[Ppnews] Who is Binyam Mohamed?

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington02242009.html

February 24, 2009


The Long Road to Recovery


Who is Binyam Mohamed?

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

As British resident Binyam Mohamed stepped off a 
plane at RAF Northolt on Monday February 23, six 
years and ten months since he was first abducted 
by the Pakistani authorities at Karachi airport, 
it was impossible not to sympathize with the 
words written in 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/02/23/binyam-mohameds-statement-on-his-release-from-guantanamo/>a 
statement made by the tall, thin, 
slightly-stooped 30-year old, and delivered by 
his lawyers at a press conference.

“I hope you will understand that after everything 
I have been through I am neither physically nor 
mentally capable of facing the media on the 
moment of my arrival back to Britain,” the 
statement read. “Please forgive me if I make a 
simple statement through my lawyer. I hope to be 
able to do better in days to come, when I am on the road to recovery.”

For the last three and half years, since Binyam 
Mohamed’s lawyers (at 
<http://www.reprieve.org.uk/>Reprieve, the legal 
action charity) first released 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/02/terrorism.humanrights1>his 
harrowing account of his torture in Morocco at 
the hands of the CIA’s proxy torturers, the 
British resident’s story has, understandably, had 
few bright episodes. As Clive Stafford Smith, 
Reprieve’s director, explained in his book 
<http://www.amazon.com/Eight-OClock-Ferry-Windward-Side/dp/1568584091>Eight 
O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side, during the 
three days in Guantánamo that Binyam related the 
story of his horrendous ordeal -- for 18 months 
in Morocco, and then for another five months at 
the CIA’s own 
“<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington12152008.html>Dark 
Prison” near Kabul, until he finally made false 
confessions that he was involved with al-Qaeda 
and had planned to detonate a radioactive 
“<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington10162008.html>dirty 
bomb” in New York -- he explained, “I’m sorry I 
have no emotion when talking about the past, 
‘cause I have closed. You have to figure out the 
emotion part -- I’m kind of dead in the head.”

And yet, as Binyam embarks on his long “road to 
recovery” -- attended by his lawyers, and, 
mercifully, by his sister Zuhra, who flew from 
her home in the United States to meet him, and to 
fill what would otherwise have been an aching 
void, as Binyam has no family in the UK -- it is 
unlikely that the media will, in general, manage 
to report much of the man behind the myth that has grown up around him.

To that end, I thought it appropriate to relate a 
few anecdotes that bring Binyam the human being, 
rather than Binyam the prisoner, to life. The 
first comes from Stafford Smith’s book, where he 
describes his first meeting with Binyam as follows:

“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.”

Of particular interest is an extraordinary 
chapter, “Con-mission,” which relates the 
farcical story of Binyam’s first hearing for his 
proposed trial by Military Commission at 
Guantánamo, in 2006, just before the Commissions 
were declared illegal by the US Supreme Court. 
It’s worth buying the book for this chapter 
alone, as it explains in extraordinary detail 
quite how farcical Guantánamo’s 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington10032008.html>rigged 
trial system was, and how it was exploited 
mercilessly by Binyam, who arranged for Stafford 
Smith to get him “a proper type of Islamic 
dress,” dyed orange (he wanted a Dutch football 
shirt, but Reprieve couldn’t find one), to make a 
clear visual statement in court that he was no 
ordinary defendant and this was no ordinary 
trial. He also asked for a marker pen and a piece 
of card, and, during the hearing, after he had 
thrown the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kolhmann, off 
his stride by launching into a rambling monologue 
about justice that Kohlmann found himself unable 
to interrupt, he took the marker pen, scrawled 
“CON-MISSION” on it, showed it to the gathered 
journalists, and declared, “this is not a 
commission, this is a con-mission, is a mission 
to con the world, and that’s what it is, you understand.”

Warming to his theme, as Col. Kohlmann “ was 
staring into the headlights of Binyam’s speech 
and could see no way to cut him off,” he continued,

“When are you going to stop this? This is not the 
way to deal with this issue. That is why I don’t 
want to call this place a courtroom, because I don’t think it is a courtroom.”

“I am sure you wouldn’t agree with it, because if 
you was arrested somewhere in Arabia and Bin 
Laden says, ‘You know what, you are my enemy but 
I am going to force you to have a lawyer and I 
give you some bearded turban person,’ I don't 
think you will agree with that. Forget the rules, 
regulations and crap ... you wouldn't deal with 
that. That is where we are. This is a bad place. You are in charge of it.”

Stafford Smith then proceeded to explain:

“It was an extraordinary lecture. Binyam finally 
came to a firm conclusion. ‘I am done. You can 
stop looking at the watch,’ he said. He then 
turned away from Kohlmann, as if to ignore any 
response. He was holding up his sign, 
‘CON-MISSION,’ and waving it to the journalists 
behind him, just in case they had missed it the first time.”

The other story was related by another British 
resident held at Guantánamo, Bisher al-Rawi, who 
was 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington06202007.html>released 
in March 2007, and his words capture how Binyam’s 
concern for justice permeated his entire approach 
to his imprisonment, and, in Bisher’s opinion, 
also reflected a very British approach that he 
had learned during the seven years he had lived in the UK before his capture:

“He is so British -- I mean so British! The way 
he stands, the way he talks, his painstaking use 
of logic. He's such a gentleman. And he is 
knowledgeable and he stands up for his rights in 
a really British way. Like with S.O.P. This is 
something the guards have. It is called Standard 
Operating Procedure -- S.O.P. And the funny thing 
about this Standard Operating Procedure is that 
it changes every day. Every day you have new 
Standard Operating Procedure. And Binyam, he 
draws attention to this and insists on his 
entitlement to be treated the same way as the 
Standard Operating Procedure dictated the day 
before. And they hate him for this. But he's just being British.”

Perhaps the 
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article5780273.ece>media 
snipers who are asking why Binyam should be 
allowed back into the UK would like to dwell on 
this as they ignore both the seven years that he 
lived in Britain, when, as MI5 confirmed, he was 
“a nobody,” and was not wanted in connection with 
any crime, and the seven years that he spent in 
the custody of the United States -- or its proxy 
torturers -- when, as David Miliband, the foreign 
secretary, 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/02/05/the-betrayal-of-british-torture-victim-binyam-mohamed/>has 
conceded, he had “established an arguable case” 
that “he was subject to cruel, inhuman and 
degrading treatment by or on behalf of the United 
States,” and was also “subject to torture during 
such detention by or on behalf of the United States.”

In addition, as the British government 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/02/21/binyam-mohameds-coming-home-from-guantanamo-as-torture-allegations-mount/>struggles 
with claims that it has regularly fed 
intelligence information about British “terror 
suspects” seized in Pakistan to Pakistani agents, 
knowing full well that the Pakistanis regularly 
use torture, those same critics might want to 
recall the words of the judges who reviewed 
Binyam’s case in the High Court last summer. 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington08302008.html>The 
judges explained that the British government’s 
involvement in Binyam’s case, and its 
relationship to the US -- which involved sending 
agents to interview him in Pakistan, even though 
he was being held illegally, and providing and 
receiving intelligence about him while he was 
being tortured in Morocco -- “went far beyond 
that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing.”

There are more revelations to come about torture 
policies that involve -- or involved -- the US, 
the UK, Morocco, Pakistan and a host of other 
countries, but for now I’m content to let one of 
its victims try to rebuild his life in peace. As 
Binyam also explained in his statement after his release,

“I have been through an experience that I never 
thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. 
Before this ordeal, ‘torture’ was an abstract 
word to me. I could never have imagined that I 
would be its victim. It is still difficult for me 
to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one 
country to the next, and tortured in medieval 
ways -- all orchestrated by the United States government.”

Andy Worthington is a British historian, and the 
author of 
'<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745326641/counterpunchmaga>The 
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 
Detainees in America's Illegal Prison' (published 
by Pluto Press). Visit his website at: 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/>www.andyworthington.co.uk
He can be reached at: 
<mailto:andy at andyworthington.co.uk>andy at andyworthington.co.uk




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