Binyam Free! & statement.
Statement of Binyam Mohamed
23.02.2009
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. 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.
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.
While I want to recover, and put it all as far in my past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers. My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.
I am grateful that in the end I was not simply left to my fate. I am grateful to my lawyers and other staff at Reprieve, and to Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, who fought for my freedom. I am grateful to the members of the British Foreign Office who worked for my release. And I want to thank people around Britain who wrote to me in Guantánamo Bay to keep my spirits up, as well as to the members of the media who tried to make sure that the world knew what was going on. I know I would not be home in Britain today if it were not for everyone’s support. Indeed, I might not be alive at all.
I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not. There are still 241 Muslim prisoners in Guantánamo. Many have long since been cleared even by the US military, yet cannot go anywhere as they face persecution. For example, Ahmed bel Bacha lived here in Britain, and desperately needs a home. Then there are thousands of other prisoners held by the US elsewhere around the world, with no charges, and without access to their families.
And I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years. For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.
I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.
Thank you.
--Binyam Mohamed
Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed released back to Britain
23.02.2009
After a long battle with the US authorities, Reprieve is pleased to announce that Binyam Mohamed has been released from Guantánamo Bay and will today arrive in Britain.
He will be met by a doctor and his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Gareth Pierce, together with family and friends who will take him to a quiet place to recover from his ordeal.
Binyam’s sister Zuhra, who travelled to London to meet him, said: “I am so glad and so happy, more than words can express. I am so thankful for everything that was done for Binyam to make this day come true.”
Mr. Mohamed is a victim of “extraordinary rendition” and torture. He was initially held illegally in Pakistan for four months, which is where a British intelligence agent interrogated him under circumstances later found to be illegal by the British courts. He was rendered to Morocco by the CIA on July 21, 2002, where he was tortured for 18 months, with the British government supplying information and questions used by the Moroccan torturers. On January 21, 2004, he was rendered a second time, to the secret “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan, where his torture continued. Since September 2004, he has been held in Guantánamo Bay. He has never been tried for any crime.
“We hope and expect that the government will allow Binyam’s immediate release,” said Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith. “He is a victim who has suffered more than any human being should ever suffer. He just wants to go somewhere very quiet and try to recover. Every moment that he is held compounds the abuse he has endured.”
For the past several weeks, Mr. Mohamed has been on hunger strike against the continuing abuse he was subjected to in Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. Mohamed specifically asked all media covering his release to thank all those in Britain who have worked for his freedom, including many members of the British government.
http://www.reprieve.org.uk
23.02.2009
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. 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.
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.
While I want to recover, and put it all as far in my past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers. My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.
I am grateful that in the end I was not simply left to my fate. I am grateful to my lawyers and other staff at Reprieve, and to Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, who fought for my freedom. I am grateful to the members of the British Foreign Office who worked for my release. And I want to thank people around Britain who wrote to me in Guantánamo Bay to keep my spirits up, as well as to the members of the media who tried to make sure that the world knew what was going on. I know I would not be home in Britain today if it were not for everyone’s support. Indeed, I might not be alive at all.
I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not. There are still 241 Muslim prisoners in Guantánamo. Many have long since been cleared even by the US military, yet cannot go anywhere as they face persecution. For example, Ahmed bel Bacha lived here in Britain, and desperately needs a home. Then there are thousands of other prisoners held by the US elsewhere around the world, with no charges, and without access to their families.
And I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years. For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.
I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.
Thank you.
--Binyam Mohamed
Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed released back to Britain
23.02.2009
After a long battle with the US authorities, Reprieve is pleased to announce that Binyam Mohamed has been released from Guantánamo Bay and will today arrive in Britain.
He will be met by a doctor and his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Gareth Pierce, together with family and friends who will take him to a quiet place to recover from his ordeal.
Binyam’s sister Zuhra, who travelled to London to meet him, said: “I am so glad and so happy, more than words can express. I am so thankful for everything that was done for Binyam to make this day come true.”
Mr. Mohamed is a victim of “extraordinary rendition” and torture. He was initially held illegally in Pakistan for four months, which is where a British intelligence agent interrogated him under circumstances later found to be illegal by the British courts. He was rendered to Morocco by the CIA on July 21, 2002, where he was tortured for 18 months, with the British government supplying information and questions used by the Moroccan torturers. On January 21, 2004, he was rendered a second time, to the secret “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan, where his torture continued. Since September 2004, he has been held in Guantánamo Bay. He has never been tried for any crime.
“We hope and expect that the government will allow Binyam’s immediate release,” said Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith. “He is a victim who has suffered more than any human being should ever suffer. He just wants to go somewhere very quiet and try to recover. Every moment that he is held compounds the abuse he has endured.”
For the past several weeks, Mr. Mohamed has been on hunger strike against the continuing abuse he was subjected to in Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. Mohamed specifically asked all media covering his release to thank all those in Britain who have worked for his freedom, including many members of the British government.
http://www.reprieve.org.uk
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