like a regular guy,

6:20

they tied me up days, you know.

6:23

They put me in a suit and everything

6:25

and brought me to Bagram.

6:26

Interviewer

Were you mistreated

6:28

while you were in Bagram.

6:29

-

I was.

6:30

Interviewer

Were you working for the Americans

6:32

or the British at that-

6:34

-

No, I was working for the Americans

6:35

and yes, I was mistreated.

6:37

They told me that only one person in Bagram

6:38

would know that I was working for them.

6:40

And that was to maintain the cover

6:42

that I'm just a regular detainee.

6:44

Interviewer

And so they told you,

6:47

you might get mistreated and you need to understand.

6:49

-

Yes.

6:51

Interviewer

Were you on a payroll at that time?

6:52

-

I was, and I mean, they told me

6:54

there would be mistreatment,

6:56

but they didn't explain to what extent.

6:57

So when I first reached there, I mean, that

6:59

the treatment I got when I first reached there,

7:02

they took off all my clothes.

7:04

All this stuff that happened to us,

7:07

just when they registered to go in

7:08

they treat you like an animal and you know.

7:10

And that's why like, I mean, I waited three, four days

7:13

until someone would see me.

7:16

So I could be like, what is this?

7:17

You know, I didn't sign up for this, you know?

7:18

Again, all of this was for the hope that I can get out.

7:21

So nobody saw me for a while.

7:25

And by then, you know, I was just, you know,

7:29

I was starting to get depressed.

7:31

In Bagram, they way you're staying it's like,

7:34

you're staying, like, it's like an animal barn,

7:36

it's not like a human living area.

7:40

It's like a few barbed wires around 10 people.

7:42

And there's 10 people they just sit down

7:45

and they don't do anything.

7:48

They're not allowed to talk to each other.

7:49

They're not allowed to communicate with each other,

7:50

touch each other, anything.

7:52

And you just sit there for 24 hours,

7:53

or until you pass out doing nothing.

7:55

And then they take you into the interrogation rooms

7:58

and they tie you up to the ceiling

8:01

of the interrogation rooms.

8:02

You hear people screaming.

8:03

Anytime somebody gets up or like even reads Quran too loud

8:05

they get taken out of the range,

8:09

or whatever you wanna call it.

8:11

Food was given to us like dogs.

8:14

They would throw cereal boxes at us

8:16

and tell us, here this is all you deserve.

8:18

They'd talk very rudely to us.

8:22

When I reached Bagram I had heard about Omar,

8:24

my brother being there.

8:26

He was very popular with the guards.

8:28

So they started treating me extra bad

8:31

because of my brother

8:33

and because of the allegations against him

8:35

that he had killed American soldier.

8:36

Interviewer

Had you known that

8:38

before you came to Bagram?

8:39

-

Yes, yes, I knew about it right away.

8:41

I mean, the second day it happened

8:43

they told me what had happened.

8:44

Interviewer

And were you interrogated

8:47

while you were in Bagram?

8:49

-

Yes I was.

8:50

Interviewer

And did the interrogator know you were

8:51

on the payroll of this-

8:53

-

In the beginning, he didn't know until like,

8:56

I mean, I think our, like,

8:58

I didn't wanna say anything either

8:59

until my third or fourth meeting with him.

9:01

He didn't know what was going on.

9:04

And then he told me.

9:05

And I told him, I'm like, listen you know, like,

9:06

'cause they apparently wanted me to stay in Bagram

9:08

for like three months, three to six months.

9:11

And I was like, that's not happening.

9:12

I'm not staying here for three to six months.

9:14

I can't help you guys here

9:16

because I can't talk to anybody around me.

9:17

Everybody's extremely tight lipped

9:20

because of the treatment they're receiving.

9:22

So, it would be really like, there's no,

9:24

like the planes from Bagram were leaving,

9:27

I think once a month.

9:30

They're like, there's one leaving in a couple of days.

9:31

We can't put you on that, you know it's impossible

9:33

and there's another one in a month, maybe on that one.

9:35

So I made a lotta noise.

9:37

I said, no, I wanna, like, I wanna outta this place.

9:39

I want out of it right away.

9:41

And I mean, I guess I was digging up my own grave

9:43

because the experience of traveling from Bagram

9:46

to Guantanamo is miserable.

9:48

It's one of the worst things in life itself.

9:50

Interviewer

Why is that?

9:55

-

From the time they come and get you from the range

9:58

to when you're on the plane,

10:00

I think it's six to seven hours.

10:01

I don't know, I think it's like an experience of exhaustion,

10:04

so that when you are on the plane you don't resist.

10:10

You don't have any energy left to do anything.

10:13

They tie you up, they cover your eyes, your ears,

10:15

your head, and they tie you up in a really,

10:18

like your hands behind your back

10:21

and your feet tied to your hands,

10:22

and you're sitting in like a crouching position

10:24

for I think two, two and a half hours.

10:27

You can't go forward.

10:29

You can't go backwards.

10:30

You can't lie down on your side.

10:31

You have to stay in that position.

10:33

And every time you even like go to lean over somebody comes,

10:35

grabs you, you shakes, don't move, don't move.

10:38

Then they put you in a truck

10:42

and they leave you in the truck for approximately

10:43

an hour and a half.

10:45

And then they put us in a plane and they left us in a plane

10:46

in that same position for almost two hours

10:49

or two and a half more hours.

10:52

And then they picked us up and put us on the chair.

10:54

During this whole six or seven-hour experience

10:56

there's people screaming, there's people crying,

10:58

and you can hear it all around you.

11:02

People were begging.

11:04

And then for me personally, on the plane at one point

11:06

I got so frustrated I just wanted one of the soldiers

11:09

to go crazy and blow my head

11:12

because I just couldn't take it anymore.

11:13

I didn't wanna live.

11:14

It was just the worst experience ever.

11:15

I wanted to die, honest to God.

11:18

And if there was a way for me to kill myself right there,

11:20

like jump off the plane or do something,

11:22

I would have done it.

11:24

It was the worst experience ever.

11:25

Interviewer

You had no idea it was gonna be like that?

11:27

-

No.

11:29

Interviewer

And did you ask to get some medication

11:30

to knock you out?

11:33

-

No, they wouldn't give anybody any medication.

11:34

And the same time, the goggles that I had on

11:37

they'd been freshly spray-painted.

11:39

So I think sometime during the flight,

11:41

I don't know if it was the sweat or what,

11:46

but the paint went back into my eyes

11:48

and my eyes were burning.

11:51

And then I kept screaming that my eyes are burning.

11:52

And they kept burning more and more.

11:54

It wasn't getting better.

11:55

And I was just screaming for someone to help me.

11:57

Nobody would help me.

11:59

And in the end, like two soldiers came,

12:00

they just shook me really hard

12:02

and then held me against my seat.

12:03

And then somebody came opened the google,

12:06

barely opened it, sprayed a bunch of water in my eyes,

12:08

closed the goggle, opened it again,

12:11

sprayed a bunch of ice in my other eye and just shut it.

12:13

And if you scream one more time,

12:16

you're gonna be tied down to the floor.

12:17

And that's it.

12:19

Interviewer

Did they feed you

12:21

while you were on the plane?

12:22

-

They had peanut butter, I remember they had peanut butter

12:23

and jam sandwiches.

12:25

I remember very specifically because the experience

12:26

of like everything being shut down,

12:28

I remember like the food tasted, like,

12:31

I remember what it was but it felt like, you know, this is.

12:33

I don't remember.

12:37

I mean, the experience was extremely like horrific.

12:37

They just, they come, they take off the mask

12:41

and they put it against your mouth, bite.

12:44

Okay, you bite and they put the mask back on.

12:45

And they fed you like this the whole sandwich.

12:48

And then at the end open mask,

12:50

put the bottle at your mouth, drink.

12:52

You had to complain for like 20 minutes

12:55

to go to the washroom.

12:58

I complained and complained until they took me.

12:58

And then you have everybody around you screaming and crying.

13:00

It was a really, it was a miserable experience.

13:05

Interviewer

Did you know other people on that flight?

13:09

-

I knew other people on the flight,

13:11

I guess, from their voices.

13:14

But there was people that I also didn't know.

13:16

And everybody, like, I mean, in that experience

13:20

you kind of like zone out.

13:24

You're trying to find a place, a peaceful place

13:25

inside you because it's honestly like

13:27

one of the most horrific things that you can go through.

13:29

Interviewer

So I just wanna be clear.

13:33

Were you getting paid by the U.S. government

13:36

during this time?

13:38

-

Apparently, apparently I was getting paid.

13:40

Interviewer

Do you know which agency?

13:42

-

The CIA.

13:43

But I never got paid.

13:45

I never received anything from them.

13:46

They said apparently that they would be paying me.

13:48

I never received anything from them.

13:50

Interviewer

So when you were being sent to Guantanamo

13:54

did you think maybe you really won't

13:56

gonna be sent as an agent for them,

13:58

that maybe you were being sent as a detainee?

14:01

Or did you still think-

14:03

-

No, in my mind I hoped that I'm still working for them

14:05

because I felt that would be my only key outta that place.

14:10

Interviewer

Did you know what Guantanamo was

14:15

before you went there, did you have an idea?

14:16

-

I mean, just the general idea that it was a place

14:19

where they were keeping

14:22

everybody they caught in Afghanistan, all the Arabs.

14:23

Interviewer

Did you know about people

14:26

being bought the U.S., people sold to the U.S.?

14:27

-

Yes, yes.

14:32

-

Had you heard that?

-

Yes, I've heard it and experienced it

14:33

when I was at the Interior Ministry.

14:36

We had people bringing people that they would say,

14:37

this is a Taliban and they would pay them.

14:40

They would get the money from the Americans

14:42

and pay them for anybody that was considered

14:45

a Taliban or an Arab.

14:48

And of course, any Taliban was $5,000.

14:50

And Arabs went from 10,000 to $100,000,

14:52

depending on like how high they were.

14:55

And then when I was in Guantanamo, I spoke to one older man.

14:58

And he said he was sold by his son

15:02

to the Americans for the money.

15:05

Him and his dad, an Afghan.

15:07

Him and his dad had like a lot of, him and his son

15:09

had had a lot of conflict.

15:11

He gave his dad a gun and brought him to an American base.

15:13

Interviewer

Do you know what the name of that Afghan?

15:17

-

I don't remember his name, but I remember like, you know

15:18

I mean, there was, you know, I mean, at the very beginning

15:20

the Americans were paying for anybody.

15:24

You just have to give the person a Kalashnikov

15:25

and be like, you know, bring him over to a base

15:28

and be like, oh, you know, this is a Taliban

15:30

or this is an Arab, and they were paying for it.

15:31

Interviewer

But I assume you weren't sold

15:34

since you were working for them, right?

15:36

-

No, I wasn't sold, no.

15:38

Interviewer

And when you got to Guantanamo

15:40

do you remember how it was when you first arrived?

15:42

-

When I first arrived, I remember the plane landing

15:45

and then us being taken off the plane.

15:48

Here we go again, right.

15:50

They took us off.

15:53

They put us on the tarmac, I guess.

15:54

And they left us there for an hour in the heat.

15:56

In Guantanamo, Afghanistan is different,

15:59

like it's hot, but when you get off the plane in Guantanamo,

16:02

it's like, it's hell, it's extremely hot.

16:05

And then the dogs kept coming around and we were,

16:08

like the dogs would be so close you'd think,

16:11

what if these dogs aren't leashed, what if they bite me.

16:14

And people are screaming and crying again.

16:17

Then they take you from, they put you on a truck.

16:20

And you're on the truck, the truck is just stopped

16:22

and you're on the truck for approximately another hour,

16:24

an hour and a half.

16:26

And then they took us to outside the clinic,

16:27

which I realized that when they took us inside,

16:30

this is when they took off the mask.

16:32

We're outside the clinic for another two hours.

16:33

Just sitting on gravel.

16:36

-

Blindfolded and-

16:37

-

Blindfolded, ear muffed,

nose, everything is covered.

16:42

You can't see anything.

16:44

Everything is dark around you.

16:44

And you're hot and you're sweating.

16:45

And you're sitting in a squatting position, you can't move.

16:47

You have dogs around you.

16:50

And then they took us inside, inside the clinic.

16:53

And then there was AC inside the clinic

16:55

and they took off your, and then you start realizing,

16:57

like it starts all like coming down on you, you know.

16:59

Like here, here you go, this is place that you're gonna be

17:01

for God knows only how long.

17:04

Interviewer

So where did they send you?

17:06

-

They, they brought me inside.

17:08

They registered me.

17:10

They gave me the bracelet to put on my hand and everything.

17:11

And then they put me into segregation

17:13

and they said they put everybody in segregation for 30 days

17:15

when they first arrived to Guantanamo.

17:17

I was in there for maybe I think, eight or nine days

17:20

before I started like, just losing it, you know.

17:23

The whole trip there was like something

17:26

I didn't wanna go through.

17:29

And being in segregation and I hadn't done anything.

17:30

You know, there's no reason for me to be there

17:33

in Guantanamo at all.

17:35

I started screaming and yelling.

17:36

And they said, nobody's gonna see you for at least a month,

17:38

so you can do whatever you want.

17:41

So I just, you know-

17:43

Interviewer

Did you tell them at that time

17:45

you were working for-

17:46

-

No, I just wanted to see somebody.

17:47

I couldn't tell them that because, I mean,

17:49

obviously that would be blowing my cover.

17:52

But I just kept asking to speak to somebody.

17:53

And they said, there was nobody to see you for,

17:56

I think after the 12th, 11th or the 12th day

17:59

you go to see a doctor, you go see dentist.

18:01

You do a couple of trips outside of segregation

18:04

because segregation as you know is,

18:07

once every 72 hours you go outside.

18:10

10 minutes rec and 10 minutes shower, I think,

18:13

or five minutes rec, 10 minutes shower.

18:15

It's like 15 or 20 minutes outside of your cell,

18:17

every 72 hours.

18:20

I mean, I know even death mates, don't get that treatment.

18:22

Interviewer

Were there other cells nearby

18:27

where you could yell to another?

18:29

-

Yeah.

18:30

I mean, it was a whole range,

18:31

so I think there was like 36 cells.

18:34

You could speak to, because of the segregation,

18:37

you could speak to maybe two this way and two this way

18:39

and one across or two across, that's it.

18:42

But because of the walls and everything,

18:45

you couldn't speak to anybody further than that.

18:46

Interviewer

And did that help that you able to speak

18:49

to someone since you knew so many languages?

18:51

-

It did, but at the same time, meeting somebody

18:54

that you don't know what they look like

18:57

or what language they are

18:58

and you know who they are, who you're speaking to.

18:59

I mean, some of us dealt, some of the people that were there

19:02

dealt with it by speaking to people,

19:06

other people just isolated themselves more.

19:08

And for me the first, like 10 days, I just isolated myself.

19:10

I didn't speak to anybody around.

19:13

I didn't know when it was day when it was night.

19:16

I just went into like a whole like bad state of mind.

19:18

And then after that I heard people speaking,

19:23

so I would try to like get into the conversation

19:25

and everything, but I mean, the whole experience,

19:27

the segregation experience was horrific again.

19:30

Interviewer

And they told you that after 30 days

19:33

you would be moved into a communal situation?

19:35

-

Yes, general population.

19:37

Interviewer

And was that true?

19:39

-

It was.

19:40

Interviewer

And could you describe how that was?

19:41

-

It was nighttime, I think it was

19:45

eight or nine o'clock at night.

19:47

They came and told you to pack your stuff

19:49

and get everything ready,

19:52

which we didn't have that much stuff.

19:53

We had a toothbrush, a mat, one of those workout mats.

19:54

And that's it.

19:58

And I think that was, that was your whole,

19:59

maybe a bed sheet, maybe a bed sheet

20:02

that you threw over yourself,

20:04

because as you know, the segregation,

20:05

sometimes it's extremely hot.

20:07

You know, even with the AC and everything,

20:09

it's so hot in there that everybody starts going crazy

20:11

and banging the doors and everything

20:13

because it's really hot.

20:14

Or sometime at nights, it's freezing

20:15

and you have a bed sheet and it's extremely cold.

20:18

And people start getting up and like being loud.

20:21

So we rolled our little workout mats or sleeping mats

20:24

and then they took us to a regular range.

20:28

They walked us out, two soldiers on each side

20:32

and they chain your hands to your feet and to your stomach

20:34

and they walk you over to your range.

20:38

They put you inside your unit.

20:40

They take off your chains and then you start seeing around.

20:43

Okay, I'm still on Earth, you know.

20:46

Interviewer

Were you interrogated

20:50

while you were in segregation?

20:51

-

No, nobody saw me while I was in segregation.

20:53

Interviewer

And so can you tell us what happened then,

20:56

once you were put in the general population?

20:58

-

Once we were in general population,

21:00

I think for two or three days, I mean,

21:02

general population wasn't so bad

21:04

after everything we went through.

21:06

I mean, it is, it's horrible.

21:07

Once you're there for a few days, you're like, okay.

21:09

But after everything we had been through,

21:11

general population wasn't so bad

21:14

'cause there's people on each side.

21:16

There's just a net between you and them.

21:18

And you speak to them, you get your food,

21:20

you get a book, a Quran, you know.

21:22

When I was in segregation, I think I had to ask for a Quran

21:25

maybe like a hundred times before I actually got one,

21:28

which this should have been a very basic you know,

21:31

every unit should just come with one.

21:33

Because everybody in Guantanamo

21:35

is pretty much Muslim, right. But I had to fight with them.

21:36

They're like, yeah, I'll bring it.

21:39

Oh, I can't hold it.

21:41

Like all kinda excuses, not to bring me a Quran.

21:42

And there was a chaplain there

21:45

that you're supposed to be able to see,

21:46

that takes forever to see, even in general population.

21:47

So yeah, I mean, general population was okay.

21:52

Interviewer

Could you communicate

21:56

and tell the other people in the general population,

21:59

what you knew like that Iraq had been attacked?

22:01

-

Yes. As soon as you reach there people of course

22:05

ask you like that was going on outside.

22:08

And I told them that Iraq was invaded

22:10

and what was going on with the world.

22:12

If there was anything I knew about, you know

22:15

and people were, I don't know, there was some kind of,

22:18

there was some system of like

22:22

news keeping in Guantanamo too.

22:23

The detainees there they found a way to keep up.

22:26

I don't know if there was some guards

22:29

that were speaking to them, or some of the chaplains

22:31

were like giving them hints of what's going on

22:33

in the outside.

22:35

But there was a system of information, you know,

22:36

with the detainees.

22:39

Interviewer

Since you spoke English,

22:41

was that an advantage?

22:42

-

It was an advantage, but it was also a disadvantage.

22:44

Because it was an advantage

22:46

because you could speak to the guards,

22:47

but it was a disadvantage 'cause now they saw you

22:49

as a traitor, not just as an Al-Qaeda.

22:50

Oh, you're Canadian.

22:54

Oh, you're Canadian and you're Al-Qaeda, oh.

22:55

So now you're a different level of evil for them, you know.

22:58

Interviewer

Did you have any personal conversations

23:03

with the guards at all because you spoke English?

23:06

-

I mean, in the very beginning I would say

23:08

hi and bye to them, but that was about it.

23:10

I mean, the guards had a certain like attitude

23:12

towards all the detainees there.

23:14

I didn't view them as like friends

23:18

because they weren't nice to anybody around me.

23:21

I had heard of detainees like being beaten.

23:23

I saw one detainee being kicked

23:27

because he was struggling to walk in his chains.

23:29

The guards dropped him on the floor and started kicking him.

23:32

And then they were all like, "Oh, he was resisting."

23:35

And the guy's in chains in his ankles and his hands

23:37

and his stomach.

23:40

He can't resist if he wanted to.

23:41

He just couldn't walk.

23:42

And those chains, you always have like these marks.

23:44

I have them until now on your hands

23:47

from when they had them on.

23:49

Interviewer

Was he young or old or middle-aged man?

23:53

-

The man, I think he would have been young, 24, 25.

23:55

Interviewer

But he couldn't walk in those chains.

24:01

-

He couldn't walk in those chains.

24:03

Anybody couldn't walk in those chains.

24:04

I mean, they put the chains on really tight

24:05

and like, the way the chains are on your feet

24:08

they're not like, I mean, there's chains here that go

24:11

from like, on your stomach

24:14

and then a chain that goes down to your foot, each one.

24:16

No, this one was a chain around here.

24:18

And then two chains go down and then your two feet

24:20

are chained to each other too.

24:24

So you barely have like this small like gap of walking.

24:26

Interviewer

Were you ever ERFed

24:31

while you were in Guantanamo, where six or seven soldiers

24:33

in riot gear come in and mace you

24:38

and then beat you?

24:40

Have you observed that?

24:41

-

They almost did.

24:43

When I was in general population for, as I said,

24:44

like, I spoke to my interrogators for a while

24:48

and they were trying to tell me to work with them

24:50

and find out if I can find out anything.

24:52

And I kept telling them, "Look, there's nothing I can do.

24:54

There's nobody that will speak to me.

24:56

People here are, you know, the guards are really hard,

24:58

because they feel like there's a lot of people

25:01

that work for you guys in here.

25:03

So nobody talks about their personal life.

25:05

Nobody talks about their past.

25:06

I'm tired of this.

25:08

I came here to do something for you guys,

25:09

but it's not working,

25:11

I don't wanna be here anymore."

25:12

And my interrogators weren't listening to me.

25:13

So I think it was after a month and a half

25:15

of being in general population, I just one day snapped.

25:17

And I started banging the walls, started punching the walls

25:21

and my knuckles were bleeding.

25:25

And I took my bed sheet and I tied it up to the ceiling

25:26

of my unit and I threatened to kill myself.

25:30

I threatened to hang myself.

25:34

Interviewer

What happened?

25:36

-

So I said, "If I don't see somebody right now,

25:37

I'm gonna hang myself."

25:40

So they said, "Hold on, hold on.

25:41

I'm like, "No."

25:43

Anyway, they brought the team and they said,

25:44

if you don't step away from it and this and that.

25:46

And I'm like, I don't care.

25:48

You guys can come in.

25:50

So they came in.

25:52

They didn't have to mace me or anything.

25:53

When they came in they said, "Go on your knees," I did.

25:54

I just wanted to leave that unit.

25:57

I've been in that unit for a month and a half.

25:59

Everybody around you are the same people.

26:01

Like I was tired of it.

26:03

And I was tired of the whole experience,

26:04

the whole travel to Guantanamo, the people I dealt with.

26:06

The interrogators there were like,

26:10

other than the interrogators

26:12

I was dealing with in Afghanistan.

26:13

My whole purpose in being in Guantanamo

26:14

was becoming like fruitless to me.

26:17

I didn't wanna be there anymore.

26:19

So they put me into the mental ward.

26:21

They had a little range for people that were, you know,

26:25

they thought were conditioned like mentally okay.

26:28

And that's where I met the guy that told me

26:30

his son brought him.

26:32

And then-

26:36

Interviewer

Can you describe the mental ward?

26:37

-

I mean, it's the same thing, like regular range.

26:41

But the only difference is there's a bunch of cameras

26:44

in the hallway and there's a camera in your unit.

26:47

There's a camera in your unit right on top of you.

26:51

And as soon as you're taken there

26:53

a psychiatrist comes to see you.

26:54

Speaks to, you asks you how you're feeling

26:57

you know, this and that.

27:00

And you're treated like a mental, you know,

27:01

you know a mental person.

27:04

So I was there for two days.

27:06

And then my interrogators asked to see me

27:08

and I told them I'm like, "I give up,

27:10

I don't wanna work for you guys anymore, I'm done.

27:12

If you guys don't get me out of here I'm gonna hang myself,

27:15

or I'm gonna like go out and tell all the other people

27:19

cooperating with you that this is how you treat the people

27:23

that cooperate with you.

27:25

I'll just scream and yell in the ranges

27:27

and tell everybody that I'm working for you.

27:28

I'll burn my cover."

27:30

So they said, "Hold on."

27:32

And I'm like, "You know what?

27:33

Your $3,000 a month, you can keep it."

27:35

I actually used this term, I remember I said,

27:37

"You can roll it up and shove it.

27:39

I don't want your money.

27:41

I want out of this place, I'm done."

27:42

So they said, "Okay, give me a couple of days."

27:44

And then in two or three days from then

27:46

they moved me into a different unit

27:48

Interviewer

Before we get into that.

27:50

So from the beginning, you told your interrogators

27:52

that you were paid, you were an American plant or-

27:54

-

Once they saw me after I was in,

28:00

I left segregation, they knew.

28:04

They had a file sent to them from the people in Afghanistan.

28:07

Interviewer

So what kind of conversations

28:11

would you have with them if they knew

28:12

that you were really on their side?

28:14

What were they-

28:17

-

Well they just said to me, "Have you spoken to anybody?

28:18

Have you found out anything?

28:20

Do you see anybody you recognize?"

28:21

And just questions about the people there.

28:23

"Have you heard anything about any plots

28:25

or about where somebody's hiding?"

28:28

And I always told them, I mean anybody that's here

28:31

has been here for at least a year.

28:33

Whoever was outside that was hiding or was plotting,

28:35

they know that this person is here.

28:38

They've changed where they are

28:39

and the plot has probably changed.

28:40

So any information I get you guys is useless,

28:42

plus nobody's speaking to anybody here.

28:44

Interviewer

Did they believe you?

28:48

-

Well, they could believe me or not, it didn't matter.

28:49

I mean, at the beginning, obviously they didn't

28:51

because they kept leaving me in the general population.

28:52

Think that I would come out with something, which I didn't.

28:55

The whole time I was there I was never able

28:57

to give them something productive.

28:59

Interviewer

Do you think there were other plants

29:02

besides you in Guantanamo?

29:03

-

I'm pretty sure there was, I'm pretty sure.

29:05

They told me that there was,

29:07

but they wouldn't tell me how many or where they were,

29:08

who they were.

29:10

But there was other people.

29:11

Everybody wanted outta that place

29:12

and I'm pretty sure a lotta people would do anything

29:14

to be outta that place.

29:16

Interviewer

And where'd they move you to

29:18

when you said they moved you to yet another place?

29:20

-

They moved me to another range that had six units,

29:22

but this was like a house.

29:26

You go in there's a little like rec area.

29:28

And then there's like a little small portion.

29:32

Then you open the door and there's like a whole unit,

29:34

like a room, which has a living room

29:37

and then a little bathroom in the back and a bedroom.

29:40

And this whole thing is yours.

29:43

I was there-

29:45

-

Just you?

-

Yeah, yeah.

29:46

And they have, I think they have like,

29:48

they have a bunch of people there.

29:50

I mean, the high priority, I've read about them

29:52

in the news a little bit.

29:54

I think some of them are people that work for them.

29:55

And then other ones are people

29:57

that they just wanna keep away from the general population.

29:59

Interviewer

Do you know where this building was

30:04

compared to where you were?

30:05

-

No, beyond this.

30:07

The day they came to take me, they blindfolded me.

30:08

They put me in an SUV

30:12

and they drove around for like 40 minutes.

30:13

And then every time after that I would be brought

30:17

because like the Red Cross wanted to see me

30:20

after I was moved there, they would drive around,

30:22

drive around and put me in an orange suit and bring me back.

30:24

'Cause when I was there I was just dressed

30:26

in regular clothes.

30:28

Interviewer

Why would they put you back in orange suit

30:29

for the Red Cross?

30:31

-

To see me.

30:32

'Cause the Red Cross wanted to see me,

30:33

to see how I am and this and that.

30:35

Of course they told me when you see them,

30:36

don't tell them, just tell them that you're

30:38

in a different ward.

30:39

Don't tell them that you're in this unit.

30:40

This unit was very like hush, hush.

30:43

Nobody knows about it.

30:45

You don't speak to anybody.

30:46

You don't tell anybody about it.

30:47

Interviewer

And were you treated better in this unit?

30:50

-

Yeah.

30:52

It was just like, I mean, it was like

30:53

house arrest pretty much because I had my own TV,

30:54

I had my own PlayStation, I had my own bed.

30:57

Everything in it was like a regular place,

31:01

you're just not allowed to leave, that's it.

31:03

Interviewer

Were there other men nearby

31:06

you could talk to?

31:07

-

I heard people.

31:08

They told me, "Don't try to talk to the people

31:09

in the other units."

31:11

I'm pretty sure I heard people more than once.

31:14

But they said, "No, there is nobody else.

31:16

And if you hear anybody, don't try to speak to anybody.

31:18

When you're in the rec area outside the unit

31:21

don't try to talk, don't be loud."

31:23

Interviewer

Did you go to your regular rec area?

31:27

-

Yeah, outside, I was smoking back then.

31:30

So I was going outside for a smoke.

31:33

Every like two, three hours I'd go outside.

31:35

They had cameras all over this unit in the inside.

31:39

So I would just tell them, "Guys, I wanna go outside."

31:41

And then I would wait around like five minutes,

31:43

somebody would come open the unit for me.

31:46

Then they would leave the rec area

31:49

and I would be allowed outside for as long I wanted to.

31:50

Then I'd go back in.

31:53

And I would go sit on the sofa

31:54

and somebody would come lock the unit from outside.

31:56

Interviewer

Could you talk to anybody

31:59

when you were in the rec area, or?

32:00

-

No, I only talked to the MPs there that were,

32:01

because they'd bring me food and everything.

32:05

And like the people I was working with,

32:07

they would come and see me.

32:09

Interviewer

Who were they?

32:11

-

The CIA.

32:12

Interviewer

They would come see you?

32:13

-

Yeah.

32:14

-

What would they

talk to you about?

32:15

-

They would talk to me about like

32:16

what my options were from now on.

32:17

You know, they thought about maybe

32:20

sending me back to Pakistan or sending me to Iraq.

32:21

And they would just like discuss scenarios.

32:25

They were doing a lot of tests, mental tests on me

32:27

to see like what my mental state is.

32:29

And they were deciding if they wanted to

32:32

take me back to the States.

32:34

I don't know, like they had all these options,

32:35

they never explained them to me.

32:37

But they said, "We're trying to figure out

32:38

where we're gonna send you from here on,

32:40

or how we can use you."

32:41

They had people like psychiatrists come and see me.

32:43

They did a polygraph when I was there.

32:48

I did a polygraph when I was in Kabul also.

32:51

So they just, you know, like they were just trying to decide

32:54

what to do with me.

32:57

Interviewer

And what were you thinking

32:59

during all this time?

33:00

-

I don't know, I mean, I was just thinking that like,

33:02

yeah, again, the unit was nice.

33:06

I couldn't complain, but with time it was,

33:08

I was there in that unit for five month.

33:10

With time I was just getting tired of the unit.

33:12

I wanted to be free.

33:15

I wanted to be out, you know?

33:16

So I told them, I'm like, "You guys let's make some plan,

33:18

whatever the plan is and let's go ahead with it.

33:21

You know, I don't wanna be displaced anymore."

33:24

So, I guess they had some people trying to figure out

33:28

what I could be helpful doing.

33:32

And they decided to send me to,

33:34

they discussed the scenario with me and I'm like,

33:36

"Yeah, that works.

33:37

Send me to Bosnia and then get me through

33:39

some pipeline there for the Muslim people that go

33:42

from Bosnia to Turkey, to Iraq,

33:44

during the insurgency there against the Americans."

33:48

So I said, "Yeah, that's fine."

33:50

And then that's when they decided to send me there.

33:52

Interviewer

Well, I'd get to that,

33:55

but when you were in Guantanamo

33:55

did you get to see your brother?

33:58

-

My brother, when I was in general population

34:00

I tried to get in touch with him more than once.

34:02

And then once I spoke to him.

34:04

He was in a different range altogether

34:06

and it was across an opening, so it was really hard.

34:10

And when I started screaming for him he talked back to me

34:12

and then the MPs started running to my unit

34:14

because you're not allowed to be really loud

34:17

and you're not allowed to speak to anybody

34:19

in a different range.

34:20

So we just said, "Hi, how are you?"

34:22

And that was it.

34:24

Interviewer

So, he knew you were there then?

34:26

-

Yes.

34:27

My interrogators were trying to arrange

34:28

for my brother to come see me in interrogation room.

34:30

And on the date that I was supposed to see him,

34:33

he was in the hospital on antibiotics,

34:35

so I couldn't see him.

34:37

Interviewer

Did you hear rumors about him

34:39

or stories about him from other detainees?

34:42

-

Yeah, a lotta people that were with him

34:44

in the same range before told me that he was in bad shape.

34:46

That he had a lotta pressure from the detainees around him

34:49

and from the interrogators.

34:53

I got the impression that he was under a lot of pressure

34:55

from his interrogators too.

34:57

So, he was young.

35:00

And from before that, when I was in the Kabul,

35:04

interrogators there told me how he was shot.

35:07

How he was in Bagram, all the stuff

35:10

that had happened to him in Bagram and everything else.

35:13

Interviewer

I wonder why they didn't think

35:18

you could help by meeting with him?

35:19

You know, maybe he would tell you things

35:22

he wasn't telling, they could have thought.

35:24

-

What Omar went through in Guantanamo,

35:27

is Omar when he was first captured,

35:29

he was injured really bad.

35:31

He was treated really bad in Bagram, right.

35:32

So when he reached Guantanamo he was already

35:34

in a different state of mind.

35:37

And then there, slowly, slowly his interrogators

35:40

started working with him and they decided, okay,

35:42

you know like, we'll give him books.

35:45

He's cooperating with us.

35:47

And they gave him books.

35:49

He was a little bit nicer.

35:51

He was cooperating with them.

35:53

The detainees around him saw that he was receiving books

35:54

and magazines, so they're like watch out.

35:56

These people that you're cooperating with,

35:59

you know they're only trying to use you, this and that.

36:01

So he was manipulated by the people around him.

36:03

So he refused the books.

36:06

He was treating his interrogators really bad.

36:08

And he started uncooperating and being,

36:10

so he was always, he was very young,

36:13

so he was influenced a lot by the people around him.

36:14

Whether it was the CIA that was trying to like,

36:16

you know abuse him and like use him,

36:19

or the people around him.

36:21

Interviewer

People meaning other-

36:24

-

Other detainees, yeah.

36:25

Interviewer

And did the Canadian officials

36:27

ever come to speak to you while you were in Guantanamo?

36:28

-

Yes, they came to see me.

36:31

I think they came to only see me once.

36:33

And I'm not sure it was in Guantanamo.

36:35

I know they came to see me in Pakistan.

36:37

But once the CIA decided that I was working for them,

36:38

they didn't have the Canadians see me.

36:42

Whatever they were getting, I'm pretty sure

36:44

they had a deal with the Canadians

36:46

they would share it with them.

36:47

The Canadians didn't really come to see me.

36:48

I think maybe once, I'm not sure though.

36:50

But if they did, it was only once.

36:51

Interviewer

Did any of the detainees suspect

36:54

you might be not one of them or?

36:55

-

No, I mean, people there had suspicions against everybody.

36:59

It wasn't just me.

37:03

-

Really?

-

But it was the smallest things

37:05

that we could set people off.

37:06

Like people, if you speak to an MP in English

37:07

that would set them off, like, "Don't talk to this guy.

37:10

He speaks English and he's talking to the MPs."

37:12

But this could mean something, it could also mean nothing.

37:15

You're just trying to get your food earlier

37:18

than anybody else, or something like that.

37:20

Interviewer

Did you see any detainees resist the guards

37:23

or get into other situations?

37:28

-

I mean every day or every couple of days

37:31

you had an incident on the range, or you had an incident

37:35

on different ranges that we'd hear about.

37:37

I mean, people walking to the rec,

37:40

not being able to walk in in their chains,

37:45

people like some of the detainees obviously

37:48

were throwing feces and stuff at the MPs.

37:50

Other MPs were just rude and mean.

37:52

You know you couldn't speak to them even if you were nice.

37:55

I mean, just, you know, being there is like

37:58

it was a different experience.

38:01

I mean, nobody can expect anybody

38:05

that's in a place like that to be extremely nice to you.

38:07

I mean, you're my MP I understand that.

38:10

Don't expect me to be nice to you or anything.

38:13

I'm going through this experience for no reason

38:16

that I know of, I'm not being tried, I'm being kept here

38:18

for God knows how long.

38:21

And the other detainees told me, I mean, you know

38:23

some detainees were being seen

38:25

every month or two by interrogators.

38:27

Some detainees hadn't seen anybody in two years.

38:29

And they would keep it that way.

38:32

They would keep it for two and a half years, three years,

38:33

nobody would see you except like a doctor or something.

38:35

So you wouldn't know what's going on.

38:38

You wouldn't know if you're getting out.

38:40

If you're being charged, if they know that you're bad

38:41

or they don't know that you're bad,

38:43

or they think you're bad,

38:44

you wouldn't know what was going on.

38:46

The indefinitcy of it was just,

38:47

it's what put a lot of people through a hard time.

38:50

Interviewer

So the five months

38:54

you were in this little house, did you feel better

38:55

that at least you weren't in the same population

39:00

as everyone else?

39:02

-

I did feel a little better, but I mean,

39:04

the whole time in Guantanamo is like,

39:07

it's isolated from the world.

39:10

You don't speak to your family members.

39:11

You're not in touch with anybody from back home.

39:13

You don't know what's going on around you in the world.

39:15

In the beginning, it was a better place

39:20

than general population, but again, with time,

39:22

I am sitting in a place where I don't speak to anybody

39:25

except two or three guards.

39:27

I see my handlers once a month,

39:29

once every three weeks or so.

39:35

So after a while, you know, yeah.

39:37

I mean, it is a better place, but it's also isolated

39:39

and you start getting tired of it.

39:42

Interviewer

Did you see doctors at all?

39:44

-

When I was there I saw a doctor once

39:46

and I saw a dentist once.

39:50

Interviewer

Did they do any care for you?

39:52

-

You were only seen by a doctor, or a medical practitioner

39:56

if you were in really bad shape,

40:00

or when you first arrived there.

40:02

They wouldn't see you for, I have pain here

40:05

or I'm not feeling well.

40:07

They wouldn't see you for that.

40:09

And when they saw you, they wouldn't give you medication

40:10

unless your interrogators approved it.

40:13

So let's say you had an infection,

40:15

an ear infection, which I did, right.

40:18

They wouldn't give it to me.

40:20

The doctor prescribed it, but they wouldn't give it to me

40:21

for another 15 days after he prescribed it to me,

40:23

until they approved it through my interrogators.

40:26

Which until then I could be dead.

40:28

I mean, you won't die from that,

40:31

but you could be in bad shape.

40:32

You could catch another infection, you know.

40:33

Interviewer

But your interrogators

40:36

knew who you were, right?

40:37

So they should have approved right away.

40:38

-

But again, it's a process, you know.

40:41

I mean, my doctor doesn't know.

40:43

So maybe he has a bunch of files that are going to

40:44

a bunch of interrogators to get approvals.

40:46

He's not gonna put mine at the top, right?

40:48

He just puts them somewhere and then one-by-one

40:51

they're taken and people are, "Oh, you know what,

40:54

I'll look at this for a couple of days and decide."

40:56

So your life is pretty much, in Guantanamo your life

40:59

is in your interrogator's hand.

41:02

Interviewer

And so for the dentist,

41:05

what kind of care did you get there, if any?

41:06

-

I think I had a cavity and a filling.

41:10

And that again, I only got it through my interrogator.

41:12

Like I had, when I first arrived in Guantanamo

41:16

I asked to see a dentist, 'cause I was in a lotta pain,

41:18

for some pain medication and also for the cavity,

41:22

and nobody would see me.

41:25

And then when I got out into general population

41:26

and my interrogator saw me, I'm like,

41:29

"I've been in pain for the last month and half

41:31

from my teeth."

41:32

And that's when they're like, "Okay, okay,

41:34

we'll get somebody to look at you."

41:35

And somebody saw me after a couple of days.

41:37

Interviewer

Did they fill your cavity?

41:39

-

Yes.

41:40

Interviewer

Were they nice to you

41:42

when they did their work?

41:43

-

I mean, professional.

41:44

I mean, they're not nice, but they're professional.

41:45

They're just doing their work.

41:47

And again, the treatment you receive

41:49

from anybody in Guantanamo is based on

41:51

how your interrogators want you to be treated.

41:53

Your MP, from your MP from the smallest thing,

41:58

to the people that serve you food,

42:01

to your doctors, to your handlers, everything,

42:03

even how long you get to see the Red Cross for,

42:06

or how many Red Cross letters you get in your range,

42:09

if you get books or not, anything,

42:14

it's all up to your interrogator.

42:16

Your life and everything is in their hand.

42:17

Interviewer

Did you get letters?

42:20

-

I received letters once I was there for maybe like

42:22

three or four month.

42:25

Interviewer

From whom?

42:27

-

From my grandmother

42:28

Interviewer

And were they censored?

42:29

-

Yes.

42:32

-

How?

-

You would read, read, read

42:34

and then there was like a black like marker

42:35

over a bunch of stuff.

42:38

And it wasn't even at the point where you're like,

42:40

"Okay, well I can guess what's coming up next."

42:41

They would cut from the beginning of the sentence

42:44

to the end of it, if there was one thing they didn't like.

42:47

So you wouldn't know what this whole area said.

42:49

Interviewer

Could you send mail out

42:52

to your grandmother?

42:54

-

Yes, from the Red Cross.

42:55

Interviewer

Was that censored?

42:56

-

From what I got back I realized, yes.

42:58

Yes, everything was censored that came outta there

43:00

and went into there.

43:03

-

And did you hear of any suicides

43:05

while you were in Guantanamo?

43:07

-

I heard of a couple of attempts,

43:09

I didn't know of anybody that did.

43:10

But I heard of a couple of attempts, like serious attempts,

43:13

like people being found with their bedsheets

43:16

around their neck, and barely saved by the MPs.

43:19

And when you're in a state where you don't know

43:24

when you're coming in, you don't know

43:26

when you're coming out,

43:27

you don't know what you're charged with,

43:28

you don't know if you'll leave tomorrow

43:30

or you won't leave until you die.

43:32

'Cause that's pretty much Guantanamo.

43:34

Every day you're in a state where you think,

43:37

okay, I could be here for one day,

43:39

or I could be here for the rest of my life.

43:40

So when you're in that state,

43:42

you don't care for your life anymore after a while.

43:44

Interviewer

Did you think once you were put in

43:47

the nicer location you were gonna go home

43:49

or at least get out of there?

43:52

Did you think that was really gonna happen?

43:54

-

Yeah, I mean, every step that was nicer

43:55

than the last step was a nice step,

43:59

but I mean, in the end the hope is just for me to leave,

44:00

to leave this place.

44:04

And I mean, during this period that I was in Guantanamo,

44:06

it just made me like reflect on everything with my life

44:10

and reflect on working for the CIA.

44:14

Because when I was working for the CIA in Kabul,

44:17

they put me in a cell with another high-priority,

44:19

Al-Qaeda prisoner that they had by the name Rada.

44:23

And the way I was treated and the way he was treated

44:26

was so inhumane that again, it made me like reflect

44:30

on working for them.

44:33

Because I mean, I'm sitting with these people,

44:34

I'm speaking to them about why I should be

44:36

working against Al-Qaeda.

44:38

But then I see certain things that they're doing

44:40

and certain ideas that they have that, you know,

44:43

you're not as bad as Al-Qaeda, but you're not as amazing

44:46

as you might portray yourself.

44:51

So, I started reflecting on my participation with them.

44:53

And by the time I was at the end of my line in Guantanamo

44:58

I had decided that you know what, I'm done.

45:03

I don't wanna work for them, I just wanna go home.

45:05

Interviewer

Could you tell us

45:09

how you were treated in Bagram?

45:10

You said you were badly treated in Bagram.

45:11

What's the other, what's the high-value person

45:15

that you were with?

45:18

-

Rada.

45:19

-

R?

-

R-A-D-A.

45:21

Interviewer

And what happened to him?

45:23

-

I don't know what happened to him.

45:24

It wasn't in Bagram, it was in this Afghani prison.

45:25

They took me from the safe house

45:28

that I was in in Kabul, the CIA.

45:30

They drove me blindfolded for awhile.

45:32

Brought me to a place and put you into the cell

45:35

that's totally black, you don't see anything.

45:39

This cell is inside another building.

45:41

So it's like a room that's built inside another building.

45:43

And once they close the door, it's totally dark.

45:46

You can't even see your own hand.

45:48

And you are put into that squat position

45:49

that I was talking about earlier,

45:53

but only I was in that position

45:54

for maybe 12 or 13 hours, overnight.

45:56

They put me in that range with him to try to talk to him.

46:00

They gave us, I think, like a quarter piece of bread.

46:07

And had used the washroom like right there in my clothes

46:10

because they wouldn't come and take you out.

46:13

They wouldn't like, and their reasoning was like,

46:15

oh, he's being kept with Afghan

46:19

so it's not really a problem how they treat him.

46:21

But they were come and interrogate him.

46:23

And he was being kept there by the order of the CIA.

46:25

So it was things like this that made me think,

46:29

okay, you know what,

46:32

like you guys aren't like better.

46:33

Look at the things you're doing.

46:35

Interviewer

So he was there before you came

46:37

and he was there after you left?

46:39

-

Yes.

46:40

Interviewer

Have you ever heard the term the dog prison?

46:41

-

No.

46:44

Interviewer

Have you ever met Bisher al-Rawi?

46:45

-

I might, the name kinda clicks,

46:49

but I don't remember him exactly.

46:51

Interviewer

So, going back to the five months

46:53

you were in that place, how do you feel

46:55

you were able to endure it by reflecting about your life.

46:58

Were there other things that kept you from staying sane,

47:02

kept you staying sane?

47:08

-

I mean, I read my Quran.

47:09

I just tried to think of my family.

47:13

I kept thinking that, you know what,

47:17

hopefully one day, you know, I'll be back with my family.

47:18

And I always like cried for my brother, Omar

47:21

because it felt like he went through so much.

47:23

And I always felt bad and guilty about the fact

47:26

that I might get out.

47:29

But I don't even know if Omar

47:30

will ever get out of this place.

47:31

Interviewer

The fact that you were working for the CIA

47:34

that couldn't help Omar?

47:35

You didn't think it could help him?

47:37

-

I asked them and I asked them and you know,

47:38

but again, it's up to your handlers.

47:41

I mean, your handler could be like,

47:43

"Yeah, I want you to work for me."

47:44

Your handler could be like, "You know what, no.

47:45

You know what, I'm not gonna let you work for me.

47:47

I'm gonna get all the information I want from you.

47:48

I'm gonna use it against you.

47:50

And I'm gonna keep you here as long as I can, or forever."

47:51

I mean, in the beginning, in the first two or three years

47:55

of when I was there, like the first,

47:57

like two three years of Guantanamo, there was no limit.

48:00

I mean, even now there's some people that we know

48:02

that might never leave that place.

48:05

But back then, the idea was that everybody,

48:07

the whole 600 people that were there might be there forever

48:09

you know, until they pass away.

48:13

And there was points where I felt like, okay,

48:15

I'm in that boat.

48:17

And that's like, the day I decided like, you know

48:19

I was gonna hang myself.

48:21

I was like, this is not a life.

48:22

Like, nobody wants to live like this.

48:24

Interviewer

So you told us off camera

48:27

that you met Moazzam Begg.

48:28

-

Yes.

Interviewer

And could you tell us how that happened?

48:31

-

When I was in segregation, again him and some of the other

48:33

British guys that were there,

48:37

they were with us in segregation.

48:39

And I saw them when when I was outside in the rec.

48:41

And we just spoke for a couple of minutes.

48:43

It wasn't for longer than that.

48:45

Interviewer

And Feroz Abbasi the same thing,

48:47

just a few words?

48:50

-

Yes, yes.

Interviewer

And you also mentioned

48:53

that you saw David Hicks.

48:54

Can you tell us about that?

48:56

-

When I was first moved to general population

48:58

from segregation, I was there for maybe a couple of weeks,

49:01

maybe two or three weeks and then they brought this guy,

49:04

they brought him in such a rush in the middle of the night.

49:07

They put him in the cell and then we're like,

49:10

"What's going on?"

49:14

And then he didn't talk to anybody.

49:14

He just, as soon as he got into his cell, he passed out.

49:17

And then I asked my neighbor, I'm like, "What's going on?"

49:19

And he's like, "Oh, this guy, they always bring him.

49:21

They don't keep him in one place

49:24

more than two or three hours.

49:26

And they come and move him again."

49:27

And we just barely put our heads down to go to sleep again,

49:29

and exactly like my neighbor said, they came back,

49:32

they told him, get up, get ready.

49:34

They shackled him and they moved him again.

49:36

Interviewer

Had you heard the term frequent flyer

49:39

while you were there?

49:41

-

I hadn't heard it when I was there,

49:42

but I heard it when I left.

49:43

Interviewer

And did you associate it

49:45

with what you just described?

49:46

-

Yes.

Interviewer

Did you know anybody else

49:48

who had been put on that?

49:49

-

There was a lot of people put through it.

49:50

I mean, from people I spoke to, those types of torture

49:52

I mean, the air conditioning in the segregation you know,

49:57

to the point of like you're freezing, you can't sleep,

50:00

you can't think, you can't do anything

50:03

because your bones are so cold and you're shivering.

50:04

The heat you know, when the cells are so hot

50:06

that you can't breathe even.

50:09

The loud music, the frequent flyer,

50:12

the tying you in the interrogation rooms

50:17

and leaving you for seven, eight, nine hours.

50:19

Because being in your cell is bad,

50:22

but then when they take you to the interrogation room

50:24

they tie you to a seat and they'll leave

50:26

with your whole body tied to a seat, to the floor,

50:30

for six or seven hours with nobody coming to see you.

50:33

And nobody around you to speak to.

50:36

And you can't even move from the position that you're in.

50:38

A lotta people, of course urinated themselves

50:40

and defecated and everything.

50:43

Interviewer

And what kind of questions

50:46

would they ask in interrogation?

50:47

In your case from the beginning, they knew who you were

50:50

so they didn't ask-

50:52

-

I mean, the questions they asked is, what's your name?

50:52

Who are you?

50:57

Why were you in Afghanistan?

50:58

What's your ideology?

51:01

What are your plans when, you know about leaving this place?

51:03

Why do you hate America?

51:09

This and that.

51:11

They just asked you, I mean, they asked you really like

51:12

a lotta questions and I felt most of them were stupid,

51:15

to be honest.

51:19

You have these people that are here,

51:21

and I told my handlers this when I was in Guantanamo.

51:22

I told them, I said, "80% of the population here

51:26

has nothing to do with anything.

51:29

20% you guys are right.

51:31

They're high priority

51:33

and you guys got your hands on the right people.

51:35

80% of the people here are Afghans.

51:38

They don't know Tom, from Dick, from Harry,

51:41

they don't know anything.

51:44

They were brought here for money."

51:45

They're enemies of somebody who tells 'em,

51:47

oh, come I'll make up.

51:49

Because animosity in Afghanistan is a huge thing.

51:51

So he'll go and tell this guy, "Look we'll break off

51:53

the animosity that me and you have.

51:55

Okay, come over to my house, we'll have dinner,

51:57

we'll fix everything. "

51:59

And you'll be going over to their house

52:00

and the Americans will come arrest you on the way.

52:01

You know, he ratted you out to the Americans,

52:04

said that you're somebody else and now he got rid of you.

52:07

There's so many cases of Afghans

52:10

that had nothing to do with anything

52:12

that were sitting there.

52:14

I said to them, and a lot of cases of Arabs too.

52:15

There's a lot of Arabs that went to Afghanistan

52:17

because they were just going with the whole caravan.

52:19

You know, they wanted to go there and participate

52:22

in what they considered is the jihad, right.

52:24

And then the big ideas, I mean, attacking innocent people,

52:26

killing innocent people, you know, suicide bombing,

52:30

this was for the high priority people.

52:33

It wasn't for the small players in Al-Qaeda.

52:35

Now, you take these small guys,

52:37

these guys would've probably came,

52:39

stayed for a couple of months, went home

52:40

and went on with their life.

52:41

You take these people, you throw them in Guantanamo

52:43

for four, five, six, seven years,

52:45

even the smallest person in there,

52:48

the person that had nothing to do with nothing at all,

52:51

when he leaves, he doesn't like you now.

52:54

And it doesn't matter what you say to him.

52:55

It doesn't matter if you deradicalize him.

52:57

Now, he hates you.

53:00

Now you've taken him away from his family

53:01

for seven or eight years.

53:03

What do you expect from this person?

53:04

Interviewer

Going back, did you get actual confirmation

53:08

from Afghanis telling you that they were sent there

53:11

because their tribal enemy essentially-

53:14

-

Yeah.

53:17

Yeah, I had more than one case of people

53:17

because of tribal animosity, you know,

53:20

because there how it works,

53:22

if you have an animosity with someone

53:24

or a problem with someone,

53:26

it just carries on generation after generation.

53:27

Your kids will fight their kids and it will keep going on.

53:29

It will never end.

53:32

Somebody will always be trying to kill somebody

53:33

from your family.

53:35

So people will arrange for a sit-down

53:36

where it's resolved through money

53:39

or some kind of land giveaway or something.

53:41

And then you'll be on your way there.

53:43

This is one case, the guy he's like, "I was on my way there.

53:45

And the American stopped me."

53:47

People in Afghanistan drive with guns, it's very normal.

53:49

It has nothing to do with Taliban or not.

53:51

If you live in Afghanistan you would be carrying a gun too.

53:54

Everybody carries a gun there.

53:57

It's very, you know, it's a different kind of society.

53:58

So he's like, "I got arrested."

54:02

And I asked him, I asked him, "Do you know this?

54:04

Do you know that?"

54:06

He's like, "No." He's like, "I have a business.

54:06

I've always had a business.

54:08

I haven't had anything to do with anything."

54:09

He's like, "My family's had guns before the Taliban,

54:12

before the Mujahideen, before the Americans,

54:15

before the Russians.

54:17

We live in a mountain area.

54:18

We carry guns, you know?"

54:21

And that's it, that was sufficient.

54:23

And then when I spoke to my handler about it, I'm like,

54:25

"I was next to this guy

54:27

and he has nothing to do with anything."

54:28

"Oh, it's okay, we'll decide that."

54:30

I'm like, you know you guys aren't building, you know, like,

54:32

you know you're not building something

54:35

that's helping America.

54:36

You're building something that's just eventually gonna be,

54:37

is gonna stand up against America, most of these people.

54:40

Interviewer

And how about the Pakistanis?

54:44

Were there tribal enemies there too,

54:46

or how were they picked up?

54:48

-

A lot of people were picked up from Pakistan,

54:50

given to the Americans, or, you know,

54:53

a lotta Pakistanis were with the Taliban.

54:55

Now, again, like Al-Qaeda's one level.

54:58

Al-Qaeda's who the Americans had a problem with.

55:00

And then there's the Taliban.

55:04

The Taliban said, "We won't give away Osama."

55:05

But really their ideology wasn't as extreme as Al-Qaeda.

55:07

You know everybody knows this,

55:13

even the Americans know this, right.

55:14

So there was a lot of Taliban that went to the fight,

55:15

I mean, Pakistanis that went to fight with the Talibans

55:19

against the Northern Alliance.

55:21

They had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda,

55:23

or would that ideology at all.

55:24

They were captured and they were brought,

55:26

and they were accused of being enemy combatants

55:28

and like American haters and this and that

55:31

and all these like big terms.

55:34

Interviewer

And then when you said Arabs,

55:37

are you saying that any Arab that was in Afghanistan

55:39

was pretty much picked up and sold?

55:42

-

Any Arab, any foreign person at all,

55:44

if you weren't Afghan, you were worth money.

55:48

You had a dollar sign over your head

55:51

as long as somebody knew that you weren't from there.

55:53

And any Afghan with an AK-47 had a dollar over their head.

55:55

By the time that, you know, you were through Bagram

56:01

and through Guantanamo, there's a lotta people

56:05

that went to Bagram and Guantanamo,

56:07

and by the time Americans were like, "Oh, we finished

56:09

the whole like interrogation process and everything.

56:13

And we realize this person knows nothing actually."

56:16

It would take two, two and half years, three years.

56:19

And this is a simple process of just interrogation,

56:24

which here in North America, you're allowed to have that

56:27

for 72 hours or whatever.

56:29

There it's three years.

56:31

-

Did you meet any Uighurs while you were in Guantanamo?

56:34

-

Did I what?

56:36

-

Meet the Uighurs, the Chinese dissidents?

56:37

-

No, no.

56:38

I met a couple of Turkmens when I was in Afghanistan,

56:39

but not in Guantanamo.

56:44

-

Why would you meet them, were they-

56:47

-

There was some of them that were in Afghanistan.

56:49

There's a lotta people, a lotta Muslim people

56:52

that migrated to Afghanistan when the Taliban

56:54

had control of Afghanistan because they felt

56:57

it was a state for them to live with no persecution.

56:59

Interviewer

Did you ever see any hunger strikers?

57:06

-

Yes.

57:09

Yes, there was, when I threatened, after they took me

57:10

to the mental ward, they moved me back to segregation,

57:16

before they actually put me into that different unit.

57:19

When I was there a couple of people around me

57:22

were in hunger, and I actually went on hunger strike

57:26

for a couple of days, but I didn't continue.

57:28

But yeah, there was a lotta people

57:30

that were on hunger strike.

57:31

They were always telling you

57:33

if you're gonna participate

57:34

make sure it's something that you wanna do.

57:35

And that you're not gonna break it

57:37

because every time somebody eats

57:38

it just discourages everybody around them.

57:40

So there was I think five or six people.

57:42

I think it was the British guys too,

57:44

but I'm not sure, I can't confirm.

57:46

But they were on hunger strike for five or six days

57:48

during the time I was there.

57:51

I was moved after.

57:52

Interviewer

Do you know if they were force fed?

57:54

-

I didn't hear of anybody being forced fed.

57:56

No, actually, yes.

57:58

Something about putting a balloon inside your stomach.

58:00

But this was in the very beginning.

58:03

I hadn't seen it myself, but I heard from other detainees

58:05

that if you go on hunger strike for a certain amount of time

58:07

they force feed you.

58:11

Interviewer

When you said you saw a psychologist

58:14

after they took you from that cell,

58:16

what would the psychologist ask you?

58:19

-

Well, "What is your state of mind?"

58:21

I'm like, "I'm losing my mind.

58:22

I wanna kill myself."

58:23

"Why, why do you wanna kill yourself?"

58:25

"Because I'm here and I don't know

58:26

if I'm ever leaving here."

58:29

"Well, tell me how that makes you feel."

58:32

"I'm feeling suicidal.

58:35

I'm feeling like you're taking my life away.

58:36

I have no control over my life."

58:39

You know, when you're in your cell in general population

58:41

in Guantanamo, from urinating to doing number two,

58:44

to eating, to drinking, to sleeping, to praying,

58:51

everything is monitored by your MP.

58:55

And if he doesn't like the position that your peeing in

58:58

then he can tell you to change it

59:01

or he can call ERF guys to come rough you up.

59:04

Or he can move you to another range.

59:08

You know, if you start making

59:10

a couple friends in this range, he can move you.

59:11

So, you know, I mean, you feel like

59:14

when you're in that cell, you feel like your whole life,

59:15

every part of it, you have no control over.

59:20

Even your state of mind, you have no control over.

59:23

Interviewer

Were the psychologists sympathetic?

59:26

-

No.

59:28

No. We want you to stay here

59:29

and not complain and not threaten to kill yourself.

59:31

We want you to just stay like a nice little quiet dog

59:35

and just not complain.

59:39

Interviewer

Did they ever suggest to you

59:41

how you might kill yourself?

59:43

-

No, no.

59:45

They just told you that you have no right to kill yourself.

59:46

We won't allow it either.

59:50

And I mean, one of the biggest things they always told me

59:54

is by doing that you're just gonna

59:58

make it worse for yourself.

59:59

They would no way sympathize towards why am I doing this?

1:00:01

Do you think I'm a guy that just wants to kill himself?

1:00:05

You know, I'm not.

1:00:07

I wanna live my life but there must be a reason

1:00:08

why I wanna kill myself in this place.

1:00:11

And people have to understand,

1:00:14

like people have to understand

1:00:15

why everybody there is on hunger strike right now.

1:00:17

I mean, it's easy for me and you to say, oh, you know what?

1:00:20

They're not so bad.

1:00:22

We feed them.

1:00:23

We give them money.

1:00:24

We know we give them food.

1:00:25

You know, it's easy for you to say that,

1:00:26

me and you here sitting on our nice sofa,

1:00:28

but for people there that have been there for five,

1:00:31

six, seven, eight years,

1:00:33

no, what is the purpose of my life now?

1:00:35

I'm gonna be in the same cell for the rest of my life.

1:00:37

No, I'd rather die.

1:00:40

And a lotta people, they don't wanna kill themselves

1:00:42

because in Islam suicide will end you up in hell.

1:00:44

So they just wanna go outside and fight,

1:00:48

or punch one of the MPs and then have them shoot him.

1:00:50

Because like, if I'm killed by somebody else

1:00:52

at least I won't go to hell.

1:00:54

Interviewer

When you saw the Red Cross,

1:00:59

what could you say to them?

1:01:00

And how, how did they treat you?

1:01:01

-

We complained to them

1:01:02

and they try to sympathize as much as they can.

1:01:04

But I think it was so difficult

1:01:06

for the Red Cross to be there

1:01:08

and for them to see the prisoners

1:01:10

that they had to keep a certain like distance

1:01:13

from all the prisoners

1:01:15

and treat the prisoners a certain way.

1:01:16

You didn't feel like when you went to see them,

1:01:18

like, okay I'm in a safe place here.

1:01:19

They made you feel like, okay, here's a couple of letters,

1:01:22

write these letters.

1:01:24

Oh, you know what?

1:01:25

I'm getting some really bad food.

1:01:26

It's okay, there's nothing we can do about that.

1:01:28

Oh, you know, I don't like the treatment I'm getting.

1:01:30

There's nothing we can do about that.

1:01:32

Like it was just a bunch of,

1:01:33

there's nothing we can do about that.

1:01:35

We just got these letters for you if you wanna write them,

1:01:36

send them to your family.

1:01:38

Interviewer

So did you find it frustrating

1:01:40

talking to the Red Cross?

1:01:42

-

It was, it was very frustrating.

1:01:43

Tried to talk to Amnesty, there's nobody from Amnesty there.

1:01:45

I talked to the Red Cross.

1:01:50

The Red Cross seemed very like indifferent, you know?

1:01:51

And I don't know, I don't know if they do that by choice.

1:01:56

I think it's that they're forced to do that

1:01:59

or the MPs, or the interrogators can tell them,

1:02:01

you don't like it take a hike.

1:02:05

We control this place, we own this place.

1:02:08

We own everybody in there.

1:02:11

So whatever privilege you get to seeing one of the detainees

1:02:12

it's a privilege.

1:02:15

It's not like a right or anything like that.

1:02:16

Interviewer

So I don't understand,

1:02:20

why would the U.S. want you to put on an orange jumpsuit

1:02:22

when you go see the Red Cross, and not let them know

1:02:25

that you're staying at another location in civilian clothes?

1:02:28

I don't quite understand why.

1:02:32

-

Because obviously, they don't want the Red Cross

1:02:34

to know about this location.

1:02:36

Because the Red Cross doesn't know about anybody else

1:02:37

and there's people that were staying in those units.

1:02:39

And there's more than one unit.

1:02:42

I know that the one I was saying in had six units.

1:02:44

But I'm pretty sure there was a bunch of other ones

1:02:47

that had six units around it.

1:02:49

But they don't want any, you know they don't want

1:02:51

the Red Cross to know about those people.

1:02:52

There's some people that the Americans have

1:02:54

that nobody knows about and nobody will ever know about.

1:02:58

And their families are in countries that are so poor

1:03:01

they have no way to reach the American media

1:03:04

or the North American media to tell them,

1:03:07

"Look, our son or our brother or our husband or our wife

1:03:09

is missing and we don't know where he is."

1:03:13

There is people that have gone into the abyss

1:03:15

and nobody will ever know what happens to them.

1:03:17

Somebody in the CIA or somebody in

1:03:20

like the Homeland Security will know that this person

1:03:23

is in this place and that's it.

1:03:26

And you'll never hear from them again.

1:03:28

I mean, my father personally, I don't know.

1:03:30

I mean, there's people in my family convinced me,

1:03:32

I'm convinced that my dad is dead too,

1:03:36

but sometime I have my doubts.

1:03:37

I just think, okay, what if my dad is alive?

1:03:38

Because we never saw his body

1:03:42

and we don't know where he was buried.

1:03:44

So what if my dad was injured really bad,

1:03:46

but they got to him and they rescued him

1:03:49

and he's in a prison somewhere.

1:03:51

And they just are keeping him there.

1:03:53

They can afford to.

1:03:55

The CIA can keep anybody for the rest of their life

1:03:56

in a prison somewhere in Tibet or in China,

1:03:59

or somewhere where nobody will ever hear from them again.

1:04:01

Interviewer

So you think U.S. is hiding certain people

1:04:07

in this part of the prison.

1:04:09

-

Yes.

Yes, I'm not thinking, I know for sure that they're hiding.

1:04:12

They told me that there's people here

1:04:15

that we don't want that Red Cross to know about.

1:04:16

Interviewer

And they told you what kind of

1:04:19

people they are?

1:04:20

-

They wouldn't tell me what kind of people

1:04:21

or who they were.

1:04:23

Just I got the impression from them

1:04:25

that they were high priority to them.

1:04:27

And I don't mean this by, they were cooperators.

1:04:29

I think some of them were,

1:04:31

but also some of them were just like some people

1:04:32

that they don't want the public to have access to them,

1:04:34

or the media to have access to them.

1:04:36

Interviewer

So you had to pretend you were living

1:04:41

in another part of the prison

1:04:44

when you would meet with the Red Cross?

1:04:45

-

Yes.

1:04:47

-

You have to give them

the name of the place you were living at?

1:04:48

-

Again, the Red Cross were very like censored by the MPs.

1:04:50

The amount of time that you're with them is very limited.

1:04:53

And there was an MP standing right outside the tent.

1:04:56

So at any point he could tell, "You know what, time to go."

1:04:59

And there was cases where like, I would open my mouth

1:05:04

and be like, "Look, I need this."

1:05:06

And then the guard would come in and be like,

1:05:07

"Your time is up, let's go, that's it."

1:05:08

Anything that was like, they were monitoring everything.

1:05:11

Like the interrogators monitored the conversations

1:05:13

that you have with your lawyer, if you had a lawyer.

1:05:16

They monitored the conversations you had with the Red Cross.

1:05:19

There was no privacy.

1:05:22

There was no rights in that place.

1:05:23

Nobody cares about your rights.

1:05:24

Nobody cares about privacy

1:05:26

Interviewer

But you didn't have a lawyer

1:05:28

while you were there, right?

1:05:29

-

No, I didn't.

1:05:30

But other people that did we know now that everything,

1:05:31

like my brother, Omar, his conversations with his lawyers

1:05:35

were recorded by the CIA.

1:05:38

And I have no doubt, they would tell me stuff like this.

1:05:39

They would tell me that, from the day that you guys decided

1:05:41

to attack the Twin Towers, you gave up every right.

1:05:45

We own your life now.

1:05:49

We own everything about it.

1:05:51

Interviewer

Were you able to visit Omar

1:05:55

since he's come back to Canada?

1:05:57

-

I wasn't able to visit him.

1:05:59

The government won't allow me.

1:06:01

But my mother and my sisters and my brother

1:06:03

has visited him, and my sister-in-law.

1:06:06

Interviewer

And why won't they let you?

1:06:10

-

I don't know, to be honest.

1:06:11

I mean, I don't know.

1:06:13

I mean, is it because I was with him in Guantanamo or not?

1:06:14

I don't really know.

1:06:17

But I wasn't allowed to see him.

1:06:19

Interviewer

Well, we can talk more about that.

1:06:22

So can you tell us how you found out

1:06:23

you were actually going to leave

1:06:25

and what exactly transpired

1:06:26

as you were leaving before you got to Bosnia?

1:06:29

-

They decided that they would put me in Bosnia.

1:06:34

Put me through some pipeline there to get to Iraq

1:06:38

and work for them against the insurgency in Iraq.

1:06:40

And I said, okay, I just wanted out.

1:06:45

So they said, any plan that they came up with

1:06:47

I was usually like, "Yeah, that works.

1:06:50

Yeah, that works, yeah, that works."

1:06:52

Because they kept coming up with different plan.

1:06:52

They came to me with a forged Moroccan passport.

1:06:55

They said, "We're gonna put you there.

1:07:00

We're gonna put you in some place.

1:07:01

I'm gonna put you near a mosque.

1:07:03

And we're gonna try to get you to speak to people."

1:07:04

I was in Bosnia for maybe like a month

1:07:07

before I blew my cover without blowing my cover.

1:07:10

So I went back and told my grandmother to go to the media

1:07:14

and tell her that I'm in Bosnia

1:07:17

and I'm trying to get back to Canada.

1:07:18

And I told the CIA that she was the one

1:07:20

that said she was gonna do it. It wasn't me that told her.

1:07:23

And she said she was gonna do it either way.

1:07:25

So the Canadian government got up and said,

1:07:28

"Oh, we have to bring him back."

1:07:31

So they sent me back.

1:07:32

And that's how I got back.

1:07:34

Interviewer

So when you left Guantanamo,

1:07:36

what kind of plane did you leave on?

1:07:37

-

I left on a private jet,

1:07:39

apparently the deputy director's jet,

1:07:42

from what I know, of the CIA.

1:07:46

The jet, they took me-

1:07:49

Interviewer

You were in a hood, or-

1:07:52

-

No.

1:07:55

They put me in a hood for the whole drive

1:07:56

to get to the airport.

1:07:58

No, to a boat, a speed boat.

1:08:00

And then there they took off the hood

1:08:04

and they put me on the speedboat.

1:08:06

We went for a little cruise in the water,

1:08:06

and then we got off and got in another car

1:08:08

and went to the airport.

1:08:11

And then we sat there and waited for like maybe

1:08:12

30 to 40 minutes until the plane landed.

1:08:15

And I was like, wow, that's a Gulfstream IV

1:08:17

and they're like, yeah.

1:08:19

And I went inside, there was food and everything,

1:08:20

and my handler was in there.

1:08:23

And he spoke to me about what I was gonna do

1:08:26

when I get there.

1:08:28

We landed in-

1:08:29

Interviewer

You were in civilian clothes?

1:08:30

-

Yes.

1:08:32

Interviewer

And you were not shackled at all?

1:08:33

-

No, I wasn't shackled.

1:08:36

Interviewer

Were there men with guns on the plane?

1:08:38

-

There was nobody with guns.

1:08:42

There was a pilot, there was a couple of stewardesses

1:08:44

and that was it.

1:08:46

Interviewer

So they really trusted that-

1:08:48

-

Yeah, yeah, no at this point they had me,

1:08:50

like they trusted me and everything.

1:08:52

They felt like, you know, I'm working for them.

1:08:54

Interviewer

And then the plane flew directly to Bosnia?

1:08:57

-

No, we stopped in a Portuguese island

1:08:59

on the way, to refill.

1:09:04

So we stopped there, we refilled.

1:09:05

And then from there we landed in Bosnia.

1:09:07

Interviewer

And when you landed in Bosnia,

1:09:11

where did you go?

1:09:14

-

We landed in an American base in Bosnia.

1:09:15

And then from there, they drove me to a hotel

1:09:17

and we stayed in a hotel for a few days.

1:09:20

And then from there we drove to Sarajevo.

1:09:22

We stayed in a hotel there for a few days

1:09:25

until they found me a place to stay.

1:09:27

And then they put me up in a place

1:09:29

Interviewer

Who's they?

1:09:32

(off camera chatter)

1:09:34

Okay, sure, let's take a break and then we'll come back.

1:09:38

After you leave and you've got to Bosnia,

1:09:44

can you tell us exactly once you were put

1:09:46

into the community, well actually, who your handlers were.

1:09:49

Who were your handlers when you got to Bosnia?

1:09:53

-

I don't remember their name, but it was two guys.

1:09:56

It was a black guy and a white guy.

1:09:59

-

CIA or-

1:10:01

-

Yes, they were CIA.

And they came to see me once a week.

1:10:04

They didn't see me that frequently

1:10:06

'cause he didn't want me to be seen

1:10:07

with anybody, like any Americans or anything like that.

1:10:09

So it was very clandestine when we met up.

1:10:13

It was like, go here, do this, and then go there

1:10:16

and go there, and then we'll pick you up at a place.

1:10:19

Interviewer

And what was the intention for you?

1:10:23

What did they want you to do?

1:10:26

-

So their intention for me was

1:10:27

that there was a mosque in Bosnia.

1:10:29

They wanted me to go there and start talking to people

1:10:31

and get into the community or whatever

1:10:33

and find out if somebody there can send me to Iraq.

1:10:36

You know, if somebody knew how to smuggle somebody

1:10:39

from Bosnia into Iraq.

1:10:42

'Cause there was a lot of Muslim people leftover

1:10:43

from the Bosnian war that stayed in Bosnia.

1:10:45

And a lot of them did go to Iraq

1:10:48

when the the Americans invaded Iraq.

1:10:50

So there was a certain pipeline from Bosnia to Iraq

1:10:53

and they were trying to get me to find it

1:10:56

and get myself into it.

1:10:58

Interviewer

And what did you say,

1:10:59

where were you coming from when you showed up there?

1:11:02

-

When I showed up, I told them I was in Afghanistan

1:11:04

and I had been hiding in Pakistan for like

1:11:06

the last two years and collected some money here and there

1:11:08

and I smuggled myself into Iran.

1:11:12

And then from Iran, I smuggled myself into Turkey.

1:11:14

And then from Turkey, I'd found a way

1:11:18

to smuggle myself into Bosnia.

1:11:19

Interviewer

And they believed you?

1:11:21

-

And people believed me, yeah.

1:11:22

Interviewer

And did they find a place,

1:11:24

a way for you to?

1:11:26

-

So as I said, when I reached there, my reflecting

1:11:28

and my whole reflecting the whole time on if I should be

1:11:34

working for the CIA or not, I think I'd come to a conclusion

1:11:37

that I don't wanna work for them.

1:11:41

That I was just a pawn to them.

1:11:43

I mean, obviously I was a pawn if they wanted me

1:11:44

to go to Bosnia and they wanted to throw me in there,

1:11:46

with people getting killed left, right, and center.

1:11:49

They didn't really care about my health or anything.

1:11:51

They just wanted to get a result out of me

1:11:54

and that's all that mattered to them.

1:11:55

So I decided that no, I don't wanna work for them anymore.

1:11:57

And I just broke my ties and I emailed my grandma

1:12:01

and told her to like go to the media

1:12:05

and tell them that I'm in Bosnia

1:12:07

and that I'm trying to get back to Canada.

1:12:08

Interviewer

And what happened then?

1:12:11

-

I right away went back to my handlers

1:12:14

so I can cover my own back,

1:12:16

because I felt like if they find out

1:12:18

that I blew my own cover they might just snatch me

1:12:21

and throw me somewhere where nobody can find me again.

1:12:23

So I right away tried to like,

1:12:25

there was a way of contacting them

1:12:27

if there was an emergency.

1:12:28

And I'm like, "I talked to my grandma today

1:12:29

and she said that she was going to the media.

1:12:31

And I tried to plead with her and everything

1:12:33

and she's like going to the media anyway."

1:12:35

So this is again, I had a little,

1:12:38

like I had my own manipulation

1:12:40

when I was in Bosnia with the CIA.

1:12:42

I mean, they manipulated and I manipulated too.

1:12:44

When they brought me to Bosnia I'm like,

1:12:47

"We have to inform my grandma that I'm outside.

1:12:48

Because if somebody sees me in Bosnia

1:12:51

and somehow contacts somebody, that contacts somebody,

1:12:54

and then my grandma reaches the news that I'm free

1:12:56

and I'm walking the streets in Bosnia,

1:12:59

then they're gonna be like something is suspicious.

1:13:01

Why are you out and not telling us.

1:13:03

And then they might be suspicious

1:13:04

that I'm working for you guys."

1:13:06

So I'm like, "When I get out,

1:13:07

I have to tell my grandmother that I'm there,

1:13:08

but with a cover story."

1:13:10

The whole smuggling and smuggling and smuggling, right.

1:13:12

So they're like, "Okay, just make sure

1:13:15

that she doesn't go to the media."

1:13:16

That was the condition.

1:13:17

I was like, "Okay."

1:13:18

I talked to her a couple of times when I got to Bosnia.

1:13:19

And she had said, okay, she won't go to them.

1:13:22

And even the third time she hadn't said

1:13:24

she was going to them, I was the one

1:13:26

that told her to go to them.

1:13:28

So she went to them and I right away contacted them

1:13:29

and said, "They're going so you guys

1:13:32

should be aware of the storm that's about to hit."

1:13:34

So they're like, "Okay."

1:13:37

They took me right away off the apartment

1:13:39

that I was staying in

1:13:40

and kept me in a safe house for two days.

1:13:41

And then the news hit the wire.

1:13:43

The media found out.

1:13:46

When the media found out,

1:13:47

they asked the Foreign Affairs minister in Canada

1:13:48

and he called somebody in Washington

1:13:51

and Washington was calling Ottawa,

1:13:53

and Ottawa was calling Washington.

1:13:55

And then obviously it went down the chain to the CIA

1:13:57

to bring him back.

1:13:59

Whatever way you have to bring him back,

1:14:01

just bring him back.

1:14:02

So my handlers got the news like

1:14:04

get him to the Canadian embassy as soon as possible.

1:14:05

And they took all everything I had,

1:14:09

my cell phone, everything,

1:14:10

and they brought me in front of the embassy

1:14:11

and dropped me there.

1:14:12

Interviewer

And what was the story

1:14:14

your grandmother told the media?

1:14:16

-

She told them the story about me getting smuggled,

1:14:18

from Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to Iran,

1:14:22

to Turkey, to Bosnia.

1:14:25

Interviewer

She didn't know you had been in Guantanamo?

1:14:28

-

No.

1:14:30

Interviewer

And so when did it finally break

1:14:32

that you in fact were in Guantanamo?

1:14:34

-

When I came back, I sat down with the media.

1:14:36

I told them the same story about me getting smuggled here

1:14:39

and there and there.

1:14:41

And then one day I was speaking to a friend of mine

1:14:46

from the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

1:14:50

And me and him were just speaking randomly

1:14:54

and I felt like I had this whole big weight

1:14:57

on my shoulders and on my chest.

1:14:59

So I told him, I'm like, come I wanna tell you something.

1:15:02

I can't anymore.

1:15:04

And me and him walked around the same block maybe 18 times.

1:15:06

He wouldn't stop, he's like, "No you have to keep going."

1:15:09

And I was telling him and telling him,

1:15:12

and he just couldn't believe it, like everything.

1:15:13

And he's like, "You have to tell everybody.

1:15:16

You can't live on this lie, like you have to.

1:15:18

People will eventually know.

1:15:20

And when they know you're gonna be a liar.

1:15:22

Instead, it's best that you tell people."

1:15:23

So I went ahead and did the documentary.

1:15:25

Interviewer

With whom?

1:15:29

-

With the CBC and PBS.

1:15:30

Interviewer

You went to them and-

1:15:31

-

I did a documentary with the CBC.

1:15:33

And it was also on the PBS.

1:15:35

Interviewer

Is that how the story broke through the CBC?

1:15:39

-

Yeah.

1:15:41

Interviewer

And did they pay you for that?

1:15:42

-

No.

1:15:44

Interviewer

And so no one really knew,

1:15:46

even your family they didn't know until the CBC-

1:15:47

-

Nobody knew until the CBC-

1:15:49

-

Broke the story.

1:15:51

-

Yeah.

Interviewer

And how'd the U.S. respond to it?

1:15:53

-

I mean, of course there was denial from the CIA

1:15:55

and from everybody that I worked for them.

1:15:58

So they got a polygraph, they polygraphed me at the CBC

1:16:00

and they realized that yes, I did work for them.

1:16:03

And then they asked me to indicate certain things to them

1:16:06

that indicated that I did work for them.

1:16:09

So I brought up details that nobody could know but me.

1:16:11

And then one of the people I worked with was an FBI officer.

1:16:13

And I still remember his name, Steve Bongardt.

1:16:19

He's a special agent out of New York.

1:16:21

And he worked on the Oklahoma tower,

1:16:23

on the Oklahoma bombing.

1:16:28

So I said, I remember his name 'cause he told me,

1:16:31

"If you're ever back in the States."

1:16:34

So I gave them his name and they pulled him up

1:16:35

and they pulled a bunch of pictures of him

1:16:38

from his high school and other people.

1:16:40

And I picked him out, out of like eight people.

1:16:42

I'm like that's him.

1:16:44

And they said, that is him yeah.

1:16:45

And then the polygraph also proved that I was being honest

1:16:47

and an unofficial person from the U.S. government confirmed

1:16:51

and make my story, but he wouldn't give his name

1:16:56

or anything like that.

1:16:58

So that's how my story came out.

1:17:00

Interviewer

The FBI agent, what was his relation to you?

1:17:03

How did you know him?

1:17:06

-

When I was in Afghanistan, in the very beginning

1:17:07

when the CIA and FBI was talking to me,

1:17:09

he was one of the people that spoke to me.

1:17:11

Interviewer

And at that point you also told

1:17:13

how you were in Guantanamo for those eight months.

1:17:16

-

Yes, I told the whole thing.

1:17:18

Why I was in Guantanamo and Bagram, everything.

1:17:21

The flight to Bagram, the flight, you know, the whole thing.

1:17:24

Interviewer

And how were you treated by the Canadians

1:17:28

once this came out?

1:17:30

-

To be honest, the Canadians

1:17:32

didn't respond to it very well.

1:17:33

I don't think they understood the story.

1:17:35

I got a very better response from the American like audience

1:17:37

than the Canadian audience.

1:17:41

The Canadian audience just took it as like,

1:17:41

"Oh, another son of the infamous Canadian Al-Qaeda family.

1:17:43

Just kick him out of Canada, this and that.

1:17:48

The Americans responded in a way better way.

1:17:50

And you know what, this person worked for the CIA

1:17:53

and as usual the people that work for the CIA

1:17:56

get treated like crap and we end up losing all our assets

1:17:58

around the world because we're ignorant.

1:18:03

And it was really good responses from people.

1:18:04

Interviewer

And were you able to get work in Canada?

1:18:07

-

It was difficult in the very beginning,

1:18:11

it was really difficult because of the documentary.

1:18:12

And then because of that, I also like,

1:18:15

I mean, the beginning of the first two years

1:18:18

it was a lot of publicity, but after that

1:18:19

I lay low for a long time.

1:18:21

But now it's okay.

1:18:24

A lotta people don't recognize the family anymore.

1:18:26

Interviewer

Can you tell us a little bit

1:18:29

about the family going back to your childhood,

1:18:29

or back to your father, since he-

1:18:33

-

So my dad came to Canada, he studied here.

1:18:35

And he met my mother here.

1:18:39

-

From where?

-

From Egypt.

1:18:41

He met my mother here.

1:18:42

She's also came from Egypt, she's Palestinian,

1:18:43

but she was a refugee in Egypt. And then she came to Canada.

1:18:45

He met her here, they got married.

1:18:48

And then my dad was teaching.

1:18:50

He was a professor at a university in Bahrain.

1:18:51

And then he came back and he was working

1:18:54

for Bell Northern here for a few years.

1:18:57

And then he decided that he wanted to do something like,

1:19:03

you know, he wanted to help the orphans.

1:19:06

The Afghan war was very like mainstream

1:19:07

and like popular and politically correct back then.

1:19:11

You know, the conflict there with the Soviets,

1:19:14

'cause America supported it, obviously.

1:19:17

So my dad decided to go there and then he went there.

1:19:19

He got very involved with the orphans

1:19:23

and he got involved with the Islamic cause

1:19:25

and with the Al-Qaeda cause.

1:19:27

And that's how we ended up staying there.

1:19:29

Interviewer

Where were you born?

1:19:31

-

I was born in Bahrain when my dad was teaching there.

1:19:32

My mom gave birth to me.

1:19:36

Interviewer

And how was your childhood

1:19:37

and what kind of conditions did you live in as a child?

1:19:41

-

Pakistan, I mean, what I remember about my childhood,

1:19:45

like I have very fond memories of my childhood.

1:19:49

I mean, other people think I must have miserable,

1:19:52

but I have very fond memories of my childhood

1:19:54

because we were very close family.

1:19:57

And we are until now.

1:19:59

I mean, we were very close knit, we love each other,

1:20:00

we miss each other.

1:20:03

We can't stay away from each other for a long time.

1:20:04

And I think most of it is because of what we went through

1:20:07

that we have each other to hold on to.

1:20:10

So yeah, I mean, our childhood was okay.

1:20:12

I mean, it wasn't a North American childhood,

1:20:15

it wasn't camps and this and that,

1:20:16

but whatever we had there it was okay

1:20:18

and it was good enough for us.

1:20:21

Interviewer

And it was in Pakistan?

1:20:22

-

Yes.

1:20:23

Interviewer

And how close are you to Omar?

1:20:25

How many years apart are you?

1:20:27

-

Me and Omar are three years apart.

1:20:29

Interviewer

And were you close with him?

1:20:31

-

Yeah, but I was closer with my brother Kareem.

1:20:32

He was the one that was paralyzed in the same attack

1:20:35

that killed my father.

1:20:38

Interviewer

Could you tell us about that?

1:20:39

-

When I was in, where was I, I was in Kabul, I think.

1:20:42

Yeah, I was in Kabul and they.

1:20:47

No, was I?

1:20:51

Yes, I was in Kabul and they told me about the incident

1:20:53

where my father and my brother were in a compound

1:20:56

and my brother was outside collecting water

1:21:00

from like a river.

1:21:03

And he saw the Pakistani soldiers and they grabbed him

1:21:05

and said, go inside and tell everybody to surrender

1:21:07

or we're gonna kill everybody.

1:21:10

So he went back inside.

1:21:11

And he told my dad.

1:21:13

My dad is like, take the other kids that are there.

1:21:14

There was two, four other kids.

1:21:18

And he's like, go through the back

1:21:19

and just keep running and don't look back.

1:21:21

So they did.

1:21:23

And they started running, they all got shot.

1:21:24

My brother and two other kids got shot.

1:21:26

And in the compound a firefight broke out

1:21:28

and it went on for three, four hours.

1:21:31

And the Apaches bombed the whole compound.

1:21:34

And my dad was killed, apparently, in this compound.

1:21:36

My brother was paralyzed.

1:21:39

He was left in the dirt after he was shot

1:21:41

for like four or five hours.

1:21:45

They wouldn't even give him water 'cause they thought

1:21:46

he might have something strapped to his chest.

1:21:47

And then they took him in a helicopter

1:21:50

and brought him to Islamabad and then back to Canada.

1:21:52

Interviewer

And how did you hear that story?

1:21:55

-

From my brother.

1:21:56

Interviewer

Which brother?

1:21:58

-

Kareem.

1:21:59

Interviewer

You didn't know that story

1:22:01

'til you came back to Canada?

1:22:02

-

I knew about my father being killed.

1:22:04

I knew about like my brother being in the compound,

1:22:06

but I didn't know about the details.

1:22:08

I heard the details when I came back from my brother.

1:22:10

Interviewer

And how'd you know

1:22:12

that your father was killed?

1:22:13

-

My father was by my handler in Kabul

1:22:15

that told me that my dad was killed.

1:22:18

Interviewer

And where was your mother

1:22:22

and your sister during all this turmoil?

1:22:23

-

Somewhere in Afghan and Pakistan border somewhere.

1:22:24

Interviewer

So why is this such a problem in Canada,

1:22:30

your family, I don't quite see that.

1:22:34

-

The issue with my family in Canada

1:22:37

is that my father was arrested in '95 to '96

1:22:39

in Pakistan for allegations that he was involved

1:22:44

in the Egyptian embassy bombing.

1:22:48

And then he was there

1:22:50

and we were trying everything to release him.

1:22:52

And there was a mission

1:22:54

by the prime minister back then to Pakistan.

1:22:57

So we spoke to the media

1:22:59

and the media put some influence,

1:23:01

like they put some pressure on the prime minister

1:23:03

and we did too, and he spoke to

1:23:05

the prime minister in Pakistan and he was released.

1:23:07

-

Your father?

1:23:10

-

Yes.

And then all of this other stuff came out

1:23:12

about my father being involved with Al-Qaeda,

1:23:15

being close to Al-Qaeda, being close to Osama.

1:23:17

So they call it the Khadr effect here in Canada.

1:23:20

You know, the Canadian government helped someone come out

1:23:24

and then look what happened.

1:23:27

Interviewer

And what happened was?

1:23:29

-

What happened was that they turned out to be

1:23:31

a big Al-Qaeda family, for them anyway.

1:23:32

-

Did you meet Osama?

1:23:36

-

Yes, I met him, more than once.

1:23:37

Interviewer

Do you have any thoughts about him?

1:23:39

-

I mean, I don't know, I was very young when I met him.

1:23:43

I have a few experiences where I was like,

1:23:47

I was a troublemaker when I was young,

1:23:49

so my experiences with Osama were usually

1:23:51

me getting disciplined.

1:23:53

-

By him?

1:23:55

-

By his body guards.

Osama usually didn't deal with anybody.

1:23:57

He had so much people around him

1:23:59

to deal with everything for him.

1:24:00

One incident, I was playing with a can, a pop can,

1:24:02

and I filled it up with gunpowder.

1:24:06

And I put it on a rock and I'm thinking if I light it up

1:24:12

it's gonna go up into the air.

1:24:15

But because of the angle of how I put it up

1:24:16

and Osama was just leaving his, like the guestroom

1:24:19

where he stays and meets everybody.

1:24:22

And this thing just came up.

1:24:24

And when it came up, everybody got into the position,

1:24:25

they thought it was an American attack

1:24:28

or something like that.

1:24:29

And then everybody looks at me and I'm standing there.

1:24:30

So I got in a couple of troubles because of that.

1:24:33

Besides that, you know, I mean,

1:24:35

I was too young, but for me he was just a,

1:24:37

he was the Big Kahuna back then.

1:24:41

I mean, I guess that's my impression of him.

1:24:44

Interviewer

Where were you living?

1:24:47

Was it a compound that you were living?

1:24:48

-

Yes, we were living in a compound

1:24:50

that had all the people that lived with him

1:24:52

and we were in that same compound.

1:24:54

We had a house there.

1:24:56

We had a house in the city too.

1:24:57

Interviewer

You don't have to answer these questions.

1:25:00

I'm just wondering, did he ever speak badly

1:25:01

about the U.S. in your presence?

1:25:04

I mean, did you know that he really hated the U.S. or-

1:25:06

-

No, to be honest, I've never sat down once

1:25:08

and he said, you know, like, oh the U.S. is bad.

1:25:11

And we're gonna do this and that to it.

1:25:14

Like, I would see stuff in the news about it

1:25:16

and about how he's bad.

1:25:18

My first experience with Osama was I was coming back.

1:25:20

After my dad was released from Pakistan,

1:25:23

he went to Canada, he stayed here for a while,

1:25:26

and then we decided to go back to Pakistan.

1:25:28

On the flight back, I was reading Time magazine

1:25:30

and in it was the world's most wanted person

1:25:33

is Osama Bin Laden.

1:25:36

I'd never met him before or heard of him or anything.

1:25:37

This is my first experience with him.

1:25:39

And we landed in Pakistan.

1:25:41

My dad was telling us about us going to this special place

1:25:43

but he wouldn't tell us where, you know.

1:25:46

We landed in Pakistan and then after approximately a month

1:25:48

we were driving one day to this special place.

1:25:52

And then we walk into this compound.

1:25:55

We walk into a huge guest room,

1:25:57

and there he is, there's the person,

1:26:00

there's the most wanted person in the world.

1:26:01

And he just said, hi to my dad.

1:26:03

And we sat down and we ate.

1:26:06

And that's it..

1:26:07

Interviewer

What were you thinking?

1:26:08

-

Well, I was thinking, you know,

1:26:10

look at this guy, he's the most wanted person

1:26:11

he's just sitting here eating with us.

1:26:13

He doesn't seem like that wanted to me.

1:26:14

He just seems like a regular guy.

1:26:16

Interviewer

And did you hear other people

1:26:19

speak about America?

1:26:21

-

I mean, the general, like I mean general consensus there

1:26:24

was that America's bad.

1:26:26

Everybody hated America in Pakistan and Afghanistan,

1:26:28

the Talibans and the Arabs.

1:26:32

I mean, you know, the whole, I mean,

1:26:34

most of the Middle East the places I visited

1:26:38

and the people I visited, I mean,

1:26:39

a lotta people don't like America,

1:26:41

for a lot of their policies, their foreign policies.

1:26:43

But I mean, yeah, I mean, people didn't like America,

1:26:47

didn't like that they were in Saudi.

1:26:49

They didn't liked that they were

1:26:51

in any of the Arabic countries.

1:26:52

All the air bases all over the world

1:26:54

telling the world what to do, policing, you know.

1:26:56

Interviewer

And how about Canadians?

1:27:00

Was there any hostility toward Canadians?

1:27:02

-

No.

1:27:04

No, Canadians are conceived as nice, you know, nice people.

1:27:05

They're not involved in anything.

1:27:10

And they weren't, I mean to the Al-Qaeda, they weren't

1:27:11

until they got involved in Afghanistan war.

1:27:14

Interviewer

And do you feel your father

1:27:17

tried to inculcate you in this kind of thinking, or?

1:27:20

-

A couple of times, I mean, I was sent to training camps.

1:27:27

I was sent to like four, five training camps.

1:27:31

I had one guy speak to me about like the whole idea

1:27:34

of becoming a suicide bomber and stuff.

1:27:37

And it just wasn't for me.

1:27:39

I don't think, to be honest, personally,

1:27:42

I don't think my dad believed in it too.

1:27:43

In this whole, you know, he believed in like

1:27:46

man-to-man and stuff like that.

1:27:49

I don't think my dad believed in suicide bombing.

1:27:50

Interviewer

What kind of training camps

1:27:54

did he send you to?

1:27:55

What were they training you for?

1:27:56

-

They're training you for like regular urban war,

1:27:58

like, you know, AKs, tanks, explosives, stuff like that.

1:28:00

Interviewer

Did you feel comfortable in that,

1:28:05

or did it seem like, oh, you're too young or?

1:28:06

-

I was 12 or 13 years old, so I was kind of young.

1:28:09

But again, for me, like I had lived there.

1:28:13

We moved to Pakistan when I was two years old.

1:28:16

So I was more like of that culture than of this.

1:28:19

So it wasn't really a shock to me,

1:28:22

everything that was going on there.

1:28:24

I'd seen people walking around with guns

1:28:25

and everything like that was normal to us.

1:28:27

It wasn't a surprise.

1:28:29

Interviewer

And the other children in the family

1:28:31

were sent to the same camps?

1:28:32

-

Yes.

1:28:33

Interviewer

And do they ever react differently?

1:28:34

Did any of the kids react differently

1:28:37

to what they experienced?

1:28:38

-

No, I mean, it was a normal thing there

1:28:39

for the kids to go to camps,

1:28:42

like training camps or schools.

1:28:44

Like we went to school in the regular school year,

1:28:46

and then some families stayed in Pakistan

1:28:49

and stuck with like work and school.

1:28:51

And some families moved to Afghanistan,

1:28:53

got involved more with the conflict

1:28:55

and sent their kids to training camps.

1:28:58

Interviewer

And how did Omar seem to you when,

1:29:00

he was younger than you,

1:29:03

but how did he seem to you as a kid?

1:29:04

-

Omar's the nicest kid in the world.

1:29:06

Omar couldn't hurt a fly if he wanted to.

1:29:08

I mean, I still, I don't believe

1:29:10

the allegations against him.

1:29:14

And I think the evidence is clear.

1:29:16

A lotta people are convinced

1:29:17

that because he agreed to plead guilty that he is guilty.

1:29:19

I mean, for the people that are conscious and aware

1:29:25

and open books and open internet,

1:29:28

they would be aware that he only did that

1:29:30

to get outta there because he had no other options

1:29:31

of getting out of Guantanamo, but to plead guilty.

1:29:34

I mean, he didn't for 10 years.

1:29:36

If he was going to he would have done it

1:29:38

from the first year.

1:29:39

He didn't, he resisted for 10 years until they told him

1:29:40

your only way outta here is to plead guilty.

1:29:43

So I know Omar didn't do it.

1:29:45

He didn't have anything to do with it.

1:29:47

They shot him.

1:29:50

There was a wall that landed on him.

1:29:52

He's been in jail for more than half his life.

1:29:53

And they still accuse him and talk about him as a murderer.

1:29:57

I don't know.

1:30:01

Interviewer

So as a young kid, 'cause you knew him

1:30:02

as a very young kid, he was always.

1:30:04

-

Nice guy, extremely nice.

1:30:07

Mommy's boy.

1:30:09

I mean, everybody knows that about Omar, he's mommy's boy.

1:30:09

So I mean, if we were hurting an animal outside,

1:30:12

he would go complain to my mom.

1:30:15

He was never sent to training camps.

1:30:17

He was never sent to like,

1:30:19

any place where he could have been radicalized

1:30:20

or anything like that.

1:30:24

My dad sent him to translate for these guys

1:30:24

and these guys started showing him things.

1:30:26

And I'm pretty sure my dad isn't aware of it or my mom

1:30:29

because they wouldn't have been okay with it.

1:30:31

And there was a video of him making a bomb

1:30:34

and all of this and that, and then.

1:30:37

Interviewer

So you think your dad sent him there

1:30:39

just to help them out as a translator?

1:30:42

-

Yes, I don't think, I know for a fact,

1:30:45

I mean, Omar was too young.

1:30:48

My dad lived in Afghanistan and everything,

1:30:49

but my dad is an open-minded person

1:30:52

he's been around the world.

1:30:54

He knows a 15-year-old can't be involved in a conflict.

1:30:55

I mean, he knows that, you know.

1:30:58

But he sent us to training camp.

1:31:00

He'd send me to the training camp

1:31:02

when I was even younger than that.

1:31:04

But the only thing is Omar was Omar.

1:31:06

Omar wasn't built like me.

1:31:08

I was a little bit tougher.

1:31:09

Omar was always around my mom.

1:31:11

So the only reason he was there was to translate

1:31:12

Interviewer

Was Abdul and Kareem more like you too

1:31:17

in that sense?

1:31:20

-

Abdullah as tougher too.

1:31:21

But again, Kareem, was too young.

1:31:22

Kareem the whole time he was too young.

1:31:26

And Abdullah was tougher,

1:31:28

but I mean Abdullah got caught in Pakistan.

1:31:29

The whole time he was out he never got caught

1:31:33

until I think it was like 2004 or something

1:31:38

by the Pakistanis.

1:31:41

And then they threw a bunch of accusations against him,

1:31:42

the Americans and the Canadians.

1:31:44

He's still wanted in the States for selling

1:31:45

AK-47s and weapons to Al-Qaeda.

1:31:50

They're not saying that he had anything to do

1:31:54

with any killing or by any of the stuff,

1:31:56

but he just sold them weapons.

1:31:59

Interviewer

So he never went to Guantanamo?

1:32:02

-

No.

1:32:04

Interviewer

Do you see him, while you're-

1:32:06

-

My brother Abdullah?

1:32:08

Yeah, I see him all the time.

1:32:09

Interviewer

And Kareem?

1:32:10

-

Kareem, I see him all the time.

1:32:11

He's with my mom in Egypt right now.

1:32:13

Interviewer

He was able to travel even though he's-

1:32:14

-

Yes.

1:32:16

-

Is he paralyzed from

the waist down.

1:32:18

-

Yes, he's paraplegic.

1:32:18

-

But he was able to travel?

1:32:20

-

Yes.

Interviewer

So you still feel close

1:32:27

to all the members of your family?

1:32:28

-

Oh everybody, everybody in my family.

1:32:29

Interviewer

And how does Omar do you think,

1:32:33

how is Omar doing, even though you couldn't see him,

1:32:35

have you heard from your mother?

1:32:38

-

I don't know, I mean, I speak to him on the phone

1:32:40

all the time.

1:32:43

-

You can speak to him.?

-

Yeah, I speak to him on the phone.

1:32:43

I don't know what to say about Omar.

1:32:46

Omar is just, is a sad story.

1:32:48

It's a devastating, sad story

1:32:51

and a horrific example of abuse of power.

1:32:54

Omar was 15 years old.

1:33:00

When he was captured he should have been treated

1:33:02

and he should have been released,

1:33:05

or put through some program

1:33:06

to show him what's right and wrong.

1:33:08

Instead, he was kept for 12 years now.

1:33:10

Abused, not treated for his eye injury,

1:33:15

not treated for his back injury.

1:33:18

And in the end forced to take a guilty plea.

1:33:21

And go through the, like then the ringer.

1:33:24

I mean, Omar lost his whole life.

1:33:26

He was 15, he's 26 and a half now.

1:33:28

I always tell people to give them perspective, you know,

1:33:32

Omar has never seen an iPhone.

1:33:37

He's never seen an iPad.

1:33:40

He's never seen a PlayStation 3.

1:33:42

He's never seen a flat screen.

1:33:44

Interviewer

So when you talk to him,

1:33:49

what do you talk about?

1:33:50

-

How are you? How is everything?

1:33:54

He's okay, he tells me, I'm okay.

1:33:56

He doesn't wanna talk about jail.

1:33:59

'Cause he's like, "I live it everyday.

1:34:00

Just tell me about what's going on outside."

1:34:01

And he misses it, when we go camping, he wants, you know

1:34:03

I just feel like, you know, it breaks my heart.

1:34:06

He hasn't done any of these things.

1:34:09

Interviewer

Do people listen in?

1:34:12

Does he Canadian authorities listen in to your phone calls?

1:34:13

-

I don't think so, now.

1:34:15

It's different here, now he's in Canada.

1:34:16

That's why America doesn't wanna bring any of the prisoners

1:34:19

to the States because it would be difficult

1:34:21

to like do the crooked things that they do in Guantanamo

1:34:22

out in here in North America and Canada or the States.

1:34:26

So I don't think they do.

1:34:30

But they're not making it any easier for him to get out.

1:34:31

I mean, they could have released him like David Hicks

1:34:33

as soon as he came back.

1:34:35

You know, we have a conservative government

1:34:37

that's very in hand with the American government, I believe.

1:34:39

I mean, they want him to spend the whole four or five years

1:34:43

that he has to do instead of just paroling him.

1:34:46

Interviewer

Does Omar know that?

1:34:51

-

Omar is just hoping for the best.

1:34:53

I think it's hard to be in Omar's shoes

1:34:59

and I think we all feel like if we ever did time,

1:35:03

we would never be institutionalized, but I think he is.

1:35:05

I think he's at a point where he's been inside for so long

1:35:10

that he, like, he doesn't know anything else.

1:35:14

Interviewer

How do you think he'll be

1:35:17

when he's finally released?

1:35:18

-

I think he would pay the whole world's money or fortune

1:35:21

to just hug my mother.

1:35:25

To just see her one time and hug her.

1:35:28

Everything that me and my siblings like take for advantage,

1:35:32

he would do anything in the world to have.

1:35:37

He's like, if I came out, I would plow the snow

1:35:39

at my grandma's house for the next 10 years.

1:35:43

I would mow the lawn for the next 10 years.

1:35:47

I would spend the next year living with her,

1:35:49

not going anywhere, just living with her for the next year.

1:35:51

He wants these things that he hasn't experienced.

1:35:55

Interviewer

When his mother came to visit him.

1:35:58

She couldn't hug him.

1:35:59

-

No, there was a separation.

1:36:00

Interviewer

So does she have to talk by the phone?

1:36:03

-

Yeah.

1:36:05

-

With a glass panel?

1:36:06

-

Yeah.

-

And that's true for-

1:36:08

-

That's true for all of us.

-

All the visitors.

1:36:11

-

Yeah, all the visitors

that visit him.

1:36:13

Interviewer

How's his life in the prison?

1:36:15

Do you know anything about that?

1:36:16

-

It's not the best.

1:36:18

It's not the worst.

1:36:19

I mean, he was in Ontario in the beginning

1:36:20

and that wasn't, I mean, it was okay.

1:36:22

But you know, he wasn't getting the phone to call us.

1:36:24

He didn't know how the system works here.

1:36:28

Guantanamo's bad, but it's different here.

1:36:30

I mean, here there's, there everybody around you,

1:36:32

like nobody's your enemy there.

1:36:35

Like, nobody's trying to stab you.

1:36:37

There's none of that over there.

1:36:38

Here, now you have the stabbings.

1:36:40

Well people wanna stab you because you're Omar Khadr.

1:36:44

And there's the gangs, there's bikers.

1:36:47

We have all kinda people inside

1:36:50

and he's getting threatened by everybody.

1:36:52

-

Really?

1:36:54

-

Yeah, he's threatened

by everybody.

1:36:55

He just got punched like two weeks ago by a prisoner.

1:36:56

And he's like, when I asked him why he's like,

1:37:02

"I don't know, I just wanted to.

1:37:03

You're Omar Khadr, I just wanted to punch you."

1:37:05

Interviewer

So everyone knows who he is?

1:37:09

-

Yeah.

1:37:11

Interviewer

And they don't like him because-

1:37:12

-

They don't like him because he's Omar Khadr.

1:37:14

Interviewer

Does he have any friends, do you know?

1:37:19

-

He doesn't have any friends inside.

1:37:21

He was with a couple of friends when he was in Ontario

1:37:24

and the prisoners moved him from that range

1:37:26

and put them in another range.

1:37:28

He was with a couple of other Muslim guys.

1:37:29

They would pray together and stuff.

1:37:31

They moved them from each other.

1:37:32

-

Why?

1:37:36

-

Just to keep them

away from each other.

1:37:37

So he doesn't radicalize them.

1:37:39

-

Really?

1:37:41

-

Yeah.

And my brother is the nicest person in the world.

1:37:43

I mean, he's watching National Geographic.

1:37:46

He likes Shark Week.

1:37:48

That's what he'd probably be talking to them about.

1:37:49

Interviewer

What's Shark Week?

1:37:52

-

Shark Week, like on Discovery.

1:37:53

Something like that, you know.

1:37:56

I mean, that's what he'd be talking to them about.

1:37:57

Interviewer

And in Edmonton

1:38:00

are there any Muslims there that he can pray with?

1:38:02

-

I don't know.

1:38:04

I mean, not in his range.

1:38:05

He doesn't have any other Muslims in his range.

1:38:06

Interviewer

What's your thoughts in terms of his future,

1:38:14

when he finally does come out?

1:38:17

How do you think?

1:38:19

-

I don't know, I mean, that question is as good to me

1:38:20

as it is to anybody else, to you I mean.

1:38:22

What does a person do after coming out?

1:38:25

You know, after being in jail for 12 years.

1:38:28

I mean, Omar wants to start easy.

1:38:31

My brother was in for six years, my older brother Abdullah.

1:38:34

And he was, I mean, he was gone for three months,

1:38:37

four months when he came out.

1:38:39

And I wouldn't understand it, I'm like,

1:38:42

what's wrong with you?

1:38:44

This is regular stuff.

1:38:44

Just go out and get something from the grocery store.

1:38:45

And he didn't want to.

1:38:48

He didn't wanna leave his room.

1:38:49

He didn't wanna do anything.

1:38:50

So imagine Omar.

1:38:51

I know when he comes out he wants to spend

1:38:52

a lot of time with my grandmother.

1:38:55

Like a lotta time, you know, maybe he said

1:38:57

six months to a year.

1:38:59

He registered for some schools.

1:39:01

He wants to go back to school

1:39:02

and maybe try to get his life back together.

1:39:04

Interviewer

Did his grandmother come to visit him?

1:39:08

Can she do that?

1:39:10

-

She couldn't visit him.

1:39:11

He's in Edmonton.

1:39:13

When he was in Ontario, she couldn't visit him

1:39:14

because my grandmother is really old.

1:39:15

She's 85 years old.

1:39:17

So she can't make the travel and everything.

1:39:18

But hopefully when he comes out,

1:39:21

he'll be staying with her for awhile.

1:39:22

Interviewer

And is he being educated now?

1:39:25

-

There's people from University of Edmonton

1:39:29

sending him books and trying to get him his equivalency

1:39:32

and trying to get him into some school programs.

1:39:35

He said, he's doing a couple of school programs.

1:39:37

Interviewer

And is Dennis Edney his lawyer

1:39:40

and does that help him?

1:39:43

-

He's able to help him as much as he can.

1:39:44

I mean, it's better now that he's there

1:39:46

because he's closer to Dennis Edney and everything.

1:39:47

And hopefully we also moved him there

1:39:52

because we wanna get him out of Ontario

1:39:54

because Ontario has a grudge.

1:39:56

Like they have a grudge for Omar, you know.

1:39:58

We're not gonna get any parole here.

1:40:00

We're not gonna get anything.

1:40:02

There in Edmonton they don't know Omar that well.

1:40:03

They're more liberal in Edmonton.

1:40:05

Here they're more conservative.

1:40:08

So they sent him there.

1:40:09

Hopefully he gets better treatment

1:40:11

and the parole board there is gonna see him,

1:40:12

in I think six or seven days, they're gonna see him.

1:40:17

It'll be his first parole hearing.

1:40:20

So hopefully, you know, hopefully he gets out.

1:40:23

I mean, we have high hopes for him to come out

1:40:25

on that hearing.

1:40:27

Interviewer

Really? Come out on a day parole, or?

1:40:30

-

I don't know, whatever works for them.

1:40:32

As long as they release him somehow.

1:40:34

Interviewer

And can people come as witnesses

1:40:39

to the parole hearing on his behalf?

1:40:43

-

You know what, I was discussing that with a friend of mine

1:40:45

would the wife of Christopher Speer come to the hearing.

1:40:48

But you know, Michelle was telling,

1:40:54

it was Michelle, she was telling me that you know what,

1:40:56

I doubt people are gonna come from the States,

1:40:58

all the way here.

1:41:00

She's like, I doubt that people are gonna come

1:41:01

from the States all the way here.

1:41:03

People want it to be over with, you know?

1:41:05

And hopefully that's what it is.

1:41:07

Because if people show up, then it's no good for him.

1:41:09

Interviewer

So there's fear that Christopher Speer's,

1:41:12

the wife of the man who was killed, might come

1:41:14

and try to?

1:41:17

-

Be a witness in the hearing.

1:41:18

Interviewer

Have you ever heard from her

1:41:21

or spoken to her.

1:41:22

-

No, no, no.

Our family hasn't heard from them at all.

1:41:24

Interviewer

And you feel that Ottawa

1:41:28

is much more difficult than Edmonton would be

1:41:29

in terms of being sympathetic to him.

1:41:31

-

Ontario, I mean, I think Ontario, Omar's very popular

1:41:34

with the Ontario media.

1:41:40

I mean, everybody in Ontario, Michelle Shepherd,

1:41:41

the CBC, The Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun,

1:41:43

everybody writes about him every time he does something.

1:41:46

Now, since he's been an Edmonton, you know,

1:41:48

you don't hear about him that much in the news.

1:41:50

And that's what we want.

1:41:52

We want people that don't know anything about him

1:41:53

to be the judges in his hearing,

1:41:57

not people that already have

1:41:58

a preconceived notion about him.

1:41:59

Interviewer

Lou, do you have some questions?

1:42:03

Lou

Well, I'd just like to know about your feelings.

1:42:06

What is your sense of the United States,

1:42:14

of President Obama about,

1:42:17

and what would you do with Guantanamo if you were in charge?

1:42:20

What would you do with this institution that is now there?

1:42:26

How would you handle it?

1:42:31

-

What I would like, what I would do is honestly, like,

1:42:33

here's the thing

1:42:37

So what are you gonna do?

1:42:38

You keep people for seven years they get out,

1:42:40

they're radicalized, they try to attack America anyway.

1:42:42

So, what are you gonna do?

1:42:45

Are you gonna keep everybody there forever?

1:42:46

You can't do that.

1:42:49

And you can never stop every attack

1:42:49

that's gonna be against America.

1:42:51

You can never stop all of them.

1:42:53

You'll never even like, what are you gonna do?

1:42:54

You're gonna take every, like, terrorist out there.

1:42:56

Can you collect them all

1:42:58

and put them in Guantanamo and keep them there for eternity?

1:42:59

And their kids too, because their kids

1:43:02

are gonna probably be like, mindwashed too.

1:43:04

You can't do it.

1:43:06

You can't do it.

1:43:07

You know what we start with, we start with

1:43:08

the first right step, which is I would close it down.

1:43:10

And I wouldn't talk about closing it down and keep it open.

1:43:13

No, I would close it down.

1:43:15

I would send people back to their countries.

1:43:17

And I would use my intelligence and my drones, you know.

1:43:19

I mean, that's another illegal step in my eyes,

1:43:22

but I mean, we can't do everything illegally.

1:43:25

We try to do what we can to protect ourself,

1:43:29

but that's about it.

1:43:31

I don't think keeping people there is productive.

1:43:33

I think the people there, even if you keep them thinking,

1:43:37

okay, most of these people when they get out,

1:43:39

they're gonna be attacking America.

1:43:40

But what about their relatives?

1:43:43

This is one person that's sitting there.

1:43:44

Now you have 20 cousins and four brothers and 20 uncles.

1:43:46

Do you think when you're walking down the street

1:43:52

they're gonna give you a break.

1:43:54

I haven't seen my cousin in eight years.

1:43:56

No, I hate you, of course I hate you.

1:43:58

And if somebody in the mosque tells me

1:43:59

to come join a group, I'm gonna come join it.

1:44:01

So what he's doing is totally counterproductive.

1:44:03

It's totally counterproductive.

1:44:07

Anybody would get off their pedestal

1:44:09

and actually get off that, you know, like

1:44:12

you know, that mentality that, you know like,

1:44:15

the way we're doing it here is the right way.

1:44:18

Everybody around the world doesn't know anything,

1:44:21

'cause we have it figured out.

1:44:23

No, get off your seat, get off your pedestal,

1:44:25

go visit these countries, go learn their culture.

1:44:28

And that's what I've been saying to my handlers

1:44:31

from day one.

1:44:32

Thinking that you guys can come around the whole world

1:44:34

and tell everybody how it happens, it's not.

1:44:36

You need to come and learn from these people.

1:44:39

Learn what is making them.

1:44:41

What makes them tick?

1:44:43

What does is making these people go from a person

1:44:44

that's trying to feed his kids,

1:44:48

to a person that straps something around his chest

1:44:50

and just think about it, actually pushes a button

1:44:53

that will kill him.

1:44:56

What makes a person do that?

1:44:58

I mean, I'm not justifying it, but I'm saying

1:45:01

there's gotta be some crazy convictions behind it.

1:45:02

And that's the thing, I mean, what Obama is doing there

1:45:05

is totally counterproductive.

1:45:09

I mean, he's not doing anything to help

1:45:11

the public's perception of America.

1:45:14

So I would close it.

1:45:17

I would personally close it.

1:45:18

I'd send everybody back to their country

1:45:19

and I would deal with anybody else

1:45:21

that tries to come and attack me.

1:45:22

That's it.

1:45:24

Lou

Have you gotten a more negative view?

1:45:27

I know you grew up mostly in Pakistan

1:45:29

and you've had a really incredible range of experiences

1:45:32

with the U.S., what is your perspective now?

1:45:37

You're living in Canada.

1:45:43

You've got this long history with, you know, in your life.

1:45:44

What does America seem like to you?

1:45:50

-

I mean, I guess I view America now,

1:45:55

before I used to view America as a member of a society

1:45:59

that lived in Afghanistan and as everybody else viewed them.

1:46:04

And then I worked for the CIA and for a fairly brief period

1:46:09

I had this notion that here's the fight for freedom

1:46:13

and rights and all things good.

1:46:16

And then the process of peeling started happening

1:46:19

and I started seeing the true colors

1:46:24

of the people I was working for.

1:46:26

I realize that there is a lot of good people in America.

1:46:28

A lot of the regular people are very nice people,

1:46:30

hardworking people that wanna go to work,

1:46:33

feed their family, live a good life and that's it.

1:46:36

But I feel like a lot of the American like policies

1:46:39

are just, I don't know, I mean, I feel like

1:46:44

they're very ignorant.

1:46:46

Now I have this view of the United States as a Canadian.

1:46:48

We see a lot of the things you're doing, like,

1:46:53

you know what Obama's doing

1:46:55

with the Egyptian situation right now.

1:46:56

In Guantanamo and the force feeding of the prisoners there.

1:47:01

And the drone attacks.

1:47:04

I mean these things, even if I'm not a person

1:47:06

with some fanatic views that I'm gonna go, you know

1:47:09

I would think, oh, they're doing this.

1:47:12

I'm gonna go do something about it.

1:47:14

I'm a person with all these ideas,

1:47:15

and now I'm gonna give all these ideas that,

1:47:17

look at this country, that's doing all this illegal stuff

1:47:19

to all my friends and all my kids.

1:47:22

So I mean, how we act, how we carry ourself,

1:47:25

people are gonna react to that.

1:47:29

I feel like America's one of the biggest examples

1:47:31

in general, to other people around the world.

1:47:34

So if they are a good example to people,

1:47:36

they're a good example.

1:47:40

If they're bad, then they're bad example.

1:47:40

And right now, a lot of their decisions, their policies,

1:47:42

their foreign policies are bad examples.

1:47:47

Interviewer

Did you think Obama

1:47:51

was gonna make a difference when he was elected?

1:47:52

-

I totally thought Obama was gonna make a difference.

1:47:55

Just like I thought, my prime minister,

1:47:57

Stephen Harper was gonna make a difference.

1:47:59

And that's why I voted for him.

1:48:01

Because who was before him was Liberal

1:48:03

and I thought, okay, they didn't do anything.

1:48:05

I might as well go vote for the Conservative.

1:48:08

He'll do something, whatever he does.

1:48:11

And look at how he turned out.

1:48:13

And Obama is the same, I mean, had such high hope for him

1:48:14

when he came in.

1:48:17

One year, my brother's gonna be out.

1:48:18

Guantanamo was gonna be closed.

1:48:20

All this big talk

1:48:22

And then what did Obama do?

1:48:24

I mean, he came in, my brother was in there

1:48:26

for another like four or five years before he got out.

1:48:28

He had nothing to do with him getting out.

1:48:31

The foreign policies of the United States,

1:48:36

yes, they stopped like sending more armies

1:48:39

and stuff, but they're not taking people back either.

1:48:43

And now all these drone attacks everywhere around the world.

1:48:46

And now all the spying on people

1:48:49

and trying to control people's life, I mean,

1:48:52

it's not getting better;.

1:48:55

And I feel bad for Obama because it's not like

1:48:56

he's like at any point thinking, okay, it needs to stop.

1:48:59

Throwing the dirt out, maybe keep some of this dirt in here

1:49:02

so I can climb outta this hole.

1:49:04

I feel like they're just digging themselves

1:49:06

deeper and deeper.

1:49:08

-

Lou?

1:49:10

-

That's good.

Interviewer

So do you think Guantanamo

1:49:13

will ever close down?

1:49:15

-

I don't think it will ever close down.

1:49:17

Interviewer

How come?

1:49:19

-

I don't know because I mean,

1:49:20

what are they gonna do with these people?

1:49:22

They're not gonna take them to the States

1:49:24

and they're not gonna send them back to their countries.

1:49:25

Because especially now with the Arab Springs,

1:49:28

what if you know, all of these countries

1:49:31

have Arab Springs now and then as soon as they do,

1:49:32

they release everybody.

1:49:34

So what are we gonna do?

1:49:36

No, we'll keep them here.

1:49:37

We'll keep them here until they die.

1:49:39

And so I think that's their policy.

1:49:41

I mean, we all have a conflict with somebody in our life,

1:49:43

as people, as normal human beings

1:49:48

and in the beginning, there's anger

1:49:51

and after a while, there's like, you know,

1:49:52

you don't care anymore.

1:49:57

And then, you know, maybe in a year,

1:49:58

no matter how bad the fight was, in a year from then

1:50:00

if you see them, you might say hi to them.

1:50:03

But I don't think like, to keep, like it's

1:50:05

like Guantanamo's like the bad taste in everybody's mouth,

1:50:09

but by them not just closing it.

1:50:13

I mean, if I was Obama personally,

1:50:15

maybe like a month before the end of my presidency,

1:50:18

because I'm never gonna get elected again anyway, right,

1:50:21

what's the chances of somebody getting a third term

1:50:23

after somebody else is elected, I'd close it.

1:50:27

I'd be like, you know what? This is my last action.

1:50:30

This is my legacy.

1:50:31

I'll close down this place.

1:50:33

I promised to close it down my first day.

1:50:34

I'll close it.

1:50:36

But I doubt that he will.

1:50:37

Everybody in America is, you know,

1:50:38

everybody in American politics anyway

1:50:40

is worried about like, oh, if I'm not president

1:50:43

I'm gonna be Congressman, if I'm not a Congressman

1:50:46

then I'm gonna be running Enron, or if I'm not at Enron,

1:50:48

I'm gonna be running this oil company or that one.

1:50:51

And my image has to always be perfect.

1:50:53

If I do something like that it ruins my chances

1:50:56

of making millions and millions of dollars.

1:50:58

Interviewer

How about some of the detainees

1:51:02

coming to Canada?

1:51:03

-

Not with our current government,

1:51:06

maybe a different government, yes,

1:51:07

but not our current government.

1:51:09

And some of the detainees have gone to Europe.

1:51:10

They've gone to some of these countries and they're fine.

1:51:13

I've always said, when I meet my friends in the media now,

1:51:15

I always tell them, where's the Khadr family

1:51:19

that you guys said was gonna come back to Canada

1:51:21

and is gonna do something.

1:51:23

Look at us, we're all normal people.

1:51:25

We all got married.

1:51:27

We all went on with our life.

1:51:28

And Omar is the same.

1:51:30

Everybody's like when he comes out, what if he does this?

1:51:31

He's gonna be living in our neighborhood.

1:51:34

There is people from our neighborhood,

1:51:35

like from certain neighborhoods that are coming out

1:51:37

and doing these protests

1:51:39

because they don't want him to come out.

1:51:40

They don't want him back in the community.

1:51:42

And I'm telling them, this kid he's gonna come out,

1:51:45

he's gonna go back with his life.

1:51:47

What do you think?

1:51:48

Everybody wants to go back to their life.

1:51:50

That's all they want.

1:51:52

Interviewer

And with his health issues

1:51:55

that's even more of a problem for him anyway.

1:51:58

-

Well, hopefully now he's back in Canada,

1:52:00

hopefully he can get better health

1:52:02

than when he was there in Guantanamo.

1:52:05

Yeah, better health care.

1:52:07

Interviewer

Is he getting care while he's in Edmonton?

1:52:10

-

He is, but I mean, one of the things

1:52:12

that my brother is uncomfortable with is getting naked

1:52:15

and being searched naked.

1:52:18

I was uncomfortable with it when I was in Guantanamo.

1:52:23

They take off everything,

1:52:26

they put their finger in inside you to check,

1:52:27

and nobody wants to go through that experience.

1:52:31

So there was a couple of appointments

1:52:33

that he had to the doctor

1:52:34

and he didn't wanna go because he's like I'm tired of this.

1:52:35

Interviewer

We're almost done,

1:52:40

I just was thinking though,

1:52:41

did you know about the Canadian officials

1:52:42

that came to visit him when he was in Guantanamo?

1:52:46

You know, did you ever see those videos?

1:52:49

-

I saw the videos. I didn't know about it when I was there,

1:52:52

but I did see the movie and the videos of it

1:52:54

when I came back out.

1:52:56

Interviewer

And did you have any thoughts about that?

1:52:57

-

Heartbreaking, I mean, it's devastating.

1:52:59

He's a child look at how he's screaming for his mother.

1:53:02

I can't watch it until now.

1:53:05

Every time I watch it, it makes me cry.

1:53:07

And I mean, you gotta always think, I mean, you know,

1:53:10

Al-Qaeda did what they did and America did what they did.

1:53:14

And we all have, there's a consequence for all our actions.

1:53:18

There's a reaction.

1:53:23

Interviewer

Johnny, did you have something?

1:53:25

Johnny

I was curious,

1:53:29

when you were approached by the CIA,

1:53:30

actually working for the CIA, you talked about

1:53:34

the work that they had you do,

1:53:37

but I'm curious also what they asked you,

1:53:39

what they wanted to know from you?

1:53:43

I mean, particularly when you talked

1:53:44

about your personal relationship with Osama.

1:53:45

How did they inquire about that?

1:53:47

-

They asked me about the wedding,

1:53:49

'cause he was at my sister's wedding.

1:53:51

And they asked me about the few incidents

1:53:52

where I had seen him.

1:53:56

And I told them, I've seen him here, I've seen him there.

1:53:57

I saw him around the compound.

1:54:01

I was too young to really have any conversation with him.

1:54:02

Anything that I knew that it could help them with,

1:54:05

I helped them with.

1:54:07

And they just asked me.

1:54:08

The big idea was in what was moving these people

1:54:12

to do what they did?

1:54:16

And I feel like even with the handlers

1:54:18

when they were there they were asking me questions

1:54:22

they didn't wanna hear the answers to.

1:54:24

Or they had an answer in their head.

1:54:27

All of them are doing this 'cause they're crazy,

1:54:30

they're all crazy and they just, you know.

1:54:33

No, these people have reasons behind their actions.

1:54:35

Nobody wants to understand those reasons.

1:54:39

Johnny

Do you believe that?

1:54:42

-

I don't believe any innocent person

1:54:44

should be killed to be honest.

1:54:45

But I believe that there's a lot of of oppression

1:54:47

being done by the foreign policies of the United States

1:54:50

and the Middle East that are causing a lot of people

1:54:54

to do a lot of crazy things.

1:54:57

And some of them are worse than some.

1:54:58

Interviewer

And do you think Americans

1:55:02

are aware of that?

1:55:03

-

I think the American politics are aware that of that.

1:55:06

And I think that as much as they can

1:55:09

they're making the American public unaware of that.

1:55:11

Interviewer

Yeah, do you watch American media?

1:55:19

-

That wouldn't work, no.

1:55:25

Would never work.

1:55:28

Interviewer

Is there anything I didn't ask you

1:55:30

that maybe you'd just like to share with us?

1:55:31

We're hoping that maybe 50 years from now,

1:55:32

people will watch these stories

1:55:35

when Americans are finally ready to acknowledge

1:55:38

what happened in Guantanamo.

1:55:42

These stories will be important for them

1:55:43

a generation or two from now.

1:55:45

Is there something else maybe I didn't ask you,

1:55:47

you'd like to just share with us.

1:55:49

-

I mean, you know, when I was working with,

1:55:51

when I was working with my handlers, you know,

1:55:55

I told them that, you know something I would like to do

1:55:58

is I would like to have a camera

1:56:01

on somebody or somebody's family member

1:56:04

that was killed in the towers.

1:56:07

A camera on them before, during, and after,

1:56:09

to see who these people are.

1:56:12

And then I would like to take that video

1:56:14

and show it to people in Al-Qaeda that committed this.

1:56:16

Show them that, you know, like these are people

1:56:20

like me and you.

1:56:22

These are innocent people.

1:56:24

And then in the same time, I would like to

1:56:25

show the Americans the normal day-to-day lives

1:56:28

of some of these people.

1:56:31

How they were raised, who they were

1:56:33

and what they've become in the end.

1:56:36

I mean, the biggest thing for us as humans is to try

1:56:39

and understand each other.

1:56:42

And that's the biggest problem we have is

1:56:43

that we refuse to understand,

1:56:45

we refuse to understand each other's views.

1:56:47

We just see what we're doing.

1:56:50

And we see that is correct.

1:56:52

And we want everybody to do the same.

1:56:53

And in the end, I mean, we get bigger

1:56:55

and bigger as human beings.

1:56:58

But I think our mentality sometime is just stuck

1:56:59

in a small place.

1:57:02

So I think people should open their eyes.

1:57:07

Interviewer

That's a really good ending.

1:57:10

We need to take 20 seconds of room tone before we shut down.

1:57:13

Begin room tone.

1:57:20

End room tone.

1:57:37

Khadr, Abdurahman - Interview master file

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