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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 8th,
2009 - Recently Released Gitmo Detainee Talks to ABC News |
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Recently Released Gitmo
Detainee Talks to ABC News Held Seven Years, Former Aid Worker Tells ABC News He Was Tortured By Jake Tapper, Karen Travers & Stephanie Z. Smith ABC News June 8, 2009 For 7½ years, Lakhdar
Boumediene was known simply by a number: "10005." These were the digits
assigned to him when he arrived at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, swept up in a post-Sept. 11 dragnet and accused of plotting to blow up
the U.S. and British Embassies in Sarajevo. In an exclusive interview
with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked
him about this alleged plot, which he denied playing any part it. "I'm a normal
man," said Boumediene, who at the time of his arrest worked for the Red
Crescent, providing help to orphans and others in need. "I'm not a
terrorist." The 43-year-old Algerian is
now back with his wife and two daughters, a free man in France after a
Republican judge found the evidence against Boumediene lacking. He is best
known from the landmark Supreme Court case last year, Boumediene v. Bush,
which said detainees have the right to challenge their detention in court. That decision was a stunning
rebuke of the Bush administration's policies on terror suspects. It set up a
ruling by District Court Judge Richard Leon, a former counsel to Republicans
in Congress appointed to the bench by Bush, that there was no credible
evidence to keep Boumediene detained. After what Boumediene
described as a 7½ year nightmare, he is now a free man. Boumediene: "I
don't think. I'm sure" about torture. In 2001, Boumediene, his
wife and two young daughters lived in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He worked for the Red
Crescent Society, having done stints for the organization in Pakistan and
Albania. He was arrested by Bosnian
police in October 2001 and charged with conspiring to blow up the U.S. and
British Embassies. He called the charges false and ludicrous. "They search my car, my
office, nothing. Cell phone, nothing. Nothing. Nothing," he said. The charges were dropped,
and the Bosnian courts ordered him and five others freed. But under pressure
from the Bush administration, the Bosnian government handed him over to the
U.S. military. On January 17, 2002,
Boumediene's hands and feet were placed in shackles, and he was put on a
military plane en route to Guantanamo Bay. It was a time of high anxiety, and
the Bush administration was taking no chances. Two weeks later, in his
State of the Union address, President Bush touted the arrests in Bosnia to
show early progress in the war on terror. "Our soldiers, working
with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our
embassy," Bush said in his address. To this day, officials of the Bush
administration have provided no credible evidence to back up that accusation. Boumediene said the
interrogations began within one week of his arrival at the facility in Cuba.
But he thought that his cooperation, and trust in the United States, would
serve him well and quicken his release. "I thought America, the
big country, they have CIA, FBI. Maybe one week, two weeks, they know I am
innocent. I can go back to my home, to my home," he said. But instead, Boumediene said
he endured harsh treatment for more than seven years. He said he was kept
awake for 16 days straight, and physically abused repeatedly. Asked if he thought he was
tortured, Boumediene was unequivocal. "I don't think. I'm
sure," he said. Boumediene described being
pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs
shackled, stretching him. He said that he was forced to run with the camp's
guards and if he could not keep up, he was dragged, bloody and bruised. He described what he called
the "games" the guards would play after he began a hunger strike,
putting his food IV up his nose and poking the hypodermic needle in the wrong
part of his arm. "You think that's not
torture? What's this? What can you call this? Torture or what?" he said,
indicating the scars he bears from tight shackles. "I'm an animal? I'm
not a human?" Vice President Dick Cheney
has been adamant in his defense of the Guantanamo detention center and the
treatment of those held there. Last week Cheney said,
"The facility down there is a fine facility. These people are very well
treated." Oddly, Boumediene said no
one at Gitmo ever asked him about the alleged plot to blow up the embassies
in Sarajevo. They wanted to know what he knew about al Qaeda and Osama bin
Laden, he recounted, which was nothing. Boumediene said it was in
his interest to lie to the interrogators, who would reward the detainees if
they admitted guilt. "If I tell my
interrogator, I am from Al Qaeda, I saw Osama bin Laden, he was my boss, I
help him, they will tell me, 'Oh you are a good man,'" he said.
"But if I refuse? I tell them I'm innocent, never was I terrorist, never
never, they tell me. 'You are, you are not cooperating, I have to punch
you.'" After nearly four years
locked up, Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest his treatment. He said he had believed that
the United States honored religious diversity but believed guards at
Guantanamo took actions to disrespect his religious beliefs. "They
shaved my beard, because they don't respect me, because the guards they don't
let me sleep. They don't let me read my Koran, they don't let me pray normal
like people like Muslim outside the Guantanamo," he said. Boumediene broke his hunger
strike just twice over 2½ years - first, when he learned of Barack Obama's
election win and next when Judge Leon ordered his release. Despite the harsh treatment
and uncertainty over his fate, Boumediene said he did not want to die because
he had something to live for back home. "Every day, I think
about my wife and my daughters," he said. Boumediene's personal
effects were taken from him at Guantanamo, including his wedding ring. He now
has a stack of letters, that his wife wrote to him that never arrived, a
"return to sender" stamp on the envelope. "Over there you lose
all the hopes, you lose all hope," he said. "Any good news, they
don't want you to be happy." It took more than six years
before Boumediene started to receive good news. Boumediene v. Bush Last summer, in a landmark
war-time decision, the Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects held at
Guantanamo have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in
federal court. The decision was a harsh
rebuke to the Bush administration's system for detaining and eventually
trying terror suspects. In a blistering dissent,
Justice Antonin Scalia said allowing federal judges, rather than military
officials, to release terror suspects could have disastrous consequences. "The game of
bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the nation's commander in
chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more
Americans to be killed," he wrote. Boumediene saw the 5-4
decision as his first victory against President Bush. His second came last
November when Judge Leon ruled that the evidence against Boumediene was weak
- a "thin reed," he called it - and ordered his release from
Guantanamo. The Bush administration
never charged him with conspiring to blow up the embassies. Rather they said
Boumediene and others had been planning to travel to Afghanistan to fight the
United States. To mark the occasion,
Boumediene made himself a T-shirt that, like a soccer scoreboard, reads,
"Boumediene: 2, Bush: 0." Last month, in a tearful
ceremony at an airport outside Paris, Boumediene was reunited with his
family. His daughters, who were toddlers when he was detained, are 13 and 9
years old. "I cried, just cried.
Because I don't know my daughters," he said. "The younger, when I
moved from Bosnia to Gitmo, she had 18 months, only 18 months. Now 9 years.
Now she's big. Between 18 months, baby and 9 years, she walking, she's talking,
she play, she's joking. It's a big difference." Because of his hunger
strike, Boumediene was not in good health when he arrived in France. He was
treated at a military hospital and could not eat regular food at first. After he was released from
the hospital, he went with his wife and daughters to enjoy a first meal as a
family in seven and a half year. On the menu? Pizza. Sarkozy, Obama Work Out Detainee Plan At the request of the White
House, France agreed to take in Boumediene. Obama spoke with French President
Nikolas Sarkozy on April 3 in Strasbourg France about the possibility of
taking in prisoners released from Guantanamo. "If then the President
of the United States says, I'm going to close down Guantanamo, but I need my
allies to take -- in this particular instance, this one person - into our
prisons, because this is going to help me, the U.S. President, to shut down
this base - if we are consistent, then we say, yes," Sarkozy said that
day. But neither the US nor
French governments thought Boumediene needed to be imprisoned. He is a free
man, trying to figure out what to do next. Three others from his group
are back in Bosnia. Two remain in Guantanamo. Obama personally thanked
Sarkozy on Saturday in France. "I very much appreciate
President Sarkozy's leadership on a whole range of issues," he said,
including, "France's willingness to accept a Guantanamo detainee." Boumediene: "I try to
forget Guantanamo" Boumediene said he
understands, to a degree, how the attacks of Sept. 11 prompted strong
reactions from the U.S. government. "The first month, okay,
no problem, the building, the 11 of September, the people, they are scared,
but not 7 years. They can know whose innocent, who's not innocent, who's
terrorist, who's not terrorist," he said. "I give you 2 years, no
problem, but not 7 years." Boumediene stressed that he
has no problem with the American people but could not hide his anger against
Bush and other senior administration officials who he called
"stupid." "Myself, I try to
forget Guantanamo, I can't forget the four or five people, they are stupid,
they are very very stupid. I can't forget them," he said. Boumediene and his attorney
said they are considering a lawsuit against the U.S. government but more importantly,
they say, he needs money to survive. "I think that he needs
to have an income paid to him for the rest of his life," said his
attorney, Robert Kirsch of the law firm WilmerHale. "His family
essentially has been thrown into poverty because of a mistake that we made
seven-and-a-half years ago. What he needs is a chance to get back where he
would have been." As for Boumediene's
allegations of abuse, the Pentagon said, "Any abuse of detainees is
unacceptable. It is against our values, endangers our security and is not
tolerated. All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated and,
when substantiated, individuals are held accountable for their actions." ABC News' Christophe
Schpoliansky contributed to the story. Copyright © 2009 ABC News
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