I have followed Binyam Mohamed’s story and life for about two years now. I was at Heathrow Airport with my girlfriend at the time, waiting for a plane to take us to Vietnam. The trip was life changing but I had expected that. An impulse purchase of a book that I thought might be interesting turned out to also be life changing. I hadn’t expected that.
The book is titled “Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons” and was written by Human Rights Lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith. He was Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer while Binyam was imprisoned at Guantanamo.
Binyam Mohamed was kidnapped during the US “war on terror” in Pakistan. He was then taken to Morocco by the CIA and tortured. After that he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he was detained for four and a half years without trial. He was eventually released and got back to the UK on 23rd February 2009.
Mohamed is one of Stafford-Smith’s main case studies in the book. The humanity, humour and general decency that comes across from him is astonishing in relation to what he went through. He was horrifically tortured throughout his time as a prisoner and he was proved innocent. He had gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 to “see the Muslim world through his own eyes.” He had lived in Britain and had a drug problem.
In a commission he held up a sign that read “con-mission” to convey his views on his situation. He also insisted that Stafford-Smith got him a Dutch football shirt to wear. Holland’s kit colours are orange, the same colour of Binyam’s prison outfit that he wore everyday in Guantanamo.
Stafford-Smith described his first meeting with Binyam in his book: “Binyam was twenty-seven. He was tall and gangling, dark-skinned, originally from Ethiopia. He smiled and immediately told me how glad he was to see me. He spoke quietly, with a particular dignity. Some prisoners would take many hours of convincing that I was not from the CIA, but Binyam immediately opened up.”
I have an affinity with this story because I read Clive Stafford-Smith’s book before anyone knew about Binyam Mohamed. Therefore I feel there is an importance that his case is realised by as many people as possible. There are many other terror suspects who have been detained without charge and there are many people still detained today. But this particular case is documented superbly and I implore people to take the time to find it and read it.
March 23, 2010 at 12:59 am |
Really interesting stuff, good blog