Reeck, Marc Van den - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Okay, good morning.

0:06

-

Good morning.

0:07

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in the "Witness to Guantanamo" project.

0:09

We invite you to speak of your experiences and involvement

0:14

with issues involving Guantanamo,

0:17

and we are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

0:20

to tell your story in your own words.

0:22

We are creating an archive of stories

0:25

so that people in America and around the world,

0:27

will have a better understanding of what you and others

0:30

have experienced and observed.

0:33

Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo,

0:36

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

0:39

and we are very grateful for your participation today.

0:43

If any time during the interview you wanna take a break,

0:46

just let us know and we can do that,

0:48

and if there's any thing you say

0:50

that you would like us to remove, we can remove it as well.

0:53

-

Okay.

0:56

-

And we'd like to begin,

if you would mind telling us your name and country of origin

0:58

and perhaps your,

1:02

if you're okay with telling us your birthday and age,

1:06

and a little bit about your background.

1:09

-

Okay, my name is Marc Van Van den Reeck, I'm Belgian,

1:13

I'm a diplomat in the Belgian diplomatic service since 1980.

1:17

I have been in Washington on posting

1:24

in a medium junior function,

1:26

but that's some time ago,

1:29

and I am now ambassador in Athens

1:31

since January, 2011.

1:33

Before that, I was a Deputy Director

1:36

of the Political Office of our Minister of Foreign Affairs

1:41

at that time.

1:44

Before that, I have been Diplomatic Advisor

1:46

to the Minister of Justice in Belgium,

1:48

which was the first occasion that I got into the file

1:52

of Guantanamo operationally.

1:56

Before that, I was ambassador in the United Arab Emirates

2:00

for Belgium, in between,

2:04

immediately after being ambassador there I took a sabbatical

2:07

of two years and worked

2:11

as a European Expert for the Central Bank of the UAE,

2:14

of the of the Emirates for two years,

2:18

on a sabbatical basis, before being ambassador

2:21

in the Emirates from 2002 to 2005.

2:25

Before that I was Consul General for Belgium

2:29

in Istanbul, Turkey.

2:31

Before that, I was also in Brussels,

2:35

dealing with political military affairs,

2:40

NATO West European Union, European defense issues and so on,

2:44

and before that, I had my medium junior and junior carrier

2:49

in a number of countries, in Africa, in the United States,

2:53

in Greece as well before.

2:57

Interviewer

And where were you on 9/11?

3:00

-

In Turkey, in Istanbul.

3:03

Interviewer

And did that change your work at all

3:04

by being there, or?

3:09

-

Well, the security aspect

3:10

became obviously far more important, that's obvious,

3:14

I think that you are getting that same answer

3:17

from just about everybody involved in this, I mean.

3:19

Of course it did have an impact in terms

3:23

of security consciousness, let's put it this way, obviously.

3:28

Interviewer

And when you came back to Belgium,

3:34

how did it happen that you became involved in Guantanamo?

3:36

-

Well, I was, I came back to Belgium

3:39

at a moment, a rather crucial moment in my life

3:44

that my wife passed away, that was in November, 2007.

3:46

I returned to Belgium that same period,

3:50

and I became, and that, there was a constitution

3:56

of new government in Belgium

4:00

which took place in December, 2007,

4:02

and immediately after new year,

4:07

when the government started becoming operational.

4:12

I was asked to become Diplomatic Advisor

4:15

to our Minister of Justice, and then I stayed there

4:18

for a year and a half until I switched for a Deputy Director

4:22

at the political office of Minister of Foreign Affairs,

4:26

and during that period that I was at justice,

4:29

in the cabinet of our minister, the requests came in,

4:33

and was treated on the political level.

4:39

-

What request was this?

4:43

-

The request on the,

you know, on the side of the United States,

4:44

whether Belgium was willing to take over detainees

4:48

from Guantanamo, who were

4:53

basically being released by the United States

4:56

on the basis of court orders and political decision.

5:01

Interviewer

Do you know who the person was

5:05

who made the request?

5:06

-

Well, I think that I'm not quite sure about that,

5:08

but I believe that it came from state,

5:11

that it came through state department.

5:13

Interviewer

And were you involved in the decision making

5:16

as to whether Belgium would accept any former detainees?

5:19

-

Well, in the sense that I was in the political cabinet

5:22

of our minister of justice, yes, but it's obvious

5:25

that the decision was taken high up administerial level.

5:29

Interviewer

And what did you, did you sense that people

5:35

were embracing that idea that people did,

5:39

Belgium did want to help the US

5:41

or why do you think Belgium did agree?

5:44

-

Well, we agreed to help out president Obama.

5:46

Let's say that at that time the understanding was that

5:54

we could live without, but we didn't want to say no

5:57

to the United States on this, because we have

6:00

a friendly relationship with the United States,

6:04

we appreciated the idea that president Obama

6:06

was trying to empty Guantanamo,

6:10

and so we wanted to play constructive role in that.

6:15

-

And did it come up in your conversations

6:18

that the US would not take any people in, yet Belgium would,

6:21

did that seem odd?

6:25

-

Well, obviously odd it is,

6:27

but at, and odd it was at that time,

6:31

but it was not part of the of the decision-making as such

6:33

in Belgium, we got, regardless of the domestic

6:36

political context in the United States,

6:39

in the US there was a president who was asking us

6:44

whether we wanted to collaborate, and so we did.

6:47

Obviously within the limits of what we,

6:52

of what our capacity was,

6:54

and without jeopardizing our own security,

6:56

we had a very close look at the issue.

7:00

I mean, once the political decision was taken,

7:03

that, yes, we would go ahead.

7:06

Go ahead, yes, but not with just about anything, I mean,

7:09

we wanted to have a clear screening of the issue,

7:11

we will come to that.

7:13

Interviewer

And, was there a number involved, did you,

7:15

did the administrative decide

7:18

of how many people.

7:20

-

Two.

We decided that we would be willing to take two.

7:22

Interviewer

And do you know how that number came about?

7:27

-

Well, we considered that if we did two,

7:31

we would have sent the message of goodwill

7:35

to the United States, we were not planning

7:37

on taking more than that.

7:40

Interviewer

So, what was the next step after, you said,

7:43

that you went to the highest levels of government

7:46

to make the decision, what was the next step after that?

7:48

-

Well, I mean, there was, as I said,

7:51

that was a political decision taken to go ahead with that

7:52

at cabinet level, presided by the prime minister,

7:59

and with our minister, with the vice prime ministers

8:02

involved also, Minister of Foreign Affairs was also involved

8:05

or he was at that time, not vice prime minister, so,

8:10

(indistinct) the whole group was involved in that.

8:13

The Minister of Justice was involved as well,

8:17

all the minister, the Minister of Interior,

8:20

all the ministers who basically had one way or another

8:23

an element of relevance in the issue were involved.

8:26

At any rate, it was a collegial decision

8:29

by the Belgian government to go ahead with that,

8:31

we notified the United States that we were willing

8:34

to take two after screening,

8:37

and under the condition of course,

8:41

that two would be,

8:44

that two entering into our consideration

8:46

would be found, I mean, if they didn't come up with none,

8:52

or where, that were fitting us, or one,

8:55

then it would be none or one, but the decision was taken

8:59

and we were serious about that.

9:02

Then afterwards, of course, I mean,

9:04

the American side provided us

9:08

with a number of proposals,

9:10

They-

9:15

-

You mean names of people?

-

Names with a very flimsy file basically,

9:16

of six, seven, pages of description of,

9:20

if I recall, well, seven people.

9:25

They gave us, they provided us with a list of seven.

9:28

We went then into careful screening

9:35

through--

9:40

-

While you were in Belgium?

-

In Belgium, our internal services

9:41

went to work to find out, to go through the files

9:47

that we received of the United States,

9:51

and then use their own sources as well, to try to get

9:53

a bit more knowledge, because the files that we got

9:56

were relatively flimsy, were relatively limited,

9:58

let's put it this way.

10:03

And a proposal by,

10:07

out of the seven, out of the seven files

10:15

that were proposed to us, that were put in front of us

10:18

by the American side, our service picked out two

10:22

that could be taken, that we could take into consideration.

10:28

The five others were rejected.

10:32

But we-

10:34

-

Do you know why

they were rejected?

10:35

-

Sorry.

Interviewer

Do you know why they were rejected?

10:36

-

Well, elements of risk assessment, I guess.

10:37

This is something done to the intelligence services,

10:44

our intelligence services, and some worked out

10:46

on the basis of their sources, open and closed sources

10:49

on the basis of what they got in from the American side,

10:52

on the base of conversation with the American side,

10:55

I guess, on their side,

10:58

intelligence people usually speak to intelligence people.

11:00

The fact of the matter is that we ended up with two,

11:04

and then we were told by the American side

11:08

that's one of the two, who was from Yemen,

11:12

had, in the meantime, also, in parallel,

11:18

had been offered to another country, if I'm correct.

11:21

I'm not certain about that, so I'll say this

11:26

with a caveat, I think it was Portugal

11:28

who had also been offered

11:32

a similar list, and Portugal,

11:37

or the other country, may be, maybe it's not Portugal,

11:41

I don't remember completely, but I think it was Portugal,

11:44

had already said yes for that person.

11:48

So then we said, "Well then, we are down to one."

11:51

Then we were asked whether we would want to consider

11:55

the others again, and we said, "No, we have rejected those."

11:58

So, we will stick then to one.

12:02

We were willing to take two, but now that you,

12:04

if you say that this one is not available,

12:08

we are not going to go to a second choice.

12:10

So, I mean, it's going to be one, this was younger.

12:12

Interviewer

And did they offer you a new list

12:16

of seven more or anything?

12:18

-

No,

they would certainly have,

12:20

they would certainly have done so

12:24

if we had requested that, but we did not.

12:27

We thought that we had done our best,

12:30

and that we had constructively contributed that way.

12:34

Interviewer

Did--

12:37

-

And we did not want to take the chance of getting

12:38

a second choice list, you see?

12:40

Interviewer

Do you think most countries got a list

12:43

of about seven, do you know from other dip-

12:45

-

Well, strangely enough, we didn't talk very much

12:48

with one another, the countries who were involved,

12:51

everybody was handling the file very much on his own.

12:53

I mean, there was very little, very little,

12:57

how would I say, give and take of information

13:02

among the countries that had been approached

13:05

by the United States, that was clearly the feeling

13:07

that I had on this, everybody was sticking

13:09

very much to his own business

13:12

on this.

13:15

-

Can you explain why

that would be?

13:15

-

I don't think there's very much explanation

13:17

to be given to it, the fact of the matter is

13:20

it's of course a sensitive issue.

13:22

There is not very much to exchange anyway, because, I mean,

13:27

you don't even know whether

13:31

one is going to influence the other on that.

13:36

Everybody is pretty much, has pretty much to make up

13:39

for himself what he does.

13:42

We heard here and there things that were happening

13:44

on other sides, there were countries after the event,

13:47

after our procedure, who were approached me to see,

13:51

well, you know, I mean, can we brain pick

13:55

a little bit of your experience on this or that,

13:59

that did happen, but at the moment

14:02

that we were working on it, there was rather limited,

14:04

exchange of information and impressions among the countries.

14:10

There was a forum set up

14:13

in the EU context talking about it,

14:16

but everybody was very very much playing it for himself,

14:22

I mean, and that's the reality of things.

14:26

We were not sharing very much information

14:28

among member states really.

14:30

Interviewer

Are you guessing that maybe

14:33

each member state got the same list of seven?

14:36

Is that possible?

14:38

-

Well, I don't know that, what I can add that,

14:40

I could only guess on that, so I'm not going to do that.

14:42

What I can tell you is that, obviously the same person

14:45

was offered to various countries, because otherwise,

14:49

we would have ended up with two instead of one.

14:52

Interviewer

Right, okay.

14:54

So, what was the next step after you moved down to one,

14:55

what happened after that?

14:59

-

Well, then we decided upon

15:00

sending a mission to Guantanamo, which I headed,

15:03

I was the head of that delegation.

15:08

We went-

15:11

-

Did you volunteer?

-

Sorry.

15:12

-

Did you volunteer?

-

Well, it came upon me by my function,

15:13

because in the meantime, I had switched my function

15:16

from Diplomatic Advisor at the Ministry of Justice,

15:20

to deputy head of the political office

15:23

of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, of his cabinet,

15:26

and I had in my portfolio, I had all issues

15:29

of counselor and security issues.

15:33

So, it fell just upon me, I mean,

15:36

it was a logical thing that I was going to follow it,

15:39

and that I was going to lead that.

15:44

We took a group of people, we decided that we will do this

15:46

quite seriously, and we wanted

15:49

to really do a proper fact-finding,

15:55

and reckon ourselves in Guantanamo.

16:00

Our group was constituted of six people,

16:04

I myself, there was somebody

16:08

of our state security along,

16:12

there was somebody of our Office of Risk Assessment,

16:16

there was somebody of our asylum service,

16:23

the Federal Asylum Service

16:28

in view of the integration procedures

16:30

that would be needed afterwards.

16:34

There was, we took

16:37

an Arab speaking psychiatrist with us,

16:40

and we took also a translator,

16:45

a translator who spoke Arabic

16:49

and, I don't know, Dutch or French, any one of the two,

16:52

we have two basic languages in the country,

16:56

but I don't remember, he was actually Arabic

16:58

plus either Dutch or French, I don't remember that.

17:00

The reason why I don't remember that, we didn't need it,

17:03

because the man in question, our man from Guantanamo

17:06

had had ample time to learn proper English.

17:09

(interviewer laughing)

17:12

Interviewer

And before you went there, two things,

17:13

one, did you choose your staff, those other five, is that-

17:17

-

Yeah, we chose them.

17:20

We chose them.

17:21

-

And did you have certain.

-

Well, basically we chose them, let's say we set up

17:23

a working group within, interdepartmental working group

17:28

as we usually do it in Belgian political consensus,

17:32

can tradition, we set up

17:36

a inter-cabinet working group of the different departments,

17:39

and services involved, and together we decided

17:44

to constitute a delegation of six people,

17:47

the translator that we found, the psychiatrist that we found

17:53

with the person of the asylum service,

17:57

and of security and of risk assessment,

18:00

where they were picked by, there were,

18:04

they got the assignment from their own

18:06

administration obviously, yeah?

18:08

We didn't choose the persons, we chose the institutions

18:10

that would go along.

18:13

-

I see.

Moderator

And, yes, turn it on, Peter just turned on

18:14

to the other side (indistinct).

18:17

We'll verbally respond.

18:19

That's it.

18:22

Interviewer

Did you have expectations before you went,

18:24

as to what you would expect to see when you.

18:27

-

Well, yes, I mean, we.

18:30

It was actually a bit of a negotiation

18:33

with state department,

18:36

because we said we want to go there

18:40

for a longer period, for a couple of days, we want to have

18:44

a number of meetings with the man in question.

18:48

We want to see him alone,

18:52

with no physical American presence in the conversation,

18:56

and we want to take our time for that.

19:05

We do not want to go there just to see how it looks like,

19:09

and up and down between Washington

19:12

and Guantanamo in one day.

19:16

On the American side, they're trying to keep it

19:21

as short as possible, our stay, but we stuck to the point

19:22

that we wanted to do this seriously,

19:26

because the consequences for us were too serious as well.

19:28

We did not want to take hasty

19:31

and superficial decisions,

19:34

that would both put at risk

19:38

the operational feasibility of the thing

19:41

once he's in the country, and second, which would expose us

19:45

politically internally in the country,

19:49

that if something goes wrong, of course it went wrong,

19:51

because you didn't properly prepare it,

19:53

so we really went at lengths

19:55

to do this very properly.

19:58

We were, I think we spent,

19:59

if I'm not mistaken, two nights in Guantanamo.

20:03

So we were, we had three operational days

20:06

in Guantanamo, I think, and we did a number of,

20:09

and it was that we had some difficulty in the beginning

20:12

to make that understood to the American side,

20:15

but we insisted on that, and

20:19

they accommodated it.

20:23

It didn't come by itself, but they accommodated in the end.

20:26

Interviewer

Do you know what their reasons were

20:29

for wanting to keep it short and to,

20:32

and actually to have a presence while you were,

20:36

were they present when you were there?

20:39

-

Well they, in the beginning (indistinct),

20:41

this is also in the Dutch language book

20:44

that Janko has written himself, it's one of the things

20:48

that is in there.

20:51

When we, well, at first,

20:53

I had a meeting the first day when we arrived there,

20:58

we came to Washington, had a briefing with our embassy,

21:03

what we were coming to do, and then we went

21:06

the next morning to Andrews Air Force Base,

21:09

there we were taken by the US Air Force

21:14

without delegation, to Guantanamo straight.

21:18

We spent the night there, and then

21:22

the next day I had,

21:25

along with, I think the psychologist,

21:29

I had a first meeting with Mr. Janko,

21:35

to explain to him what we were actually coming to do.

21:39

We were not here the first delegation he saw,

21:44

so he was a bit skeptical about what our purposes were,

21:46

and so on and so forth, he had seen

21:49

several delegations before, definitely also

21:52

the Portuguese he had seen before that,

21:54

but he had seen other, I think he had seen others as well.

21:57

So, he was a bit skeptical of one more,

22:03

and then we explained to him that we were coming,

22:07

that we're now, I gave him the context

22:09

a little bit as it is.

22:12

And I (indistinct),

22:14

so I had a rather open chat with him

22:17

to put him at ease and to say, "look, I mean,

22:20

"we are here to see whether we can bring you to Belgium,

22:24

"I don't give you any promises, it will depend on

22:28

"a lot of factors which are within and without your reach,

22:31

"but we want to give it a real shot,

22:35

"and if we are here, we mean business,

22:39

"otherwise we wouldn't be here with six people."

22:41

Before we started that first meeting,

22:45

we had a briefing with the camp commander,

22:49

with Mr. Commander

22:53

Calvo or something like that, or.

22:56

Interviewer

Was it Harris, not Harris?

23:00

-

No, no, no.

23:02

-

How do you remember?

-

It was a,

23:05

a Spanish sounding name.

23:06

-

What year is this?

-

2009.

23:07

It was something like Calvo or something like that,

23:10

but it's not exactly that, but it's something in that,

23:12

something like that.

23:15

And then afterwards,

23:16

we were guided to the block where he was,

23:20

and we were brought into this room

23:23

where he was sitting already,

23:27

and there was an officer of the American forces,

23:29

of the American military who sat down with us,

23:34

with me and with the psychiatrist.

23:38

So, I was waiting and said nothing,

23:42

and then the lady, it was a lady military, and she said,

23:47

"Well, please go ahead," and I said,

23:50

"Well, I'm waiting for you to leave."

23:51

And she said, "I have orders to stay."

23:55

I said "Well, then we can't start."

23:57

So, she went to see her commander.

24:00

It took quite some time before they found out

24:04

for themselves that there was indeed an agreement

24:08

from before, from when I was still in Brussels,

24:11

before leaving that there would indeed be

24:13

no American presence, not that we don't,

24:17

that we wanted to tell any secrets,

24:20

we're not naive.

24:24

But, it was more the issue of the psychology

24:27

towards Mr. Janko,

24:30

that if we come, there is kind of,

24:34

there's kind of a new page that turn,

24:37

so it's not the same page that is continuing,

24:39

it's a new page, now you're dealing with the Belgians,

24:41

not with a Belgian-American thing,

24:44

but with a Belgian thing you're dealing,

24:47

and that this is basically the philosophical line

24:48

that I have been keeping all the way until the moment

24:51

that he was actually already in the country.

24:54

So, she went out

24:57

to talk to,

25:02

to the camp commander,

25:06

and he must have definitely been in touch with DOD,

25:09

and then after a while, it wasn't five minutes,

25:14

it was, I don't recall exactly,

25:17

but it was definitely a certain length of time

25:20

that was needed for deeper communication.

25:23

So, she came back and said,

25:27

"Well, yes, there is indeed an agreement,

25:31

"we will abide to that," and she apologized for the delay,

25:34

went away, and then we had our discussion with Mr. Janko,

25:38

first, me, with the psychiatrist,

25:41

the psychiatrist basically not saying much,

25:44

not saying anything actually, I was doing the introduction

25:47

to give the framework of our presence,

25:50

and to explain to him that here, over the coming two days,

25:54

he would have various meetings,

25:57

with different combinations of people,

26:00

we never went in with six people altogether

26:03

in order not to overwhelm him.

26:05

We had, well with six people, I think we must have had

26:07

five different meetings, something like that,

26:11

and at different angles,

26:13

the psychological angle,

26:15

the medical psychiatrist angle, the security angle,

26:19

the capacity for adaptation angle

26:24

with the asylum people and so on and so forth,

26:29

the different, different angles we approached

26:32

each time, but never more than two people in front,

26:36

and from time, and then talking him really,

26:41

and on certain occasions, we decided also

26:44

to have the psychiatrist sitting far away in the background

26:47

just as an observer, to see reactions, to see how things go,

26:51

and so to make his own analysis on the basis of a discussion

26:55

that is going on, which did not really,

26:58

in substance, concern him.

27:01

So, we took this on very, very seriously,

27:04

then after two days of various meeting,

27:08

we gave him from time to time breaks of course, I mean,

27:15

we, I mean, we didn't have this done

27:18

as an ongoing story,

27:20

I mean, we gave him some breathing space.

27:22

We did this for an hour and a half, and then we interrupted

27:25

for three hours and then we started again in the afternoon,

27:28

something like that, so it was rather time consuming

27:31

the whole process.

27:33

At the end of it, we drafted actually the broad lines

27:35

of an internal report,

27:40

with an analysis of everybody,

27:43

we had a meeting among ourselves in Guantanamo

27:45

in the garden somewhere, and we came back to that,

27:49

we came back we were done, via Washington,

27:54

we were brought back to Washington.

27:56

We did a debriefing in our embassy in Washington,

28:00

and then we left back to Brussels.

28:03

In Brussels, I drafted on the basis of our broad lines,

28:08

I drafted an initial report for our committee of,

28:11

for our ministerial council.

28:15

We did some redrafting

28:20

in the group before, in the group of those

28:25

who had been to Guantanamo before we presented

28:28

the final version to the ministerial council.

28:31

And then we brought it to,

28:35

that was our minister of foreign affairs, basically,

28:37

who brought it to the ministerial council,

28:39

because we were in the lead with foreign affairs,

28:41

we were in the lead of this.

28:43

So, we brought it to the ministerial council,

28:45

and there they decided that, yes, they would take Mr. Janko.

28:47

And then came the whole, then became the new stage

28:52

of preparation for the implementation,

28:56

and then afterwards came the followup and the monitoring

29:00

once he was there.

29:03

So there are three stages, there is a stage

29:05

of the selection, then there is a stage of,

29:07

once the selection has taken place,

29:10

to the moment that he really arrives

29:12

with all the preparations involved,

29:15

and there's a great deal of work to be done at that moment,

29:18

and then afterwards, of course, was the monitoring.

29:21

Interviewer

On the selection process,

29:25

did you actually have an opinion in your report?

29:27

-

Yeah, we had an opinion in our report that we thought that

29:32

the initial pre-selection that had been done

29:37

by our security force,

29:41

by our security mechanism,

29:43

that we could subscribe to that, and that we did see indeed

29:48

a possibility to bring the man to Belgium.

29:50

If we had to advice negatively, there wasn't going to be

29:53

one single minister in our government

29:58

that was going to support that, obviously.

30:00

He would, they were not going to go counter to that,

30:02

I don't know what we would have done then,

30:05

I guess that on the American side one would have come up

30:09

with another list, and I don't know what the presentive,

30:12

of what the sequence on there would have been then

30:15

afterwards, this is because it's not only

30:17

just a factual issue,

30:19

it's also a political issue, of course, so I mean,

30:24

it's very difficult to wildly guess

30:26

on how it would have run if we had rejected,

30:31

as a team, if we a had rejected Mr. Janko, but we didn't,

30:36

and that's all that counts, I mean,

30:40

we used to have a prime minister in our country

30:43

who used to say that we will deal with the problem

30:45

when it shows up. (laughs)

30:48

So, we never thought about what we would do next, if.

30:50

And it wasn't really part of the

30:54

reasoning either, let me be clear on that.

30:58

We did not decide on Mr. Janko, in order for fear

31:00

that otherwise we would not have been able to have anybody,

31:03

and they would have come with another list, no.

31:07

We took a positive decision on the substance,

31:10

on the base of his personality,

31:14

regardless of the other elements,

31:17

that what if we refuse and so on.

31:20

This was not the issue, because a very important element,

31:23

of course, in the decision is not only to be constructive

31:27

towards the American will

31:31

to empty Guantanamo, and to bring one to Belgium,

31:34

and to be constructive on our side on that,

31:39

that's one side of the coin.

31:42

The other side of the coin is that

31:44

you have to bring a guy to Belgium

31:45

that you can handle afterwards, so.

31:49

Interviewer

I would like to get to that,

31:52

but just a few more things about Guantanamo,

31:53

did it influence you at all that Mr. Janko

31:55

had been rejected by other countries?

31:57

-

No.

32:00

-

And, did-

32:01

-

A clear no.

32:04

Interviewer

And did you expect,

32:06

if he was somewhat, I'm not sure I'm using the right word,

32:09

but somewhat if not cynical,

32:12

at least not expecting much anymore,

32:15

'cause he realized he had been interviewed

32:19

by other countries and they rejected him,

32:21

did that caused him to be less open with you,

32:22

or less--

32:27

-

No. No.

We could put him at ease quite fast, to be honest.

32:28

I think that we had,

32:34

we hit a good frequency of communication,

32:36

let's put it this way, I mean, our frequency was right,

32:41

we kept the right language towards him, I think,

32:44

from after in retrospect, I mean,

32:48

we were, we have actually been able, surprisingly well,

32:50

to my feeling, to loosen him up,

32:55

to make him come across in a good conversation.

33:04

We never had an interruption for heartbreaks,

33:09

or something like that, heartbreaks of of verbal violence

33:12

or anything like that, he was very calm.

33:15

We definitely had not the impression

33:21

that he had been sedated or anything like that.

33:23

He was very, he was clear minded.

33:25

He, as I said we did not need

33:30

our Arabic speaking interpreter,

33:32

he basically hasn't done a one,

33:37

not one single line of translation.

33:40

The discussion could take place in English

33:43

from the the first moment.

33:45

Obviously, as time was going on,

33:49

Mr. Janko started building expectations of course,

33:52

you could feel that, that he wanted, that he saw himself

33:57

already in Belgium.

34:00

So, we had to, from time to time,

34:03

we had to put down the temperature a little bit on that side

34:05

to say, "Well, yes, okay, but we are here now,"

34:10

but as I said, if you remember from in the beginning,

34:11

"it's not because we hear that we are taking you,

34:18

"the only promise I have given you

34:20

"is that we are taking this seriously."

34:23

So, I mean, we're not here just to abuse of you

34:25

in a certain way, to come and see you

34:28

in order to be able to say no, then all at the end

34:31

of the story, that's not our purpose,

34:34

if we wanted to say no, we would have done that

34:36

straight away, we wouldn't have played around

34:39

with you on that.

34:41

So, I mean, he believed that, and he repeats that also

34:43

in the book he wrote in a number of years,

34:47

so several years ago when he was already in Belgium,

34:51

he repeats that.

34:54

Interviewer

Were you surprised at the man you saw

34:57

after you had read about him in the limited document

35:00

you got about him, did he appear like the man you expected,

35:04

or what were your impressions?

35:07

-

I had never met anybody who had been for two years

35:10

in a Taliban prison, and then afterwards

35:13

for a number of years in Guantanamo.

35:16

So, I had no benchmark.

35:18

It was very difficult for us to try to understand

35:21

how a person like that is,

35:27

how he develops, we had no,

35:31

we didn't expect anything actually to be very honest,

35:33

I mean, we were expecting to see a man,

35:36

who was obviously going to long for being freed,

35:40

who was obviously going to be a bit bitter and so on

35:43

and so forth from those things, who would obviously have had

35:46

some mental scars from being locked up

35:50

for a number of years, like anybody else,

35:55

even also common criminals

35:58

have the same thing, being from a petty thief

36:03

to a murderer

36:07

who's for 25 years,

36:09

or for life sentence in jail, everybody, it marks people,

36:13

so we were expecting to meet somebody who was marked

36:16

by detention and by what he had gone through,

36:19

with his will and beyond his will basically

36:25

because of course, I mean, he happened to be in Afghanistan.

36:28

So, we didn't actually quite know

36:35

what to expect, so, I mean,

36:39

your question is very difficult to answer,

36:41

not that I don't want to answer,

36:43

but I really wouldn't know what to answer

36:45

and to make sense.

36:48

Interviewer

What about the expectations of Guantanamo

36:49

on a larger scale, were you surprised at what you saw

36:52

in the way people seeing, you know,

36:56

I'm sure you saw the prisoners as you walked

36:58

through the camps, what were your impressions about that?

37:00

-

Well, I mean, we had,

37:04

we were, then the American commander,

37:07

I'm still thinking about his name, I can't,

37:13

it will come back to me at a certain point.

37:15

The commander really went out of his way

37:19

to show us around the the camp,

37:21

and the different installations,

37:26

so we also saw other prisoners.

37:30

We didn't have contact with them, but we saw them in there

37:33

in their quarters and so on and so forth.

37:37

The place was neat, it was clean,

37:42

spotless, I would even say.

37:47

Of course, detention is always detention,

37:52

but it wasn't anything that looked any different

37:54

from any normal, proper jail.

37:58

A proper jail in the sense

38:01

of taking care of people in detention,

38:05

on, with hygiene and with food

38:09

and with cleanliness and so on and so forth.

38:13

I remember one thing that is that,

38:18

it struck us very much

38:23

that they were definitely not underfed.

38:24

They got plenty of calories, plenty of calories.

38:29

If I took so many calories I would probably be double now

38:34

in size. (laughs)

38:38

Interviewer

Did the Americans ever say to you

38:40

that they were worried about your safety, and that's why

38:43

they wanted an American presence?

38:45

-

No. That was definitely not a reason.

38:47

They wanted to be there, and I wanted to assist in our,

38:51

at our interviews.

38:56

I must honestly say that, two things, first of all,

39:00

we were told so when I was still in Brussels

39:05

that there would be an American present,

39:08

and we rejected that, and we said, this is a condition

39:10

for us to go, that we're going to see him alone.

39:12

And they had, it was already a bit of a difficulty

39:16

at the moment that we were still in Brussels,

39:21

even before going to Guantanamo.

39:22

So, the American Embassy came back to us,

39:24

to me personally basically, only a day or two days later,

39:28

to say it's all right.

39:32

So, it didn't come by itself, it was of course,

39:34

it wasn't like that.

39:37

"Oh yes sir, of course. No problem."

39:38

It wasn't like that, it took a bit of internal consultation

39:40

on the Americans, which I perfectly understand by the way,

39:44

but it's clear that for us it was a condition,

39:48

and we weren't going to step away from that.

39:52

We were not going to step away from that.

39:55

And, they understood that we were serious

39:58

about that request,

40:01

so they have made an internal discussion about that,

40:03

and they said, well, if the Belgians want to see him alone,

40:08

let them see him alone,

40:10

and then of course it put back into question.

40:12

I'm not saying that it was consciously put back

40:17

into question, but at any rate,

40:19

the people with whom I was dealing over there in Guantanamo

40:22

told me explicitly that they had orders from the DOD,

40:27

from the Department of Defense to have somebody present.

40:31

And then I resist on that and I said, "Well, I'm sorry,

40:36

"but this was not the agreement.

40:39

"This was not what we had agreed.

40:42

"So, I'm waiting our agreement to be implemented."

40:44

It took again some time, but eventually they did implement,

40:49

so, I mean, no complaints and no issue,

40:52

I mean, it's, that's how things go, fair.

40:56

Interviewer

Did Mrr. Janko ever say to you privately

41:02

that he appreciated that the Americans were removed

41:04

from the room?

41:07

-

He didn't say it at that time,

41:09

he wrote it in his book afterwards.

41:10

Interviewer

And.

41:13

-

He didn't say it

at that time, but he wrote it afterwards in retrospect,

41:15

when he wrote his book with his ghostwriter,

41:18

he is explicit about that, yes.

41:22

-

Did you.

41:27

-

We didn't consider that,

let it be clearly understood, we didn't consider this of,

41:29

well, we got it our way, it's not really that.

41:32

It wasn't a power game between us

41:36

and the American side on this, this was not the just in,

41:39

that it was not the spirit in which we put that question,

41:43

we had a clear reason to ask that.

41:45

We wanted Mr. Janko to understand

41:48

that we were not there

41:52

as, in the collaboration with the Americans,

41:55

that there would be, let's say that would be a handover,

41:58

if we, that would be a page turned for his life

42:03

in Guantanamo, for his life in general.

42:08

It was also, I can I still consider today

42:11

that it was a wise thing to do it that way,

42:14

for the simple reason that it is helpful afterwards

42:17

once you get into the process of integration,

42:20

that there are no suspicions on his side,

42:23

that basically he's still

42:28

under the control of those

42:32

who have detained him in Guantanamo.

42:37

He, it has helped us to help him to turn the page,

42:40

on this nasty page of this nasty book of his past.

42:47

Interviewer

Again, along those lines,

42:54

my understanding was that the US

42:55

would ask the country for a certain commitment

42:57

and security of the person

43:01

that they released to the country.

43:03

Was that truth?

43:05

-

Yeah, that was the truth, yeah.

43:06

Not that we particularly needed that

43:08

because it was actually our own interest in the end.

43:10

The security thing was our interest as well.

43:14

And I believe that we have really gone out of our way

43:16

in terms of preparation for his coming across,

43:19

in terms of the handover,

43:25

and also in terms of the monitoring process

43:27

that we did afterwards we've taken this

43:31

very, very much to heart.

43:33

The visit to Guantanamo took place

43:37

somewhere around the 20th of August,

43:42

if I'm not mistaken, 2009.

43:44

And he came, the decision was taken in the coming.

43:47

The political decision was taken something

43:52

in the coming, in the following two weeks,

43:54

not much longer than that

43:57

but then it took another two months before he came.

44:00

It took the entire night,

44:03

it took the entire month of September

44:04

and half of October until he came in.

44:06

And I think we've been working

44:08

for the better part of two months

44:10

to lay the ground for his coming across.

44:15

On the American side they were a bit pushy

44:20

on that to let them come across.

44:22

And we said, we will let you know when we are ready.

44:27

We have made a political that we will take him.

44:29

There's no reason to put that into doubt

44:34

unless all the factors come up, but they probably won't.

44:36

Let us take care of the arrival process

44:40

which has to be done extremely carefully.

44:46

And let us also take care of once he's on our ground

44:49

what we're going to do with him,

44:53

where are we going to bring him?

44:54

How is he going to live?

44:56

What are we going to surround them with?

44:57

How are we going to take care of that?

45:01

If he falls ill will someone takes care of him?

45:04

Which roof is he going to have over his head?

45:07

Who are the instances

45:11

who are going to keep an eye, a watchful eye on him?

45:13

Who's going to know,

45:19

how are we going to know where he goes and when he goes?

45:21

So we were, we really prepared it very very properly,

45:26

believe me very properly

45:29

because in the weeks after it spawns,

45:31

a decision was taken I think I had basically a one issue job

45:34

for the coming two months on this.

45:40

It was a one issue job I was doing.

45:43

I basically got delegated all the rest of my work

45:44

to collaborators and dealt nearly exclusively

45:47

with that for a long, long time.

45:51

Interviewer

Can you explain the row versus

45:54

what was involved in that.

45:56

-

Yeah, well, of course

45:58

that was again a negotiation with the American side.

46:03

He was brought over by the, by an air force plane.

46:08

Interviewer

American or.

46:13

-

An American air force plane.

And then there was a discussion on

46:16

where he would arrive, how we would arrive,

46:20

in which condition he would arrive?

46:23

Initially the American Embassy came to us came to me

46:25

with a screenplay, with a scenario.

46:34

And I said, can you put your scenario aside?

46:43

Here is a scenario.

46:47

The military airport in Brussels is on Belgium soil.

46:50

We are going to tell what the scenario is

46:54

because we are going to carry the consequences afterwards.

46:56

Well, that took a little bit of difficulty

46:59

but at that last end, this was accepted too.

47:01

And it made a difference in the sense that

47:06

for instance, there were some symbolic elements in it,

47:09

of course but there were also very practical elements.

47:12

Symbolic element was for instance that

47:14

we insisted that for instance

47:17

he would be undone his handcuffs and so on,

47:22

onboard the plane.

47:25

We did not put them into handcuffs.

47:29

We were not going to take his handcuffs away.

47:31

It's not up to us to take the handcuffs away.

47:35

We wanted him to foot boot his first foot

47:39

on Belgian soil as a man.

47:41

And we made a real point of that.

47:44

A bit difficult, but it went too.

47:50

It was accepted.

47:53

So he came down the stairs from the plane as a free man,

47:54

no handcuffs, no nothing.

47:58

He was, I don't remember exactly how he was dressed

48:00

but he was not dressed in a,

48:03

in the order uniform of Guantanamo.

48:08

He was not dressed like that, that I remember

48:11

but I don't remember anymore how exactly he was dressed.

48:13

We also made sure that again,

48:17

in the same spirit of turning the page,

48:20

that the people on the ground, on the American side

48:24

who had been, who were on the tarmac upon arrival

48:28

were out of the way before he,

48:36

before the door of the plane opened.

48:38

We did not want him to be welcomed.

48:41

The welcoming committee,

48:44

my committee must, had to be Belgium,

48:45

not Belgium Belgo American, Belgium.

48:48

He was in Belgium now.

48:50

So, I mean, we agreed with the American side also

48:52

that he would exit that day,

48:55

that the people on the ground

48:57

throughout the American Embassy would exit the airport

48:59

or the tarmac, at least by the time that the door opens.

49:02

So we were waiting for them to go.

49:06

And then we gave a sign that now you can open the door.

49:08

And then he came down the stairs,

49:11

we took him to a room in the airport

49:13

where we welcomed him and where we briefed him.

49:19

And then he was brought through a back door

49:22

of the airport basically to his destination where he,

49:26

where we had an accommodation for him already and so on.

49:29

It was important to prepare this very properly

49:33

because we have been able to keep this rather discreet.

49:36

But imagine now, for instance,

49:42

that there have been photographic press present there.

49:43

And they would have taken a picture of him.

49:51

He would have been stigmatized

49:53

from the very first minute he arrived on Belgian ground

49:57

and it would have the man from Guantanamo

50:00

who wants the man from Guantanamo in his neighborhood

50:04

unless he knows very well

50:08

what actually the the background is,

50:09

but most people don't and they don't even know ask to know,

50:11

they, so you have in fact that

50:15

many people make an opinion without

50:18

and that they don't need the knowledge.

50:19

Then I mean, the lack of knowledge

50:20

is a very often not a limitation to have an opinion.

50:23

So in that sense, it's true, isn't it?

50:27

It's a human thing.

50:31

So in that sense, we wanted to avoid at all price

50:33

any risk that he would be stigmatized by pictures

50:37

in his name, the newspaper, you know, what,

50:40

10 million or 11 million Belgians,

50:42

here at the man of Guantanamo.

50:45

That's how he looks like.

50:46

How do you integrate them the day afterwards?

50:47

How does it go for shopping?

50:50

How does it go for a walk?

50:52

How does he come in the open air?

50:55

How does he go for a walk to the park next doors?

50:57

If the day before everybody has seen on page number one

51:01

of all, of every single newspaper a picture of the guy,

51:07

you don't want that.

51:10

It would have made, it would have been terrible for him

51:12

but it would have been a mess for us as well

51:14

in terms of the integration process that we needed to do.

51:17

So in that sense, we were very very careful

51:21

to make sure that we remain discreet

51:25

and that he was off to a destination

51:27

that we that basically very few people knew of at that time.

51:32

Interviewer

Did Belgium population even know

51:35

that Belgium was taking her one time to detainee

51:38

at that point?

51:40

-

Let me think of that.

51:44

Well, the discussion was open.

51:45

The discussion was open that the request was there,

51:47

that the Belgium government was deciding on that.

51:50

I'm not really clear on that.

51:56

I wouldn't want to comment on that.

51:58

I've made it very specifically.

52:01

What I can tell you is that in terms of the, of name,

52:03

identity how it looked like when,

52:07

what exactly in some we remained

52:11

extremely, extremely discreet.

52:13

In the interest of everybody basically,

52:16

in the interest of him,

52:19

in the interest of security,

52:20

in the interest of those who had to handle,

52:22

those who needed to know in order to contribute

52:27

in a constructive way to make this operation

52:30

run properly and well, everybody who needed to know knew.

52:33

But we definitely did not put an article in the press of,

52:39

you know, what, tomorrow he's arriving.

52:42

We definitely did not do that.

52:45

Interviewer

And was he, does he have family

52:50

or was he did he have anybody to be there for him

52:53

when he arrived?

52:56

-

No, not at that time.

52:57

What we had, we put in place, we would we put in place,

52:59

first of all a monitoring committee

53:05

that was getting together in, on a very regular basis.

53:09

Some in the beginning, even twice a week,

53:15

even before I mean, from day one,

53:21

basically from the that the decision was taken

53:24

to take them in and before we had to go to Guantanamo.

53:26

This group of, this working group went on,

53:29

first with the decision making itself,

53:31

the preparation of this political decision-making

53:35

in the second stage in terms of the preparation

53:37

to prepare the land, to prepare the ground

53:41

for him to arrive.

53:44

And then lastly, to do the monitoring of his behavior,

53:46

of his needs, his both the problems

53:50

and the possibilities, the the perspectives he had

53:53

and so on and so forth.

53:57

So, but when he arrived, he had absolutely nobody

53:58

of his own in Belgium, what we had,

54:01

we had agreed with a non-governmental organization

54:04

in the area where he lived to surround him.

54:15

In other words, they took care for them

54:19

to find an accommodation.

54:23

They provided him with basically how would I say,

54:26

kind of a godfather or somebody

54:32

who was coming to see to see him on a very regular basis,

54:34

who was guiding them around in the beginning,

54:38

who was trying to help him out,

54:41

the NGO the non-governmental organization

54:43

worked also to provide him with the access

54:45

to our social security the services

54:49

for which he had never contributed.

54:54

He had no papers or anything like that.

54:56

We couldn't provide them with national papers

54:58

from his country of origin.

55:01

So, I mean, we had to do all this a little bit

55:03

out of the box if I can call it that way

55:07

with a lot of creativeness, creativity,

55:09

but it all worked out because it was,

55:13

we met basically all factors, pretty much of Goodwill.

55:15

We also had the municipal police of the place

55:21

where he was who was involved in the monitoring

55:28

and then setting up everything also,

55:31

we had our asylum service

55:34

who, this was not an asylum seeker,

55:37

but the, how would I say the situation

55:40

and the things to be resolved,

55:48

the issue was pretty much comparable

55:50

to an asylum situation of somebody

55:53

who arrives out of the blue in the country and needs asylum.

55:55

It was pretty much the same practical scenario.

55:59

So we applied that practical scenario

56:02

with a bit of changes here and there as required

56:05

to accommodate the situation

56:07

and worked actually quite well.

56:10

We have here and there are a couple of small incidents

56:11

because of course, I mean, if it then

56:15

it takes some adaptation.

56:18

Of course, if you've been for, what two years

56:20

and a bit in the, in a Taliban prison of Kandahar

56:24

and that is followed up by a respectable

56:29

number of years in Guantanamo, that marks a person.

56:32

And the, you have to, I guess that you have to learn

56:36

to live with your freedom again

56:39

and that you have to learn to expose yourself

56:41

to an open society,

56:48

and to drop gradually your suspicions about everything

56:51

and solemn on your defensive reactions that take some time.

56:58

It marks a person.

57:01

And I guess that Mr. Yanga was exposed

57:02

to that same kind of thing.

57:06

But he reacted actually all in all, he reacted quite well.

57:11

And whenever he did not react well, they were corrected.

57:14

There was a corrective surrounding to him.

57:18

I mean, he didn't do much.

57:23

That was not to our attention

57:25

within a very, very limited then a very limited time.

57:26

And when I speak about the very liberal of the time

57:31

I'm not talking about days or even hours.

57:32

We were very close upon him.

57:36

Without being oppressive

57:38

but we were really close upon him.

57:40

Interviewer

Did you ever see him again after this?

57:43

-

Yes, when twice, actually, I've seen him again.

57:45

Actually around that was in October, 2009,

57:54

a couple of months later in December, 2009.

58:02

Just about, just before Christmas,

58:05

he invited me to his house for Christmas dinner,

58:07

and he had bought a bottle of wine

58:10

which I did not ask him to open

58:12

because he doesn't drink.

58:14

And the friends, he knew he had his shopper

58:16

all his godfather, who was around also

58:19

who was also of Islamic garden

58:23

and is an Islamic religion.

58:25

And there were two or two or three other people

58:27

who had a, whom he had invited

58:30

and they had prepared a meal sort of support.

58:33

It was very, very, very nice.

58:36

And he invited me for dinner.

58:38

I went there, actually,

58:40

I did accept the invitation and the year afterwards in 2010,

58:41

for Christmas he did the same.

58:45

But by then, his wife was there.

58:47

He had brought in, we had been working to,

58:49

he wanted to get married.

58:55

And well, you know, how this goes

58:58

and he's of Syrian, Kurdish descent.

59:01

So there was, I don't know to a certain extent

59:06

to prearranged marriage or something

59:09

with a distant cousin or something on that.

59:11

So that was prearranged from long long time ago

59:14

and that he desired to and let this go through

59:16

so that the back home so we let it get through,

59:20

we let it take place.

59:23

I mean, who were read to tell him

59:26

that he couldn't get married?

59:29

So, yes, he got married and at the moment that

59:30

so then it was his wife who knew, who prepared the meal.

59:34

I was welcomed again.

59:37

And she was pregnant at that time,

59:39

she was expecting a baby.

59:43

Since then I haven't seen him back

59:45

because a month and a half later

59:46

I joined my assignment here in office.

59:48

So I haven't seen him back since,

59:50

but on one of those two occasions,

59:52

I think it was a second one.

59:55

The, in his story, his book was stressed out

59:57

and he gave me a copy of it with a dedication.

1:00:04

So, yes, I mean, there's this, I have a fond memory of this.

1:00:08

Yeah, it was a very rewarding thing

1:00:12

especially because basically,

1:00:15

well of course there were hiccups here and there,

1:00:18

but all in all this was a quite successful operation.

1:00:22

The American side got a constructive reaction on our side.

1:00:27

We were careful in our choice.

1:00:33

We were careful in our preparation.

1:00:36

And we were careful also in monitoring him

1:00:40

in the critical period.

1:00:42

I don't know how this goes,

1:00:44

or how does this now, I have let let go on the fight now.

1:00:45

I mean, I'm not involved in this anymore

1:00:49

since more than three years now

1:00:52

but I can tell you that we were keeping up monitoring

1:00:55

until the very last moment that I was

1:01:00

deputy head of Cabinet of our Minister of Foreign Affairs.

1:01:02

We had taken down, we had diminished considerably

1:01:06

the frequency of our meetings

1:01:09

because at the beginning we were meeting twice

1:01:11

and even three times a weekend.

1:01:14

Then we brought it down to two once a week

1:01:15

and then once a fortnight and then once a month.

1:01:19

And then I believe at the end it was nearly on,

1:01:23

by menstrual reviews that we were doing with,

1:01:27

of course a mechanism of alert

1:01:31

that if anybody in the immediate environment of police

1:01:36

or the NGO or anybody else

1:01:41

was noting, was noticing that something was going wrong.

1:01:45

That we had throughout the crisis center,

1:01:51

a ministry of of our prime minister's office.

1:01:56

We had a mechanism in place that everybody

1:01:59

could be alerted and that we could get together quite soon.

1:02:01

And we had a situation on that that smart one incident

1:02:04

which I don't bother to go into now

1:02:09

because it's actually not of any relevance

1:02:12

but we had one particular case that we got

1:02:16

a message with an exclamation mark.

1:02:21

And we were at the table together within an hour and a half,

1:02:26

everybody around the table without an hour,

1:02:30

within an hour and a half.

1:02:33

So it, our networking in order to surround them,

1:02:34

not against them, but basically surrounding him

1:02:40

in a constructive way and making sure that

1:02:43

he doesn't do any harm to his own position.

1:02:47

And that as a by-product,

1:02:50

we get into trouble, that mechanism works quite well.

1:02:53

Interviewer

Is he still being monitored?

1:03:02

-

I guess he should be.

1:03:04

But I mean, again, for three years,

1:03:05

I've not been involved in the thing.

1:03:08

I don't know, I guess he is, but I suppose he is.

1:03:10

I don't see why he wouldn't be,

1:03:15

but I mean if that I can only speak about what I know,

1:03:16

and I know that he definitely was monitored properly

1:03:21

until January, 2011, when I left.

1:03:24

Whatever happened afterwards you have to ask those

1:03:28

who are in charge now.

1:03:31

Interviewer

Was, is Belgium planned to give him

1:03:33

a passport citizenship will be get there?

1:03:36

-

Well, let's say that this is not on the agenda

1:03:40

at this, this was not on the agenda at that time.

1:03:49

I have to, all my comments are limited to January, 2011.

1:03:52

Whatever is beyond that, I frankly don't know,

1:03:57

wrong address whether you ask the question.

1:04:00

But until then it was definitely not on the agenda.

1:04:02

We provided them with status with paperwork

1:04:09

that allowed them to work.

1:04:15

That allowed him to sojourn legally in the country to,

1:04:17

that allowed them to have access to social security

1:04:23

which does not, which is not necessarily,

1:04:29

which is which does not have as a precondition

1:04:33

to have nationality.

1:04:36

So the nationality thing is not only

1:04:38

was at that time not at all an issue.

1:04:40

There was no value added.

1:04:43

And that discretion at that time was already bad

1:04:45

in a difficult enough, bad enough difficult enough,

1:04:47

complex enough as you want to call it,

1:04:48

to provide them with the necessary paperwork

1:04:53

and with the necessary administrative status

1:04:55

that would allow us to let them stay legally in the country

1:05:00

to bring in his wife, into the country also,

1:05:04

for whom we don't have to do that,

1:05:06

the same to make sure that he got gets proper access

1:05:08

to social security and so on and so forth,

1:05:12

but to give him, to provide them

1:05:15

with the necessary paperwork to be allowed

1:05:19

to work in the country legally.

1:05:22

So, I mean, that was our purpose.

1:05:25

The nationality thing never actually came up as a question.

1:05:29

And I cannot recall either that at that time

1:05:32

he ever formulated a request in that sense cider

1:05:35

unless I'm mistaken on that, I may be,

1:05:39

because it's really not an issue

1:05:41

that has ever been properly discussed

1:05:43

because it wasn't the Laredo.

1:05:46

Interviewer

The thing is my essay questions

1:05:50

because my understanding was the US has asked nations

1:05:52

to not give them give him.

1:05:56

So at least it implies that--

1:05:57

-

For a number of years I believe,

1:06:00

there was a limitation in time.

1:06:02

Interviewer

Limitation what?

1:06:05

-

There was a limitation in time

1:06:06

for that request, I believe.

1:06:07

It was about five years something.

1:06:08

Oh, we are going, we're definitely honoring everything

1:06:10

that we have subscribed to him with the United States.

1:06:13

There is no question about that.

1:06:17

I mean, the monitoring was also a requirement

1:06:18

on the American side.

1:06:21

Interviewer

Was it?

1:06:23

-

Oh yeah, it was.

It wasn't the agreement

1:06:24

that we were supposed to monitor him.

1:06:25

Now, as I said in the beginning when we started out,

1:06:27

I mean, okay, and I suppose now that the American side

1:06:30

had not asked us to monitor him.

1:06:35

You think we would not have?

1:06:37

Of course we would have monitored him.

1:06:41

I mean, it's like, I'm asking you to breath.

1:06:42

If, why are you going to stop breathing

1:06:48

because I'm not asking you to?

1:06:50

Obviously we're going to because after all,

1:06:54

I mean, there is always the security risk is never,

1:06:56

it's never zero.

1:07:02

Let's not fool.

1:07:03

Or, you know, let's not fool ourselves,

1:07:05

the security risk of taking somebody in,

1:07:07

like Mr. Janko it's never zero.

1:07:13

I mean, he was in Afghanistan and he was in,

1:07:17

he was on the wrong place at the wrong moment

1:07:22

and the blah-blah-blah,

1:07:25

fact of the matter is it's not a zero risk operation.

1:07:26

We know that so we knew that very well.

1:07:30

And we also, we catered for them.

1:07:33

We did all what we could in terms of the preparation,

1:07:35

in terms of the screening,

1:07:39

in terms of the preparation,

1:07:40

in terms of surrounding,

1:07:41

in terms of the monitoring,

1:07:43

we did everything within our means

1:07:44

to do a proper job on that time.

1:07:47

And it doesn't, it, as, I said at that time

1:07:50

it didn't really prove to be a wrong thing.

1:07:53

I mean, we didn't have a real problem

1:07:56

Interviewer

The person you call the godfather,

1:08:03

is that somebody that the embassy--

1:08:05

-

No, no, no.

1:08:08

It was somebody working, an acton working for the NGO

1:08:08

who spoke Arabic and so on so forth

1:08:13

who was himself also of of similar descent

1:08:16

and who was already a longer time in Belgium

1:08:19

and who was basically guiding him to the process

1:08:23

of assimilation of adaptation, not assimilation,

1:08:26

assimilation, you become the same.

1:08:29

We don't ask people to assimilate

1:08:31

but we ask people to adopt.

1:08:33

That's a different thing.

1:08:35

Interviewer

I might wanna go back to a Mr. Janko.

1:08:36

But before I forget, I know Moses Maury

1:08:38

was it Belgium citizen and came back to your Belgium.

1:08:43

Were you involved in that?

1:08:45

-

Sorry, say that again?

1:08:47

Interviewer

Moses Maury, he was in another detainee,

1:08:48

MOS Mr.Muary ZAM or you don't know.

1:08:51

-

Is that the Tunisian guy?

1:08:59

Interviewer

He was Moroccan I believe.

1:09:01

Maybe he was too Moroccan

1:09:03

and he wasn't going ton of money losing

1:09:05

Brussels or an Antwerp.

1:09:09

-

I was not involved in that.

1:09:12

Interviewer

Okay.

1:09:13

-

We, I know that at a certain point in time,

1:09:14

we were asked by the American scientists

1:09:17

to take to two Tunisians also

1:09:18

who did constitute for us security risk.

1:09:24

So we did not take them.

1:09:34

There was quite a bit of pressure on that,

1:09:37

but we did not take them.

1:09:39

Interviewer

This is how--

1:09:42

-

And we had

the argument that had been used towards south walls.

1:09:44

Yes, but at the time you had,

1:09:47

there was you had issued an extradition request

1:09:49

to the United States for those people.

1:09:53

And then we answered.

1:09:57

Yes, but yet traditional agreement applies on people

1:09:58

who are on American territory.

1:10:03

Guantanamo is not American territory.

1:10:05

So the extradition agreement doesn't apply on that.

1:10:09

Interviewer

Was this before?

1:10:12

-

This is totally, totally lose of the of the Janko issue.

1:10:13

It's nothing to do with it.

1:10:17

Interviewer

Before, after Mr Janko was accepted.

1:10:18

-

After, but it, as again, as I said this has nothing

1:10:21

to do with the Janko file.

1:10:25

I was instrumental in that too,

1:10:28

but I mean this is a completely different issue.

1:10:29

Interviewer

Do you want to talk any more about that?

1:10:33

-

No, rather than not, no.

1:10:35

Interviewer

And did other diplomats

1:10:38

from other countries come to you afterwards

1:10:41

ask for advice now that you've gone through that?

1:10:44

-

Yes. Some did.

1:10:47

Interviewer

And did you give them the advice

1:10:49

to keep saying not having Americans present those?

1:10:51

-

I didn't give them any advice.

1:10:56

I told them our story.

1:10:59

I told them, and then I didn't,

1:11:01

and you don't need to give advice to people.

1:11:04

People draw their conclusions from what you saying.

1:11:06

I just factually passed on

1:11:09

to a couple of countries on their request,

1:11:11

what our experience was.

1:11:16

And there's pretty much what I have been telling you.

1:11:18

Interviewer

Did countries haven't come back to you

1:11:23

and thank you and say that at work,

1:11:25

it helped them in their own.

1:11:27

-

No, not particularly, not particularly.

1:11:29

Interviewer

And do you know if any,

1:11:32

you probably don't but I'll just ask,

1:11:33

do you know if Americans have come to Belgium again

1:11:35

to ask them to take more detainees?

1:11:38

-

Not to my knowledge, at least not in the period

1:11:42

that I was there.

1:11:45

Apart from those others that I'm talking about.

1:11:47

Well, yes, they actually did that.

1:11:50

They actually did that.

1:11:52

They actually did.

1:11:54

They actually tested the waters,

1:11:55

whether we would go through the process again

1:12:02

with an yet another list

1:12:06

but I'm not saying that they put it on the table.

1:12:09

They tested the waters and the water was rather cool.

1:12:13

We had done our share

1:12:21

and we believe that when I remembered

1:12:23

that at the point in time, then I told

1:12:27

the American ambassador who my soul about this,

1:12:33

that I was willing to help him

1:12:38

to draw the list of the countries who had done nothing yet.

1:12:39

That we were keeping track of that too.

1:12:46

So let's, let everybody do his share little bit.

1:12:49

Interviewer

And has the issue gone--

1:12:53

-

So the issue never came to a real political level

1:12:55

if I can put it that way.

1:12:58

But the question was put, well, political level it did it,

1:13:00

of course, it comes to political level

1:13:03

as soon as it reaches the cabinet of a minister,

1:13:06

it is political level.

1:13:08

And I also did discuss it

1:13:10

with our minister of foreign affairs at that time.

1:13:11

And I can imagine that he must have

1:13:14

sounded a little bit here and there informally

1:13:17

with colleagues in the ministerial capita time.

1:13:19

I'm quite confident that these things have happened.

1:13:22

But the point of the matter

1:13:27

is that it never reached really a formal decision-making

1:13:28

process of we're not going to do this, right?

1:13:32

No, this never had, never reached that stage.

1:13:36

There was a little, as I said,

1:13:39

the terminology is good, it's proper.

1:13:41

The test of the, what the American side did test the waters,

1:13:44

whether we would be open for yet another round of that.

1:13:47

And the response was not particularly,

1:13:51

but of course, why have you thought of that any earlier,

1:13:57

that wasn't really that.

1:14:00

Interviewer

Other than the fact that other nations

1:14:03

hadn't carried done their part,

1:14:05

was there anything in Belgium itself

1:14:07

that they felt they didn't to go through the process again?

1:14:09

-

No, well, of course, I mean,

1:14:12

you're one of the one of the things

1:14:14

I told myself people of the American Embassy,

1:14:16

when the testing of the waters came,

1:14:20

that they must realize that at the moment

1:14:23

that the transfer is gone,

1:14:30

that the transfer is done,

1:14:31

that the man is in Belgium for the American side

1:14:33

it's over at that moment for us it starts really, yeah?

1:14:35

It's, I can tell you that it is pretty demanding

1:14:44

if you want to do this properly

1:14:48

and if you want to make sure that no accidents will happen

1:14:50

and that you can also do it in a lot of way of course.

1:14:53

I mean, there are without naming countries

1:14:56

but I know for sure that there are countries

1:15:00

where those people have been taken on well,

1:15:04

have the men have been taken over as well

1:15:07

and they arrive in the airport

1:15:11

and they're being brought to the city center

1:15:13

of a particular city, that dropped there

1:15:16

and they say goodbye.

1:15:18

Yeah, but I mean, I mean, this is,

1:15:23

that these are at least the rather from stories

1:15:26

that I have heard here and there from the past,

1:15:29

but again we didn't communicate very much

1:15:32

with one at all but the fact that the matter is,

1:15:33

if you will talk to, for instance,

1:15:36

Amnesty International and that kind of thing,

1:15:41

these are the stories you're going to hear.

1:15:43

Whereas our story was basically

1:15:47

by the Belgian Amnesty International,

1:15:53

the way that we did this was actually taking

1:15:56

rather as a good example you know that otherwise

1:16:00

Interviewer

Yes, absolutely.

1:16:05

It wouldn't be here because

1:16:06

it's through them that you ended up with me.

1:16:07

Interviewer

That's right, exactly.

1:16:09

-

So, I mean, they, the, I must say I'm astonished.

1:16:11

You say that throughout the process,

1:16:14

we have actually not had one single word

1:16:19

of real criticism on the side of Amnesty International

1:16:23

who were from their site independently out of the loop,

1:16:27

basically out, I mean, out of the,

1:16:31

they were not part of the of the coordination

1:16:34

and so on and so forth.

1:16:37

Nevertheless, we they have not been

1:16:38

particularly critical of us.

1:16:42

It's the other way around it.

1:16:44

They talk to other Amnesty International Offices

1:16:45

in other countries of the European union

1:16:48

of Europe of whom they knew

1:16:51

that they had also been approached by the Americans

1:16:53

to take over people and they advise them to come

1:16:56

and talk to us about this.

1:16:59

And that's how some of them ended up to talk,

1:17:01

to come and talk with me.

1:17:03

So, I mean, we were we were rather proud

1:17:07

of the way we handled this.

1:17:11

Interviewer

And it sounds like you would

1:17:16

even recommend Amnesty International

1:17:18

to some of those diplomats who came to you,

1:17:19

that you wouldn't go.

1:17:22

-

I don't recommend anything anymore.

1:17:23

And I'm now ambassador in Athens professor.

1:17:25

I'm now ambassador in Athens after that page too.

1:17:27

I mean, I am not really involved in this anymore.

1:17:30

I have no recommendations to make at this moment today.

1:17:34

I'm telling my story full stop.

1:17:37

Interviewer

Do you think, do you have some thoughts

1:17:40

as to why why try them on never close

1:17:46

given that countries like Belgium

1:17:48

were trying to help out President Obama?

1:17:51

-

Yeah, of course there are several categories

1:17:55

of detainees in Guantanamo.

1:17:58

And we got the the ones who were released to,

1:18:01

by the United States.

1:18:06

Wasn't a court order of the United States.

1:18:08

Our guy was released on the basis of a court order

1:18:11

of the court in Washington.

1:18:14

So those could be released to us

1:18:21

rather easily but not everybody in Guantanamo

1:18:28

has that particular status of course,

1:18:31

and the rest of the story is, well, we refused.

1:18:33

That was, we were talking about the Tunisian guys

1:18:40

and so we refused to take those over.

1:18:43

And they were not particularly in that category.

1:18:46

Of course, the rest is American an American evaluation

1:18:48

to be made up.

1:18:52

I mean, Guantanamo hustle been built by us

1:18:53

and it hasn't the idea wasn't ours

1:18:56

and it's not ours to resolve the problem either.

1:18:58

What we did is clearly be of assistance

1:19:00

of an American decision that we thought

1:19:04

was going in the right direction.

1:19:09

Interviewer

Do you still think so or?

1:19:11

-

Yes I still think so.

1:19:13

So that's a personal opinion.

1:19:15

I have no political opinion to express on that.

1:19:17

Grease is enough for me at this moment.

1:19:20

I love it, it's a job I can tell you.

1:19:23

So, I mean, I don't need that.

1:19:27

I don't need this further this,

1:19:31

the extension of my political opinions on this,

1:19:33

I can have them on private,

1:19:37

but as a diplomat and public keep

1:19:39

to what increased concerns.

1:19:41

There I'm perfectly entitled to say

1:19:45

what I have to say, but all the rest, not anymore.

1:19:46

That was different until the end of January, 2011.

1:19:50

But if you ask me, was it the right thing to do?

1:19:53

I'm sorry. It was the right thing to do.

1:19:58

Certainly it was the right thing to do.

1:20:00

Furthermore, the rest is an American issue.

1:20:02

Interviewer

Johnny, do you have a question to ask?

1:20:09

Johnny

No.

1:20:12

Interviewer

Did, is this something

1:20:13

that I didn't ask you that you would like to share with us

1:20:16

because you're unique.

1:20:20

I haven't been able to interview another diplomat yet so

1:20:22

I think it's really important to understand

1:20:25

the European view and perspective on one turn

1:20:29

on what the impression is, the expectations,

1:20:34

what you did for us.

1:20:37

I think that's really important

1:20:38

'cause we haven't been able to get that before.

1:20:40

So if there's something that I didn't ask you

1:20:43

that you could express?

1:20:45

-

Well, no, I think that as,

1:20:47

I think I have nothing to add to the spontaneously

1:20:49

to what you basically already asked

1:20:53

and what I spoke about myself.

1:20:55

I really think that we did the right thing

1:20:58

in showing our Goodwill and encouraging the United States

1:21:02

by a constructive approach to work on that line.

1:21:08

The young profile is an example in point of somebody

1:21:20

who was locked up without trial,

1:21:24

without basically any good reason.

1:21:28

The man was just wrong place, wrong time.

1:21:32

And he was not believed

1:21:35

when he said that he had been sitting for awhile

1:21:37

in a Kandahar Prison by the Taliban.

1:21:40

And when the thought about when turning

1:21:43

from Kandahar because the Americans were moving

1:21:44

in he sat there and waited for the Americans,

1:21:46

hoping, certain that he was going to be helped out.

1:21:49

And he had ended up

1:21:53

in Kandahar in Afghanistan, through circumstances.

1:21:55

He was a young boy at that time.

1:22:01

Very, not really conscious,

1:22:03

not really conscious where he was heading for.

1:22:07

He was a runaway from his family

1:22:12

and was picked up by an Afghan taxi driver somewhere

1:22:14

and brought to an African embassy who brought them

1:22:18

to Hooper knew who eventually channeled them to Kandahar.

1:22:20

And he fell into the hands of the Taliban.

1:22:25

And after a short Whiteside, what am I doing here?

1:22:27

I've got no place here.

1:22:30

Went to talk to the commander.

1:22:31

And the commodity told him,

1:22:34

what you want to get out of our training camp?

1:22:35

Ah, you're a Spire of the west.

1:22:38

Let's lock you up.

1:22:40

And he stayed in jail for a couple of years.

1:22:41

That's the story, basically, in a nutshell,

1:22:44

not telling any secrets it's public, he wrote about himself.

1:22:47

Interviewer

And those are the kinds of things

1:22:54

that we've made him attracted

1:22:55

that you didn't reject him.

1:22:58

-

Well, yes of course.

1:22:59

I mean, of course that, one of the concerns

1:23:01

we had was actually that he had,

1:23:03

he clearly had psychological problems, of course.

1:23:08

I mean, who wouldn't have after

1:23:11

what he had gone through after all,

1:23:13

he went into that, into the trouble,

1:23:15

but it was something like 21 or 22

1:23:18

or something came out that 31.

1:23:21

So, I mean, it marks you,

1:23:23

as we have already said a couple of times,

1:23:25

but I mean, this was handled.

1:23:27

It could be handled.

1:23:29

And we, he was in psychological

1:23:31

and psychiatric treatment and some,

1:23:33

we all presented for that during that period.

1:23:34

And that's also one of the reasons why we have

1:23:37

to delay his coming around.

1:23:39

I mean, on, as I said before the American side

1:23:42

was very anxious to get it over and done with,

1:23:44

as soon as the political agreement came,

1:23:47

they would have loved if we had taken him the next day.

1:23:50

And we, I deleted basically

1:23:54

because I personally be deleted.

1:23:57

I personally was very much involved

1:23:59

in saying we're not ready yet, I'm sorry.

1:24:01

We are preparing the grounds for this.

1:24:03

We want to do this properly.

1:24:05

He's been sitting there now for a cup of,

1:24:07

for a number of years.

1:24:08

If you, if we tell him from now

1:24:10

that he's going to be released, don't worry too much.

1:24:13

He'll be perfectly happy to wait for another month.

1:24:15

He will carry that one extra month too.

1:24:18

So, I mean, okay, fine.

1:24:24

Let us do our job in the meantime, to prepare the ground

1:24:25

so that the arrival is not too bumpy

1:24:29

and that the adaptation is not too bumpy.

1:24:34

Interviewer

You didn't have a Belgium official

1:24:38

on the plane from Guantanamo.

1:24:40

-

No, we didn't want to be involved in that.

1:24:41

We did not want to be involved in that.

1:24:45

We got no placing in on the plane.

1:24:47

This was the operation that the transfer operation was.

1:24:50

And that's the way also explained it to the American side

1:24:55

that we solved that way that the operation

1:24:58

of the transfer was uniquely American issue

1:25:01

until touchdown and until the guy comes out

1:25:08

of the plane from the moment

1:25:12

that he puts his first toe on the Belgium,

1:25:15

on Belgium soil, it's a uniquely Belgium operation.

1:25:18

There is no gray zone in this.

1:25:22

It's a clear cut.

1:25:26

And it's important that it's being kept as a clear cut,

1:25:28

because otherwise the guy

1:25:32

never breaks loose off of the situation.

1:25:34

Now we know that the American side

1:25:37

has been monitoring him also in Belgium obviously.

1:25:39

I mean, that then you're not going to turn the of course,

1:25:42

then the American Embassy knows, knew where he was

1:25:45

because at a certain point in time

1:25:47

it was actually quite funny at a certain point in time.

1:25:49

Later on months later the American Embassy came

1:25:53

and asked me, came in my office and asked me,

1:25:56

how is he doing?

1:25:58

And where does he live in some?

1:26:00

And I burst out spontaneous laugh.

1:26:02

And I said, you're asking me as Atlas,

1:26:03

you know the color of his front door. (laughs)

1:26:05

Of course, I mean, we know that,

1:26:09

I mean, there is no issue in that.

1:26:10

We don't let, we don't have to play around, obviously.

1:26:12

I mean, so what?

1:26:14

I mean, this is not a bad thing.

1:26:16

This is okay.

1:26:19

I mean, it worked out all in all.

1:26:20

It's been, we were probably, we,

1:26:22

I think we did a good operation on this.

1:26:24

We worked at all quite well.

1:26:26

We were probably not the easiest partner

1:26:28

for the United States to handle.

1:26:32

I wanted to be very clear that this was not

1:26:35

in order to to be obstructive

1:26:39

or to be difficult or to play a power game

1:26:41

or something like that.

1:26:43

Now we decide, and you big brother of the United States,

1:26:45

you are, then it's now our game.

1:26:50

This was not at all the issue.

1:26:52

I mean, it could have easily been interpreted like that.

1:26:54

And I don't know whether nobody did actually.

1:26:57

I don't really care about that.

1:27:01

Our interest in the issue was clearly

1:27:03

much more down to the ground

1:27:06

to say we want this operation to be done properly.

1:27:08

And first of all, also safely,

1:27:13

with the best challenges for the guy to adapt

1:27:16

and to get his life back

1:27:19

and with the best chances for us,

1:27:21

not to run a head straight into a wall of security issues.

1:27:24

That's all we want.

1:27:29

And we thought after proper and mature analysis

1:27:31

that the best way to do was first of all take your time

1:27:36

for the preparation of him, of the effective transfer.

1:27:40

Take your time for it,

1:27:46

because there's a lot a lot of nuts and bolts to be fixed.

1:27:48

I can tell you that many, many things of which you and I

1:27:53

right now are not thinking that need to be done as well.

1:27:56

And the second thing is the clear cut,

1:28:00

give the man the feeling.

1:28:05

We know that the lines are being crossed up and down

1:28:07

in the sense that obviously, I mean,

1:28:10

what should we expect that the American side

1:28:14

is guidance out okay.

1:28:17

Now we're not interested anymore in the guy of course.

1:28:19

They knew perfectly well when he was living

1:28:21

and so on and so.

1:28:24

He never told them by the way.

1:28:25

Yeah, but they knew that it wasn't really a progressive,

1:28:26

well there was not much of a secret to them any more

1:28:31

than then he started coming out themselves

1:28:34

and some but we didn't never actively tell the Americans

1:28:36

here is the address where he lives.

1:28:41

We never did that.

1:28:42

Fact of the matter though is that on both sides,

1:28:45

we respected the clear cut.

1:28:50

It took a little bit of negotiation here and there

1:28:52

but eventually found each others in a partnership.

1:28:54

It worked out quite well.

1:28:58

For operationally, it worked out quite well

1:29:00

between us and the American side.

1:29:02

Interviewer

I know some countries were given money

1:29:05

by the US to help how's--

1:29:07

Johnny

The detainee?

1:29:09

Did you reject it or you never?

1:29:12

-

We never asked him, to my knowledge,

1:29:14

it was never offered either, but we never asked.

1:29:16

We never asked and then basically

1:29:22

there was he was integrated into the social security issued.

1:29:26

The social security mechanism was of the country.

1:29:31

And there was a budget line within foreign affairs that,

1:29:35

with which we could finance the expenses

1:29:45

that the NGO was making.

1:29:49

That was surrounding him,

1:29:52

we were basically financially supporting

1:29:53

as ministry of foreign affairs.

1:29:55

We were financially supporting the NGO

1:29:58

for the expense that it was making.

1:30:02

But this was not about big money.

1:30:04

I mean, we're not talking about big amounts.

1:30:06

We're talking about limited numbers

1:30:08

of a few thousand euros on a yearly basis.

1:30:11

I'm not really, I mean, we're not talking about big amounts.

1:30:15

Interviewer

So was the NGO also supporting

1:30:19

and is that what you're saying?

1:30:21

-

Well, the NGO had to make expenses.

1:30:22

If a guy has to be had around him,

1:30:24

to help him out they have to rent a house for,

1:30:31

and then a house for him.

1:30:33

They have to pay his electricity bills.

1:30:35

They had somebody got to do this.

1:30:37

And the man came with with just the clothes he was wearing.

1:30:39

It had nothing.

1:30:42

So, I mean, he needed to be supported,

1:30:44

food and and vocational trainings

1:30:46

that they provided that they that they had.

1:30:52

We brought them also into vocational trainings.

1:30:54

He did several courses of vocational training.

1:30:58

He did language training and so on.

1:31:00

We all set that up for him.

1:31:03

Interviewer

Is he working now?

1:31:04

-

I don't know.

1:31:06

But at that time he was when January, 2009,

1:31:07

he was working, yeah.

1:31:10

Interviewer

So you--

1:31:12

-

Whether he's working now, but I don't know.

1:31:13

Interviewer

So you feel it was,

1:31:17

you were successful in what you had done?

1:31:18

-

I think so. I think so.

1:31:20

Given the circumstance, it wasn't easy.

1:31:22

It was a bit bumpy from time to time with him

1:31:24

and some support, but in all in all for the time slot

1:31:26

that I'm that I can talk about,

1:31:33

whatever happens last time since then,

1:31:34

I don't even know anymore.

1:31:37

As I said, I have completely taken my wagon

1:31:38

off the train basically.

1:31:41

I mean, I've got enough with Greeks

1:31:43

but at that time, I think, yes,

1:31:45

it was he knew his adaptation was going quite well.

1:31:51

Well, he was actually, it was going

1:31:54

and he lived in a nice little apartment

1:31:55

that was clean and orderly.

1:31:59

And he was working and he was sporting.

1:32:02

He was, I believe he was jogging

1:32:07

or something like that on a regular basis

1:32:10

with this guy from the NGO that was walking around with him.

1:32:12

He had a wife, he had a child.

1:32:15

He was, he looked quite okay.

1:32:22

He was doing quite well.

1:32:27

He, at that time, at least again,

1:32:28

I can't speak for later on but at that time

1:32:31

he had his life back.

1:32:33

Interviewer

Well, if you have any,

1:32:37

if you don't have

1:32:39

anything more to say.

1:32:39

-

No.

Interviewer

That was a wonderful interview.

1:32:40

We need 20 seconds of quiet time

1:32:42

before we close up Johnny room tone, it's called that.

1:32:47

-

Okay.

1:32:50

And then we'll end up.

1:32:51

-

All right, very welcome.

1:32:53

Interviewer

Johnny.

1:32:56

Johnny

Okay, begin room tone.

1:32:56

End room tone.

1:33:23

Reeck, Marc Van den - Interview master file

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