My Guantanamo Diary (18 page)

Al-Aslami continued to work at the grocery story for years, until he eventually saved up enough money to buy it. He wanted to get married and provide for a family. When he turned fifteen, the family arranged a marriage to his first cousin, Hayat Warshad Ali. The two grew to love each other, and the elder al-Aslami described his son as a devoted husband who liked to make his wife laugh. “His biggest joy was pampering her and his mother,” he said with a chuckle. It was the only moment of happiness I sensed during that long-distance call.

Al-Aslami wanted to expand his shop and import spices and perhaps textiles, so he planned a trip to Pakistan, which was just a short flight away.

“My son went to Pakistan to expand his business,” his father told me. “Nothing more.”

The family didn’t think anything of the young man’s trip. Many Arabs travel to neighboring countries for commerce and to do charitable work. But it would be the last time that they would see him.

The family became worried as weeks and months went by without a phone call. Then, one day, the Red Cross delivered a letter. “I am in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” al-Aslami wrote. “This is a place where there are no rights, and there is no justice. I’m afraid there is nothing I can do, so I leave my fate and my freedom in the hands of the Almighty. Please write to me and send me letters.”

The family was relieved to know where he was and hoped that the U.S. military would investigate and soon release him. After all, “America was known around the world for its justice system,” Amar said.

The family replied to Salah’s letter countless times—first writing long letters and then simple short ones, simply pleading for another word.

“I don’t remember how many times we wrote, but we never heard from him again,” the elder al-Aslami told me quietly. “We never got another letter. We only received his body.”

Six days after the alleged suicides, the U.S. military shipped the bodies back to their home countries for burial. Al-Aslami’s
corpse was accompanied by a death certificate listing hanging as the cause of death. But al-Aslami’s father said that he would not bury his son until an independent autopsy was conducted by a neutral international medical team. The family got in touch with the Geneva-based nongovernmental organization Alkarama for Human Rights, which coordinated with Lausanne University’s Institute of Legal Medicine to conduct a second autopsy.

The procedure was conducted at a military hospital in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on June 21, 2006, eleven days after the young man’s death, by a Swiss medical team led by forensic pathologist Dr. Patrice Mangin.
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In his autopsy report, Mangin stated that al-Aslami’s body was remarkably well preserved. It had been transported from the United States to Yemen in a state-of-the-art aluminum container in which the body was kept frozen.

To its surprise, the Swiss team reported, organs essential to its investigation had been removed from the body. “Some of the organs in the pharynx, larynx, and the throat were missing,” Mangin stated in an interview in Geneva. “These are often the most important parts to examine when there has been a hanging.”

The pathology team also detected traces of pressure around the neck, bruising on the back of the right hand, a punctured vein as well as other injuries, lesions in the mouth, and a lower front tooth that had probably been broken when the victim was alive. There were also indications that al-Aslami had been given intravenous injections, but the Swiss medical team was unable to determine what these injections might have been, and toxicology reports did not indicate the presence of any substances in the body.

While suicide was a possibility, Mangin said that because of the missing organs, other hypotheses could not be ruled out. He further stated that while there was evidence of asphyxiation that could have been due to suicide, it could also have been attributable to other causes.

Mangin said his team didn’t have enough information to draw any definitive conclusions. For the pathologists and for the victim’s family, many questions remained. “How were the bodies discovered? What was their position? What was the method of hanging? What was their state before death? What was the medical response when they were found? And above all, what was the state of the missing organs?” Mangin asked in European press reports.
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The pathology team subsequently made several formal requests to the U.S. military for a copy of the original autopsy, histological and anatomical samples of the missing organs, and information surrounding the nature of al-Aslami’s death. But as of this writing, they had received no reply. The pathologists also contacted Dr. Craig Mallak, the U.S. armed forces medical examiner, on numerous occasions and sent letters to U.S. authorities through the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland.

Mallak said he was not permitted to cooperate with any organization without an explicit authorization from U.S. authorities, and such authorization has not been granted.

The U.S. military’s refusal to cooperate baffled the Swiss team. “It is surprising. On the one hand, they have taken so much care to send us the body in an extraordinarily well-
preserved state, which would have involved some serious work. On the other hand, some key information is missing,” Mangin said.

The pathologists were further puzzled by al-Aslami’s finger- and toenails, which were cut short. Under medical law, fingernails may be cut to test for DNA traces of an attacker, but Mangin said cutting the toenails was “truly bizarre.” He speculated that the organs may have been removed to preserve them as evidence.

“It is really regrettable that we cannot have access to the American medical reports,” he said.

But Mangin’s examination led to some concerns. “According to the testimony of former prisoners in Guantánamo, they would never be left alone for more than five minutes without a warden checking on their cell,” he said. “In this case, the timing does not add up. It takes at least three minutes to die from hanging. So, someone would only have had two minutes to set it up. And three deaths from hanging the same day?”

Said al-Ghamidi, chief forensic pathologist at the Riyadh Center for Forensic Medicine in Saudi Arabia, conducted autopsies on the bodies of the two Saudi detainees, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, twenty-two, and Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, thirty. His reports indicate that in addition to missing throat organs, the brain, heart, liver, and kidneys were also removed from both men.

The Saudi families similarly dismissed U.S. claims that their sons had committed suicide. Yasser’s father told local Saudi journalists that his son’s letters from prison said that he was
looking forward to a big family reunion and indicated that his faith was steadfast. Released detainees told him that his son had encouraged them to deal with their situation with patience.

Back in Yemen, Amar was appalled when he was finally allowed to see his brother’s face. He didn’t want to view the rest of the body because he didn’t want to see the autopsy scars.

“My brother had bruises on his face. It was obvious that he had been beaten badly,” he said. “We believe that he was tortured to death. It was very hard to see him like that.”

After the viewing, mourners packed the local village cemetery as al-Aslami’s family, community, and friends offered him the Salat-al-Janaza, the funeral prayer before burial.

“My son is finally free now,” his father said.

Al-Aslami’s young widow, Hayat, took the news worst of all. She had been hopeful that her husband would come home one day, but after receiving the news of his death, she fell ill and became bedridden.

Surprisingly, though, the family wasn’t implacably angry with America or Americans.

“By God, there is a big difference between the American government and the American people,” Amar said. “The American people are great and friendly people. The proof of this is the lawyers who have taken up our cause.”

But his father wasn’t timid about expressing hostility toward the Bush administration, referring to its members as “murderous hypocrites” and calling on the international community to help close Guantánamo Bay.

“By God, I have said this before, and I say it again, all of the officials in that ‘black house’ should fall, and all secret prisons should be filled up,” he said.

The family doesn’t want an apology. “We would just like them to confess and to acknowledge how they have hurt us,” Amar said, without sounding as if he believed he would ever hear any such thing.

Amar told me that he believed his brother was in heaven and that he and the family would be able to see him there one day. Until then, Salah visits them in their dreams once in a while. In one dream, Amar saw his brother alongside the Prophet Mohammad in heaven, the ultimate consolation.

“He has never spoken to me,” Amar told me, “but he is always very happy and peaceful.”

Lawyers usually get a total of only five or six hours to spend with their clients in meetings on each trip, hence the extreme frustration whenever the meetings were delayed, as they frequently were. On one occasion, the guards led several attorneys and me into Camp Echo but then made us stand around in the hot sun for a good two hours before allowing us to see our client. I was wearing a heavy shawl and felt as though I might pass out in the 90-degree heat, so I asked one of the guards whether I could seek a little relief in their air-conditioned, armored booth. “Sure,” he responded. “Go ahead.”

The guard’s booth was a tiny, tan-colored steel room, about three feet square. I was told that it had once been used in Iraq, which explained the two bullet marks in the bulletproof glass. When I went in, I noticed a piece of paper taped to the inside of the door. It was the U.S. Army Soldier’s Creed, which reads in part,

• I am an American Soldier.
  
• I am a Warrior and a member of a team. . . .
  
• I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
  

Obviously I support the idea of defending the United States of America, but this message struck me as terribly out of place at Gitmo. Hanging it in the detention camp suggested that the prisoners were “the enemy” and presumed their guilt, despite the absence of charges or due process. It encouraged the notion that soldiers should hate the men they were guarding.

I slid the door open a crack and said to the guard somewhat sarcastically, “I love this thing on the door. Can I get a copy?” “Why? You wanna be a part of the team?” he asked equally sarcastically.

“Absolutely. And I want to be a warrior and kill the enemy in close combat,” I told him. “Can I have this?”

“No, but I’m sure you can download it online.”

I made a mental note to myself to Google the Army creed.

After two hours of waiting, the guard told us that we could meet with the prisoner. By then, I had the creed committed to memory. I gathered my belongings and a tub of liquefied ice cream and followed him. As he marched us to the meeting room, I couldn’t help myself. I started to chant the creed.

“I am a warrior. I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies!”

The guard looked at me. “You find that funny?” he asked.

“Absolutely not: deploy, engage, and destroy the enemy in close combat!” I said, flashing him a big smile, and walked into the meeting room.

To deflate the rigid orderliness of Gitmo, the attorneys and the interpreters often made small, subtle attempts to break the regimented monotony.

Every time we gathered outside Camp Echo, for instance, it was part of the military escort’s song and dance to announce “Habeas on site” into the intercom in stentorian tones. But one afternoon, attorney Charley Carpenter had an epiphany when he heard those magic words.

“Is that a signal for you guys to stop torturing the detainees?” he asked.

All the lawyers started laughing, and it broke the order of things.

But the soldiers on duty weren’t amused by this attorney who had come from afar to “help the enemy.” Charley’s wisecrack soon landed him in hot water. The incident went up the military chain of command, and orders were issued that he be reprimanded. Charley was pulled aside by the captain in charge, who informed him that further indiscretions would result in his being thrown off the base. Charley quickly apologized. But he didn’t take the scolding personally. Those harsh words, like everything in the military, came from above.

When lawyers were first given access to the military base in 2004, the government allowed them to meet prisoners from 8 AM to 5 PM, seven days a week, for a total of sixty-three hours weekly. But then things changed. The military cut out weekend
visits, forcing lawyers to leave the island on Thursday since there weren’t any Saturday flights out. Daily meeting times were also slashed in half so that lawyers were lucky to get two and a half hours in the morning and three and a half hours in the afternoon. Most people didn’t even get that.

There was always a long search both on the way in and on the way out with ever-changing rules about what you could bring in. Things hadn’t been so rigorous in the beginning. No one cared what we wore; guards didn’t look through papers and glanced only briefly into bags. Then, they started telling us to spread our legs, wanding us down for metal, yelling if anyone got too close to the table while they rifled through our stuff and sometimes confiscated family photos.

In 2006, I had no problem carrying in ceramic plates, silverware, and dishes filled with Afghan rice and lamb. By 2007, the dishes and utensils were banned. I resorted to paper and plastic, which was okay for a few weeks. Then, the rules changed again: no plastic forks or knives. They could be fashioned into weapons. (There’s no evidence from Guantánamo that they ever have been.) I started bringing just plastic spoons. Predictably, the spoons were eventually banned too— for reasons of security, of course.

“We’ll supply the utensils,” the guard told me.

He threw out the plastic spoons and came back with sporks, which I found odd because the only difference between a spoon and a spork is that a spork, while shaped like a spoon, has spikes on the end. Didn’t that make it more dangerous than a spoon?

Soon enough, I was asked to start taking out my hair clips.

“What’s wrong with them?” I protested. “They keep my hair out of my face.”

“They can be fashioned into makeshift keys to open handcuffs,” the guard responded.

I found that comical. Even if a prisoner were able to get out of his cuffs, where would he run to? The locked cell door?

I learned never to carry eye drops, medication, or extra pens. Once I had just visited my dentist and had X-ray slides of my teeth in a zippered purse pocket. That caused a big to-do with the guards, who confiscated my X-rays. You’d think my dentist had encoded messages for the enemy in them.

During one particularly long and unexplained delay, followed by an even longer search, one of the attorneys and I started joking about whether the McDonald’s french fries he had brought could be considered a weapon too. As the guards meticulously rifled through lunch bags and legal papers for contraband, we speculated about how deadly some of the crispier french fries or plastic straws could be. As the search went on for a good forty minutes, the young attorney, a law professor at an East Coast university, struck up an impromptu rap accompanied by a human beat box and broad arm movements:

“Ice cream’s gettin’ soupy—my fries are gettin’ droopy. It’s the
H
to the
A
to
B
-
E
-
A
and
S
. Yo habeas! Yo habeas!”

We spent almost an hour coming up with rap lyrics and crying from laughing so hard. 50 Cent and Snoop D, O, double G would have been proud.

A few weeks later, plastic straws were banned too.

Most lawyers who visit the base are working pro bono, spending large amounts of money and time away from work and family
to visit prisoners. Some fly in from as far away as Europe. So, any additional military obstacles are highly frustrating.

Attorneys who made the mistake of bringing lots of documents into the room usually ended up kicking themselves as the guard went through hundreds of pages one by one, searching for contraband. Sometimes the guards even confiscated maps of Afghanistan—as though the Afghans didn’t know the geography of their own country. Rebecca Dick of Dechert’s Washington, D.C., office was livid when, for security purposes, they took away a wallet-sized photograph of her blond babies building sand castles on the beach.

Different lawyers dealt with this frustration differently. Some flew off the handle, threatening to file motions—which was sometimes very effective. Others just took a deep breath and tried to be as cooperative as possible.

Besides my brief banishment from the base, I had a few other hiccups while visiting there. I wore open-toed shoes for eight months. Then, on one visit, the notoriously mean skinny guard with rodent teeth told me that I wouldn’t be allowed into the camp without proper shoes. I went a little nuts, embarrassed to be holding up the entire group.

The lawyers put their heads together. They asked whether I could wrap garbage bags around my feet to get around the no-open-toes rule. Rodent face said no. I ran back to the bus and begged the military escort to give me his shoes for the morning. He refused. One of the older captains, a very nice guy, was also on the bus, and to my great relief, he took pity on me. He walked me back into Camp Echo, where Bucky Beaver guard saluted him.

“Honor bound, sir!” she said, standing at attention.

The captain saluted back and asked her to let me in until I got other shoes.

I was sad when that captain left Guantánamo. I stayed in e-mail touch with him after he left the military and became a civilian lawyer.