After Guantánamo, another injustice
Superpower’s Shame | The books of John Grisham are banned at Guantánamo Bay. Here the author shares the tragic tale of one of his fans among the detainees
ABOUT two months ago I learnt that some of my books had been banned at Guantánamo Bay. Apparently detainees were requesting them, and their lawyers were delivering them to the prison, but they were not allowed in because of “impermissible content”.
I became curious and tracked down a detainee who enjoys my books — Nabil Hadjarab, 34, an Algerian who grew up in France. He learned to speak French before he learned to speak Arabic. He has close family and friends in France, but not Algeria. As a kid, he was a gifted soccer player and dreamt of playing for Paris St-Germain.
Tragically for Nabil, he has spent the past 11 years as a prisoner at Guantánamo, much of the time in solitary confine- ment. Starting in February, he participated in a hunger strike, which led to his being force-fed.
For reasons that had nothing to do with terror, war or criminal behaviour, Nabil was living in an Algerian guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 11 2001. Following the US invasion, word spread among the Arab communities that the Afghan Northern Alliance was rounding up and killing foreign Arabs. Nabil and many others headed for Pakistan to escape the danger. En route, he said, he was wounded in a bombing raid and woke up in hospital.
At that time, the US was throwing money at anyone who could deliver an out-of-town Arab found in the region. Nabil was sold to the US for a bounty of $5 000 (about R50 000) and taken to an underground prison in Kabul. There he experienced torture for the first time. To house the prisoners of its war on terror, the US military put up a makeshift prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. When Nabil arrived there in January 2002, there were no walls, only razor-wire cages.
In the bitter cold, Nabil was forced to sleep on concrete floors without cover. Food and water were scarce. He was beaten by US soldiers and dragged up and down concrete stairs. Other prisoners died.
Throughout his incarceration in Afghanistan, he denied any connection to al-Qaeda, the Taliban or anyone or any organisation remotely linked to the 9/11 attacks. And the Americans had no proof of his involvement, save for bogus claims implicating him from other prisoners extracted in a Kabul torture chamber. Several US interrogators told him his was a case of mistaken identity. Nonetheless, the US had adopted strict rules for Arabs in custody — all were to be sent to Guantánamo. On February 15 2002, he was flown to Cuba, shackled, bound and hooded.
Since then, he has been subjected to all the horrors of the Gitmo handbook: sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, temperature extremes, prolonged isolation, lack of access to sunlight, almost no recreation and limited medical care. In 11 years, he has never been permitted a visit from a family member. For reasons known only to the men who run the prison, Nabil has never been waterboarded. His lawyer believes this is because he knows
Nabil has not been the only ‘mistake’ in the war on terror . . . There have been no apologies. The US has been dead wrong, but no one can admit it
nothing and has nothing to give.
The US government says otherwise. In documents, military prosecutors say Nabil was staying at a guesthouse run by people with ties to al-Qaeda and was named by others as someone affiliated to terrorists. But Nabil has never been charged with a crime. Indeed, on two occasions he has been cleared for a “transfer”, or release. In 2007, a review board recommended his release. Nothing happened. In 2009, another review board established by President Barack Obama recommended his transfer. Nothing happened.
I have met a number of innocent men who were sent to death row as part of my work with the Innocence Project, which works to free wrongly convicted people. Without exception, they have told me that the harshness of isolated con- finement is brutal for a coldblooded murderer who freely admits to his crimes. For an innocent man, though, death row will shove him dangerously close to insanity. You reach a point where it feels impossible to survive another day.
Nabil joined a hunger strike in February. This was not Gitmo’s first hunger strike, but it has attracted the most attention. As it gained momentum, the Obama administration was backed into a corner. The president has taken justified heat because his campaign promises to close Gitmo have not been forgotten. Suddenly, he was faced with the prospect of prisoners dropping like flies as they starved themselves to death.
The administration decided to prevent suicides by force-feeding the strikers. Nabil has not been the only “mistake” in the US war on terror. Hundreds of other Arabs have been sent to Gitmo, chewed up by the system there, never charged and eventually transferred back to their home countries. There have been no apologies, no official statements of regret, no compensation. The US was dead wrong, but no one can admit it.
In Nabil’s case, the US military and intelligence agents relied on corrupt informants who were raking in US cash or, even worse, jailhouse snitches who swapped false stories for candy bars, porn and sometimes just a break from their own beatings.
Last week the Obama administration announced it was transferring some more prisoners back to Algeria. It is likely Nabil will be one of them, and if that happens, another tragic mistake will be made. His nightmare will only continue. He will be homeless. He will have no support to reintegrate him into a society where many will be hostile to a former Gitmo de- tainee, either on the assumption that he is an extremist or because he refuses to join the extremist opposition to the Algerian government. Instead of admitting they were wrong, the US authorities will whisk him away, dump him in Algiers and wash their hands.
What should they do? Or what should we do? First, admit the mistake and make the apology. Second, provide compensation. US taxpayers have spent $2-million a year for 11 years to keep Nabil at Gitmo; give the guy a few thousand bucks to get on his feet. Third, pressure the French to allow his re-entry.
This sounds simple, but it will never happen. — © The New York Times