The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Ille

351 Pages·2007·2.19 MB·English

by  Andy Worthington

The Guantánamo Files
The Stories of the 774 Detainees
in America’s Illegal Prison
ANDY WORTHINGTON
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
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First published 2007 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Andy Worthington 2007
The right of Andy Worthington to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback
ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2665 8
ISBN-10 0 7453 2665 X
Paperback
ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2664 1
ISBN-10 0 7453 2664 1
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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to
conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Map xi
Preface xii
1. “Operation Enduring Freedom” 1
Osama bin Laden: Wanted, Dead or Alive 1
“Operation Enduring Freedom” 5
2. The Qala-i-Janghi Massacre 9
The “uprising” 9
The survivors’ stories 11
3. The Convoy of Death 19
Yerghanek and Qala Zeini 19
Sheberghan 23
4. Tora Bora 26
Tora Bora 26
The survivors 29
5. Escape to Pakistan: “Osama’s Bodyguards” 40
The fi rst group of prisoners 40
Religious teachers and humanitarian aid workers 43
6. Escape to Pakistan: Saudis and Yemenis 49
The second group of prisoners 49
The Saudi foot soldiers 50
The Saudi humanitarian aid workers and religious
teachers 54
The Yemenis 57
7. Escape to Pakistan: The Diaspora 61
The Jalalabad connection: Europeans and North Africans 61
Other Europeans and North Africans 67
Other humanitarian aid workers and religious teachers 72
The Uyghurs 76
Detention in Pakistan 78
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vi THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES
8. Kandahar 81
The fall of Kandahar and the escape of Mullah Omar 81
The prison opens 84
Abusive treatment during detention 86
Abandoning the Geneva Conventions 89
Interrogations 91
Abuse during interrogations by the CIA and Special Forces 96
9. From Sheberghan to Kandahar 100
Screening 100
Afghans transferred from Sheberghan 102
Pakistanis transferred from Sheberghan 104
An Australian exception 108
10. Others Captured in Afghanistan 111
Other foreigners transferred to Kandahar 111
The “spies” 114
Other Afghan prisoners 117
The Taliban prisoners 120
11. Guantánamo opens 125
“Enemy combatants” 125
Intelligence failures 128
Camp X-Ray 130
The Extreme Reaction Force 133
12. House Raids and Other Arrests in Pakistan 135
Random arrests 135
The fi rst house raids 143
The capture of Riyadh the Facilitator 147
13. The Capture of Abu Zubaydah and its Aftermath 152
The capture of Abu Zubaydah 152
Other house raids 158
Other random arrests 167
14. Bagram 170
From Kandahar to Bagram 170
Torture and abuse 172
Afghans sent to Bagram 177
Other foreigners captured in Afghanistan 182
Murders in Bagram 187
15. Torture, Abuse and False Confessions in Guantánamo 191
The abusive reign of Geoffrey Miller 191
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THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES vii
“Setting the conditions” 194
Torture and the Pentagon 199
The torture of Mohammed al-Qahtani 205
False confessions 209
16. “Extraordinary Rendition,” “Ghost” Prisoners and
Secret Prisons 215
“Extraordinary rendition” 215
The al-Wafa prisoners 216
Tortured in Egypt 218
Mohamedou Ould Slahi 221
The six Bosnians 222
The “Dark Prison” 224
Rendered from Zambia 227
Tortured in Morocco 229
The “Salt Pit” 231
The capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh 234
The Yemeni colonel 236
Rendered from the Gambia 237
Renditions in 2003 239
Captured by the Russian mafi a 240
17. Losing the War in Afghanistan 244
More murders in US custody 244
Capturing Karzai’s men 245
Other betrayals 250
Teenagers and farmers 252
A sad conclusion 255
18. Challenging the Law 257
The fi rst challenges 257
Testimonies of released prisoners 260
Landmark decisions in the Supreme Court 261
Combatant Status Review Tribunals 264
The fi rst Military Commissions 266
The Detainee Treatment Act 267
19. Suicides and Hunger Strikes 269
The three suicides 269
Other suicide attempts 270
Hunger strikes and the abuse of the Koran 271
Medical malpractice 276
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viii THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES
20. Endgame? 281
Another landmark decision in the Supreme Court 281
The 14 “high-value” prisoners 282
The Military Commissions Act 288
No end in sight 289
Notes 296
Index 325
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Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support of
Roger van Zwanenberg, my editor at Pluto, who saw its potential
in the summer of 2006 when I approached him with a proposal.
Nor would it have been possible without the efforts of those at the
Associated Press, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center
for Constitutional Rights to force the US government to release the
documents relating to the prisoners in Guantánamo that formed the
basis of my research. It’s a testament to the importance of the American
legal system—and its beleaguered Constitution—that Freedom of
Information legislation exists to compel an administration bent on
unfettered executive power to release documents which, on close
inspection, reveal the errors, ineptitude and cruelty underpinning the
Guantánamo regime.
Thanks are also due to the many people who have helped with
information and encouragement, including Clive Stafford Smith,
Zachary Katznelson and Cori Crider at Reprieve, Maryam
Hassan, Dr. Adnan Siddiqui, Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi at
Cageprisoners, Marc Falkoff, Candace Gorman, Anant Raut, Joshua
Colangelo-Bryan, Mark and Josh Denbeaux, Anna Cayton-Holland,
Shawn Nolan, Louise Christian, Katharine Newall Bierman and
Joanne Mariner at Human Rights Watch, Farid Khan at the Afghan
embassy, Val Stevenson, Peter Bergen, Marty Fisher, Stephen Grey,
Mike Otterman, David Rose, Jo Glanville, Seth Farber, Polly Nash
and Farah Stockman at the Boston Globe.
And fi nally, as with everything I do, this project would not have
been possible without the support of my wife Dot and our son Tyler.
I dedicate it to Tyler, in the hope that he will grow up to see a more
just and less brutal world, to the children of those in Guantánamo,
deprived of their fathers for so many years, and, of course, to the
prisoners themselves, not only in Guantánamo but also in every other
illegal prison established in the wake of 9/11. It’s a sign of the current
ix
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x THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES
US administration’s shameful dismissal of established legal principles
that, after nearly six years of imprisonment, a book like this is required
to tell their stories.
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xi
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