An unreported story from Guantánamo: the tale of Sanad al-Kazimi

In Jane Mayer’s recent investigation of the CIA’s “black sites” for the New Yorker (reviewed here), she presented a previously unreported story (interspersed with others that I cover in The Guantánamo Files) of the time that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spent in the CIA’s secret prisons in Afghanistan, which included two notorious facilities near Kabul: the “Dark Prison” and the “Salt Pit.” She also gave a detailed account, based on comments made by his lawyer, of the experiences of Sanad al-Kazimi, a 37-year old Yemeni, who was held in the Afghan prisons from January 2003 to September 2004, when he was transported to Guantánamo.

Al-Kazimi’s story has been outlined once before, by the British human rights group Cageprisoners, which reported that he was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in January 2003, and was then “illegally rendered into the custody of the United States,” instead of being transferred to the custody of his home government. Tortured for eight months, he was then transferred to the “Dark Prison,” where he “endured further significant and continuous torture and interrogations for a period of nine months,” and then spent four months in Bagram before his transfer to Guantánamo. Cageprisoners reported that, during his detention in Afghanistan, he “endured horrific physical abuse”; specifically, that he was “subjected to sensory deprivation techniques, causing extreme disorientation and psychological stress, physical and sexual assault, threat of rape, and repeated plunging into pools of cold water while suspended in the air by a mechanical lift.”

In reviving al-Kazimi’s story –- and adding new details that have not been reported before –- Jane Mayer spoke to his lawyer, Ramzi Kassem of Yale Law School, who told her that his client had explained to him that, in common with others who experienced the living hell of these prisons, he was “suspended by his arms for long periods, causing his legs to swell painfully … It’s so traumatic, he can barely speak of it. He breaks down in tears.” He also said that al-Kazimi “claimed that, while hanging, he was beaten with electric cables,” and explained that he also told him that, while in the “Dark Prison,” he “attempted suicide three times, by ramming his head into the walls”: “He did it until he lost consciousness. Then they stitched him back up. So he did it again. The next time he woke up, he was chained, and they’d given him tranquillizers. He asked to go to the bathroom, and then he did it again.” On this last occasion, Kassem added, he “was given more tranquillizers, and chained in a more confining manner.”

After hearing of this treatment, one can only wonder how much truth there is in the copious allegations made against al-Kazimi in his tribunal in Guantánamo, in which it was alleged that he arrived in Afghanistan on 18 May 2000, “via the Karachi - Quetta - Kandahar route, using a passport obtained from an al-Qaeda facilitator, for whom he served as a driver,” that he “completed a 45-day military basic training course at a terrorist training camp,” that he swore bayat [a pledge of loyalty] to Osama bin Laden, that he served as a bodyguard for bin Laden from August 2000 to February 2001, and that he “stated that he was honored to be a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.” It was also alleged, in relation to accusations that he “participated in military operations against the United States and its coalition partners,” that he “left Kandahar, and after a 30-minute drive returned to Kandahar to rejoin the fight,” and that, “during their egress from Afghanistan to Pakistan,” he and his family stayed at an al-Qaeda safe house.

Further allegations dealt with his purported activities in the Gulf, after his escape from Pakistan. It was alleged that he was “a participant in several operational meetings with a senior al-Qaeda official in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, during March 2002,” that he “received money to purchase a truck in order to transport explosives from Yemen to Saudi Arabia in the middle of July 2002,” that he received 100,000 Saudi Riyals (about $27,000) to cover the expenses for a forthcoming plot aimed at Dubai’s Port Rashid, that he accompanied an al-Qaeda operative to a flying club in Dubai, and that, while flying with an al-Qaeda operative, he took photos of an airport.

Although al-Kazimi did not take part in his tribunal (having initially agreed to take part), his Personal Representative related his responses to the various allegations in his Unclassified Summary of Evidence. He admitted traveling to Afghanistan, attending a training camp for 45 days, and swearing bayat to Osama bin Laden; crucially, however, he insisted that he “later swore against him, and was wondering why that second sworn statement was not put into this evidence.” He also “admit[ted] nothing” about an allegation that he was one of bin Laden’s bodyguards, and denied a number of other allegations that were not explained in the transcript. When it came to allegations that involved him travelling to Kandahar and staying in a safe house, “He stated that he wasn’t going to Kandahar; he was escaping and that he wasn’t at a safe house. He actually went to a house with his wife and broke down a door. He said he was running away from bin Laden.” In response to an allegation about “rejoining the fight,” he asked, “what fight?” and, as his Personal Representative explained it, said, “There were bombs hitting the house, his wife was injured; he was worried about their safety; it was not a safe house.” He added that he left the house in Kandahar about 6 December 2001, and hid under a bridge for the night, and said that he was trying to get back to Yemen.

According to his Personal Representative, he also said, “the Bush doctrine is fascist, but the truth is very important, which was why he wanted to go to the Tribunal,” and stated that, “when he gets out, he wants to stay in Cuba, and doesn’t want to go back to Yemen. He wants to raise chickens, but the way the government is, he stated he’s fearful the chickens would be considered enemy combatants as well.” His representative added, “He told me he had always told the same consistent story, and that the evidence generated was not logical,” and he also wanted the tribunal to know that “Osama bin Laden told him to go to Yemen to join with … a terrorist organization known for attacking Western buildings and bases, etc. He stated that he received a letter to join, but he refused to join … This is why, he stated, he swore against Osama bin Laden, and all these allegations are not true.”

Whilst it’s clear from al-Kazimi’s story that he is regarded as a “high-value” detainee, who is intended to face one of the 80 or so Military Commissions that the US administration still hopes to convene to try those whom it regards as the most dangerous detainees in Guantánamo, al-Kazimi’s account does nothing to suggest –- as with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed –- that torture produced reliable “intelligence,” and nor is it apparent that, having been subjected to such brutal treatment, his prosecutors will be able to press a case against him without the circumstances of his “confessions” being raised. Generally overlooked in the focus on the “big names” in Guantánamo –- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh –- his case seems to be one of many in which the opinion of Dan Coleman, a veteran FBI agent interviewed by Jane Mayer for a previous article, Outsourcing Torture, is particularly apposite. These are the key passages:

For ten years, Coleman worked closely with the CIA on counter-terrorism cases, including the Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. His methodical style of detective work, in which interrogations were aimed at forging relationships with detainees, became unfashionable after September 11th, in part because the government was intent on extracting information as quickly as possible, in order to prevent future attacks. Yet the more patient approach used by Coleman and other agents had yielded major successes. In the Embassy bombings case, they helped convict four al-Qaeda operatives on three hundred and two criminal counts; all four men pleaded guilty to serious terrorism charges. The confessions the FBI agents elicited, and the trial itself, which ended in May 2001, created an invaluable public record about al-Qaeda, including details about its funding mechanisms, its internal structure, and its intention to obtain weapons of mass destruction. [ … ]

Coleman is a political nonpartisan with a law-and-order mentality. His eldest son is a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan. Yet Coleman was troubled by the Bush Administration’s New Paradigm [a reference to the notorious “Torture Memo” of August 2002, which redefined torture as anything less than serious organ failure or death]. Torture, he said, “has become bureaucratized.” Bad as the policy of rendition was before September 11th, Coleman said, “afterward, it really went out of control.” He explained, “Now, instead of just sending people to third countries, we’re holding them ourselves. We’re taking people, and keeping them in our own custody in third countries. That’s an enormous problem.” Egypt, he pointed out, at least had an established legal system, however harsh. “There was a process there,” Coleman said. “But what’s our process? We have no method over there other than our laws – and we’ve decided to ignore them. What are we now, the Huns? If you don’t talk to us, we’ll kill you?” [ … ]

Coleman was angry that lawyers in Washington were redefining the parameters of counter-terrorism interrogations. “Have any of these guys ever tried to talk to someone who’s been deprived of his clothes?” he asked. “He’s going to be ashamed, and humiliated, and cold. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear to get his clothes back. There’s no value in it.” Coleman said that he had learned to treat even the most despicable suspects as if there were “a personal relationship, even if you can’t stand them.” He said that many of the suspects he had interrogated expected to be tortured, and were stunned to learn that they had rights under the American system. Due process made detainees more compliant, not less, Coleman said. He had also found that a defendant’s right to legal counsel was beneficial not only to suspects but also to law-enforcement officers. Defense lawyers frequently persuaded detainees to cooperate with prosecutors, in exchange for plea agreements. “The lawyers show these guys there’s a way out,” Coleman said. “It’s human nature. People don’t cooperate with you unless they have some reason to.”