That we are hosting an event for a book guantanamo diary, without the author. That is because the author, Mohamedou Slahi is still imprisoned at one time about. He has been mayor since 2002 and he is still in the same cell he was where he wrote the book back in the summer and fall of 2005. He is spared even though he has never actually been charged with a crime and even though a federal judge ruling on habeas corpus ordered his release five years ago. The u. S. Government has appealed the judges decision and said the case continues to grind its way through the court. So we have members from a couple members of Mohamedou Slahi week overpeer mlb moderating script should among them. I will take a few minutes to buy some background to the case. They handwritten account of how he ended up at guantanamo and has extrude treatment there constitutes the only diary via serving detainee that has been published. It is immensely revealing and descriptive, quite scary and disturbing in many places, but also ironic and humorous at times and astonishingly gracious. In a recent conversation with one of his lawyers mohamedou said he holds no grudge against the people and he appeals to them to read it and corrected if they think it contains any errors in that he dreams to one day set with all of them around a cup of tea after having learned so much from one another. That gives you some hint of mohamedou voice in the kind of thoughtful humane way comes across. 44 years ago in mauritania, he was the first member of his large family to attain university the first to travel on a plane. He went to germany to study Electrical Engineering though he ended up in afghanistan in may 291 entering the insurgent be against the communist government there. That is when he swore an oath to al qaeda which was operating the camp for u. S. Trade. Once the communists are out there to fight each other, mohamedou had left. They said that marks the end of the clip committed to al qaeda appeared in germany he completed his degree in Electrical Engineering and worked in germany for most of the 1990s. During that time he remained friends are kept in touch with companions from his time in afghanistan. Some of whom maintained their own al qaeda ties. Mohamedou also had a direct association with the former brotherinlaw who was a prominent member of al qaeda. In late 1999 mohamedou moved to montreal got involved with the large mosque there. Another person who attended the mosque in algeria and immigrants cannot qaeda member was arrested shortly after mohamedou arrival for plotting to bomb the airport on new years day. Investigating the millennium plot mohamedou questioned by canadian authorities by possible connections then in early 2000 he decided to return to mauritania and was detained twice on the way back in senegal and once he got back to mauritania questioned by fbi agents but the investigators couldnt find anything linking him to the millennium plot and he was released. But then, within days of the 9 11 attacks he was detained for two weeks and again questioned by the fbi, but again released. In november, 2001 several months after 9 11, he was summoned by the Mauritanian Police and taken in a cia plane to a person and a mom jordan where he was interrogated and held for nearly eight months. In july 2002 he was flown to Bagram Air Force base in afghanistan. After a couple weeks there he was transported to guantanamo, arriving in august 2002. Like guantanamo, mohamedou was subjected to take being spurred by then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld who was deprived of food and sleep, held in extreme temperatures, spent long days in isolation beaten chained to the floor and agonizing position and confronted with threats to kill him and to kidnap his mother and other family members. He says that he began to make concessions in order to stop the torturous treatment. In the summer and fall of 2005 three years after arriving in cuba mohamedou out the pages that would become the guantanamo diaries. The pages were written in english. A fourth anguish which he learned mostly in europe. The pages were expressly intended for public leadership that they were classified by the government and not released for seven years. And then, with many redactions. You know, if you leaf through the book, you can see many many places where sentences and phrases, sometimes even whole pages have been crossed out. One of my favorites in this regard starts on page 301 and continues for another seven pages where there is not a word that you can read. The responsibility of the manuscript ended up with larry seems to was a poet and Nonfiction Author who has written extensively on immigration and crosscultural issues. For a number of years, there has direct to the freedom to write an International Programs at the pan american center. Hes also the author most recently of the torture report, with the documents say about the post9 11 torture program. Remarkably, larry has never met mohamedou. The pentagon denies that his requests come even to go over at it but mohamedou did authorize publication of the book with the sight unseen. Souter do we have here this evening . We have two people have been very closely involved with enough for premohamedou. Immediately to my right is nancy hollander, who was based in new mexico and has brought this criminal law for more than 30 years and has considerable experience defending clients charged with defense is related to terrorism and National Security. Next to her is director of the aclu director project which helps litigate cases are mated to national, Civil Liberties and human rights. So lets begin talking a little bit about the legal team. The two of you constitute quite a formidable pair your self but there are others on the team. How many others are on the team and how does a guantanamo prisoner and that having such a skillful legal representative . Well, i can explain how we got this case. And i started in 2005 when a voyeur and and sent me an email. He is a lawyer i had met because we had them doing some training together. He sent me an email saying that a lawyer in mauritania, mr. Abbate asked him if perhaps they could find mohamedou, but the family believes him to be in guantanamo. I found that is where he was an agree to represent in. But i also then discovered the center for constitutional bias had assigned a lawyer to him. They were assigning lawyers just as quickly as they could to all the prisoners. They had assigned a woman named sylvia breweries and they picked philly because she spoke and we assumed that mohamedou spoke french because mauritania had done a french colony and that way she wouldnt need an interpreter. I talked to sylvia. We agreed we would both represent him and we started making arrangements for her first trip to guantanamo. We went. We met on the way they are and we walked to to see him. The guard took us to the hat where they had him it wasnt the hut where he lives, but theyre rare during the interviews. He sat up and he smiled and he put his times out as though to embrace us. But he didnt move. I stood there wondering why he didnt move and then realized and some order that he was chained to the floor and couldnt move and literally sylvia and i walked into his embrace and he gave us 90 pages which was the beginning of this book. Some point later, sylvia left our seamen decided to represent someone now. Another lawyer and albuquerque agreed to work with me, Theresa Duncan and so she started that same year. In 2009 the aclu joined us. Hannah and her team with john and he fits who is now a professor that still works with us and ours spitzer in washington. And then we needed a lawyer to go sit with mohamedou during his testimony. So i recruited another friend of mine linda marino from tampa to go and sit with him. All of this is pro bono. When i asked harry to do it and i asked linda to do it of course the aclu didnt require being paid, but linda and terry i said i have a great assignment for you. By the way, theres no money. So that is how it all started enough how he ended up at this big team. Plus he has a lawyer in mauritania who works with us also. That is how it started and one of our cocounsel is here today, ours spitzer. I also wanted to recognize that it is one of many that have been brought with guantanamo detainees and it has the nature madness job recruiting people to represent the population. Remember theres over 774 people there at the time and it is heartening to see many of our colleagues in what is sometimes referred to with dark humor that you bring to the situation that mohamedou brings to a situation and im really back to see so many of you here tonight. Adding a mac or are they going . We set up a trust for mohamedou and they were going to that tries to help him rebuild his life but as his instruction, weve also use some of that i need to send one of his nephews to a college and he wants to get all of the people of college aged in his family educated and then he would like to, if there is enough money and we sell enough books, started foundations to actually educate girls in mauritania. Or would like him to have the money to rebuild his life when he gets out. Lets talk a bit about the case that the government had against mohamedou. Again they have the charges filed against them and there are suspicions about them that have been clear over time. Those cases seem to have evolved treating from the damning allegations. Initially the claims was mohamedou had aided in the 9 11 attacks any materially support forces associated with al qaeda. The government isnt claiming that anymore. Is that right . At the very beginning mohamedou was accused of being involved with what was called the millennium bombing plot. This was a plot to bomb Los Angeles International airport in the 99. That was because he actually came to montreal just as the person who was ultimately arrested for the plot was leaving montreal. They didnt know each other. There is no reason to think they ever had any connection except they prayed at the same mosque. A runt who prayed at the mosque was under suspicion. The government learned that mohamedou couldnt have been and was not involved in that. That was after eight months of torture in jordan where we sent him. Instead of sending him home the United States arranged for him to go to Bagram Air Force base in afghanistan and then to cuba in august of 2002 and surely after that, the accused him of being one of the recruiters as a pilot in 9 11. Ultimately the government couldnt prove that is and the judge ruled that mohamedou could not have even known about 9 11. For that allegation is gone. So all were left with is here one time part of al qaeda. It is important to remember that the al qaeda that he filed with in 1990 and 1991 against the soviet union the United States is supporting that were at millions of dollars with munitions and weapons and theres no secret about that. If youve seen the movie Charlie Wilsons war, you know all about it. So the judge found which is also correct, that was not the al qaeda it came and attacked this many years later. But that is where we are with the government. You know, the judges decision in 2010 was brilliant start it. He is the first person who was a neutral person to have reviewed all the evidence in the case. He decided that the evidence in the case was either not credible because it was obtained through torture or coercion or for other reasons. I remember reading the first time i was able to read the diary years ago, so much more became clear to me because mohamedou talks about the torture he was subjected to but resulted in him providing false information about himself and others. Essentially he was told what they wanted him to say. And so he was also in a position in the book of the more incriminating fiction he could make out, the happier his interrogators were. Theres one point he talks about whenever they ask me about somebody in canada i have been incriminating information about that person, even if i didnt know him. Whenever he thought about the word i dont know i got not just because i remember the words of redacted. All you have to say is i dont know. I dont remember and will add a few and that is the obscenity that was used. He says i erased these words from a dictionary. That passage comes after you read about the pain he goes through. One of the things again as i think about this book in the last year that we had with more information coming out about torture, our debate about torture in the last few months has been defaced in a way because it focused on effectiveness. Its unlawful, immoral. This book shows yet again that there is meant to think that torture absolutely guarantees. One is pain and the other is false information. What are the things suspected of mohamedou in 9 11. Could someone incriminate him under torture or otherwise quiet the mac well, there was an avid and that he had met in his home two years earlier. And the judge he is one of the people who is currently charged with being one of the 9 11 defendant. He will be on trial in the military commissions in guantanamo. He is in one town. The judge found that all that proved was that they had made two years before 9 11. That is when judge robertson said in his opinion, that is no evidence that mohamedou knew anything about 9 11. The government in 2003 was just desperate to find people to charge and was convinced that everyone that they have must be guilty of some pain. They were determined to do that. The other thing that we have learned just recently if they were also experimenting on torture tactics. What is it we can do to get people to talk or to get people to fail to resist. Saturday against another example that they said we know you were conspiring to blow up the tower in toronto. He tacks about this in the book is that i didnt even know there was a tower in toronto, but i said yes to wars i was involved in that. They asked him about another young man in florida. The mohamedou talks about how terrible he felt to be sent all of these terrible things about this man who he didnt even now and was relieved to hear later that ultimately he was released. But what this book brings in my view is that we know about the torture and the reason that this book came out and the government allotted out is that the governments own investigations have talked about mohamedou starcher specifically. Theres a Sunrise Service committee that devoted 11 pages and describes what he describes. Though weve never heard it from his side, from the side of the person who is the victim. You can feel it. You can taste it. He gives us such vivid accounts and yet even with that he still maintains his humor and his humanity and he understands that there are good people and bad people. And he even talks about how you dont get to choose your family. He didnt get to choose this family, but as Prison Guards and interrogators really became his family. So you really get a sense from him of the pain of the torture and yet at the same time the humanity that drives than and keeps him sane. You know, even though it seemed like the government is no longer sees mohamedou as patenting connected to 9 11. There is still the issue of connections to some members of al qaeda. The mohamedou had through the 90s and especially tied to his former brotherinlaw who was abu barzani who was a senior al qaeda member. How problematic do you think that might be for head quiet you want to talk about it . Goahead. Abu morris tommy is a very interesting situation. He is a distant cousin and was related. He supposedly was with Osama Bin Laden as a spiritual leader, but he laughed and 2001. In the 9 11 report, it actually says that he disapproved of the 9 11 bombings because he said they were a violation of the quran. We now know and we didnt know for a long long time that he left at that time and went to a rant where he was under some kind of a house arrest for many years. Ultimately, in about 2013, he showed up back in mauritania in jail and was released after he was interrogated or the americans. So although all throughout the years that weve been battling the government they said it is because mohamedou was connected to his cousin and is now out in a free man. And mohamedou is still they are. We dont know what he and the government discussed because the government has been on willing to turn on over to us. That i can relate to goes back to your question about what is the basis for continuing to hold him when all of these allegations have been discredited or rejected in dont really start your day seems at this point that the basis has his guilt by longago association that he disembarked not of actual wrongdoing. Here i think it is particularly telling that at one point around 2006 2007, maybe earlier than that, that the government southwell, what are we going to do and assigns the former top military junior at guantanamo colonel moe davis to figure out whether their work charges that could be filed against him. Moe davis has given interviews saying he wasnt able to come up with any criminal charges to file against mohamedou, yet he continues to be held. Im going to because im a lawyer talk about the legal issues here. When you look at the legal basis there is no basis because mohamedou never actually engaged in any kind of hostility to the United States. We are going to have more bass attention. Its got to be a violation of the order. He wasnt even near any kind of battlefield because he was picked up in mauritania. He turn himself into his National Police in order to answer questions they might have. And so one of the things that we have been hoping for in looking for in conjunction with the publication of this book is seeking his release. There are two Different Things that the government can do. One is prisoner review boards bed are especially if im going to talk about a lock, right click prisoner review boards that have been set up within the administration to determine whether people continue to pose a threat and clear them for release. Weve got some criticisms. Theyre excessively secretive. But that is a possible way out for people. Another way is the department of defense to no longer can test a hideous case. Let it go. That is get a court order that puts an end to this years long purgatory that he has been. Are the socalled confessions which were made under duress were announced, are a problem for him . I dont think they are. The government agreed realizing they tortured him without saving it. Not to use any of his statements during the actual torture time. They then wanted to use statements while you still in the same place this statement that mohamedou made unless there was someone else and never one now realizes and thats what happens when people get tortured. They just say yes to whatever they need to. The worst thing that happened in many ways, more than the torture, more than standing in a stress position the worst thing they did was they brought in a guy who was captain collins. This was a total fake. He had a fake letter that said they were bringing mohamedous mother to guantanamo where they were going to hold her until he told them what he wanted and they implied that it would be very dangerous for her to be the only woman there. This is a complete date. What they did was use the fact that they knew he had been buried close to his mother. He didnt know what was a fake and it was really at that point that he said ill just tell you anything you want. In many ways that may have been one of the worst things they did. Also of course illegal under violation of the various treaties that were supposed to uphold. If i can follow on from there about mohamedou and his relationship with his mother, it becomes clear how dear she is to him. He talks also about the first time that he receives an actual letter from his mother and he talks about touching it and smelling it because she attached it. We know because of interviews the family has given him a letter she wrote to him that his mother was playing for him everyday, wanted wanted to see him once again and that is not just going to have been because mohamedou mother died in 2013 and that was during the 10th year of his detention at guantanamo. So that was hers is never going to be fulfilled. Let me just add one more thing about that. It tells you Something Else about the tragedy of guantanamo. Weve learned that his mother died from a lawyer in mauritania. We talked to his family and they were afraid to tell him she had died. They were afraid this would send him into a spiral of depression but theyre also afraid he would find out through the guards. We have to ask the government basically played with the government for a phone call. We dont get phone calls with him unless theres an emergency and then it takes 15 days kind of makes it not so much an emergency anymore. But we pleaded with the government and said we really have to tell him we had a phone call in to receive duncan was the one who had what she considers the worst part of the whole case was she was the one who had to tell him that his mother had died. He dedicated the book to her. You cant get those years back and the government knew from the very beginning how close he was to her and used it against him. How much of what much of a mohamedou disguise can recall operated by a very declassified documents . I think 100 . The first time and its kind of an interesting story the fbi had an investigation because the fbi agents were complaining that they were being accused of torturing him and they said we are not involved. We applaud the way from this. So the Inspector General for the fbi didnt investigation and actually discovered that some members of the military were saying they were fbi. Said the fbi worked to get into trouble for what they were doing. In the course of that investigation, the declassified the first information about his torture. I now torture. I now know as a senate armed Service Committee report the first year 2008, which devoted 11 pages to describing his torture and there were a couple of other investigations. So everything that he described as admitted. You know theres still parts of it being with child and kept secret. Above all, issued the mohamedou talking to you glad that we are to do it it should be mohamedou telling his whole story of what happened. Part of the readback did taxes a poem he wrote about his treatment. You wonder why the government needs to redact a poem that a detainee wrote. I would love to hear what his poetry is and how hes approaching this, but we cant. There is a level of secrecy in come the really devastating that continues to surround guantanamo. The fact that everything answer was classified until the end of the six end of a sixyear long mitigation and negotiation for release. It shouldnt have to be that way. The fact that everything detainees say must be cleared for release. It shouldnt have to be that way. The fact that we still dont know so much more about other aspects of the torture program i think we would be remiss in not talking about or at least mentioning that there are 6700 pages of an investigative report into the cias torture still being withheld from the american public. There is still more of the story that needs to be sold and must be told. I want to touch on another aspect of another aspect that mohamedou lemonades that doesnt often get told which is what are the consequences for our military men and women when they are instructed by their higher authorities to break the minds and bodies of their fellow human beings. In a place that was devoted to dehumanizing him mohamedou humanizes his torturers and jailers. He tries to understand them. He describes the relationship that she forms within. He talks about the theological conversations they have come in the they teach him about some of those jailers who essentially told them you are not who i fight you are. These were people and they are regarding the worst of the worst. Remember that phrase from Donald Rumsfeld. Some of sundays torturers and jailers come around and say that is not who you wire. That is not now that ive gotten to know you who you are. And he really tries to understand why it would be that they are the places than in some of the most moving parts of the book are when mohamedou described trying to understand what must be going through the mind of american men and women as they are doing these things to him and continuing to hold him. There are significant details he reveals that the tone of the book which you are describing is also quite remarkable. I mean he says that he only wants to describe what he saw what he experienced, not to exaggerate. He seems to be able to maintain that throughout. Let me ask you know more than 50 others have argued then cleared for release. But they are not going anywhere for various reasons. What difference do you expect this book might make in winning release of mohamedou quiets go ahead. Well, we hope it makes a significant difference. What we want to do is really bring home to people mohamedou story come and destroy the mohamedou told himself and showed the injustice and unlawful nature of his ongoing detention. We hope that people are moved by his story, that you will join us in the campaign, which we call on our website today aclu. Org free slahi. The contest not behaviors case anymore. Its really been a quite heartening response. In a few days since we launched the petition over 20,000 people have signed. You know we are obviously hoping for a lot more. We are hoping people like you will read this book and talk about it and join us. But everything will year since i joined the case, i thought let this be the year that we set him free. This theater this year ive been doing this for 10 years and i really dont want to do it for a love in. The all right. We have time for questions. If you would like to ask something, can you please step up to the microphone over here. There is only one. Two questions. The first is what else other than the palm do you suppose has been what kinds of things you suppose has been redacted . The second question is that he is cleared for release, will he be able to return to mauritania . Well, i can answer the second part until you guess. Theresa duncan, one of our cocounsels and mauritania with the investigator met with government officials. This is not the same government that turned him over to the United States illegally and they would welcome him home. They were originally three mauritanian said guantanamo. Wouldve been his home. One is cleared for release and so he and mohamedou could both go home. That is not a problem. I will let hina answer the other question. The reason i can answer the other question is because i dont know what is behind the redaction. I can look at publicly available information and talk about what might be behind the reactions because of the governments perspective im not in a position of confirming or denying what is actually there. The reductions range from odd redaction for female pronouns when its clear what is happening is humiliation and abuse. But even those productions are inconsistent because sometimes her is redacted and other times it isnt that big. Other aspects of the names of people identifying information which would be more reasonable. But yet still ends up her check and those who have committed violations of law. And then the editor of the book larry seems combed through the publicly available information about mohamedous case. He believes he has Read Everything out there about him. He actually has footnote in which he explores what he thinks might be behind the reductions and that may provide some if not definitive answer, certainly more illumination in response to it. You understand nancy couldnt answer that because she does know what is behind the reductions, but hina doesnt. One has this book and translated into other languages quite if not, why not buy this book in the process into 23 other languages. We have contracts in 23 countries. Nine of them i believe came out on january 20th. England, france, germany, netherlands norway, slovakia. I may be forgetting some. Italy. Does that come out of not the others get translated it, they will come out. We just got an arabic language a contract actually today. Portuguese, spanish, japanese. It will be out everywhere, as soon as they get them all translated. Has the case been brought to other civil rights organizations Like Amnesty International and human rights quiet you can actually Amnesty International has been very act. I was in spain in december for a week with Amnesty International, urging this vanished government to take some prisoners and talk about mohamedous case. When i had a previous government to take five veneta three already. I met with members of parliament and a lot of prized and amnesty if yous website youll find information about mohamedou that have been very active with the aclu. They advocate for all of the guantanamo clients all the time. Last question very brief. Why do you use the word redaction . I use censorship but it is censorship. Hide. I dont know if you all can answer this question but i just wanted to know if culture where americans are generally feel that terrorism isnt a thing that doesnt effect us. Its more like this grand act gave harm against the homeland anymore. It is more crime that will be committed as if a person was robbing the bank for committed a murder. You think what that culture in this post9 11 world that americans are going to be more inclined to see guantanamo and other blacks throughout the world the United States want closed eventually. Do you think the culture of protecting americans and protecting human rights emerges in the later years . So i love your question. I love it because it gives me optimism that more and more people are understanding that terrorism is something that is terrible but something we can actually deal with consistent with our values, consistent with the rule of law. I am not sure that everyone is there yet. There are too many of our politicians and policymakers who would like to rule based on fear and fear mongering about terrorism and its threat as opposed to actual facts. I do think and hope that the further we get away from these atrocities and violations, the more that we have responsible policymaking, the more we will be able to deal with threats within the framework of law as opposed to human rights violations. I dont think we are there yet. I think we have a ways to go. There is new legislation that is just and proposed by certain senators that would Seek Congress has made a lot of mistakes when it comes to guantanamo by trying to prevent it from being closed. Theres more legislation, new legislation would make it even harder that would ever mistake. Youre also if youll bear with me, i want to quote something from the book and from what mohamedou says. Again, he is speaking to us and he says what do the American People think . I am eager to know. I would like to believe the majority of americans want to see justice done and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people. I know there is a small extremist minority that believes everybody and his cuban prison is evil and that we are treated better than we deserve. But this opinion has no basis but ignorance. I am amazed that somebody can build such an incriminating opinion about the people he or she doesnt even know. That was written eight years ago. Thats right. Well you must have anticipated my question because i wondered if you would read from the book so that we could get a sense of his voice. Do you have any others . So many. You know can i just read go ahead. Is talking about when they arrived at guantanamo and this is after he has been held in jordan and tortured for almost eight months. This is after he was then taken to bagram and abused and tortured for a couple of weeks. And he gets to guantanamo and he says, i wrongly believed that the worst was over and so i cared less about the time it would take the americans that i was the guy was put in for. I trusted the american Justice System to manage. Ensure that trust with the detainees from european countries. We all had an idea about how the democratic is the more. Other detainees, for instance, those of the middle east didnt believe it trusted the american system. It is on the growing hostility. But every day going by the optimist lost ground. Methods worsened considerably as time went by and as you shall see, those responsible for gitmo rope of the principles upon which the u. S. Was built and Benjamin Franklin and give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. I dont even know where i want to read it i decided to read this book. I want you to read this book. I havent picked down any particular thing. I havent picked out any particular things i want to read, but let me one of the things one of the worst things that happened to mohamedou was with me took them out on the boat. One of the terrible things that they would never let him pray. I was part of the specific interrogation techniques is exactly what could be done to mohamedou. He described when he went out on the boat and it starts like this. He was talking to his interrogator and he says that people begin banging the floor violently with heavy boots dog sparky, i froze in my seat retracted one speechless. They were staring at each other not knowing what was going on. I knew a detainee was going to be heard. Yes, that detainee was me. Suddenly a Commando Team consisting of three soldiers in and a German Shepherd groping toward interrogation room. Everything happened weaker than you can think about. It made me fall facedown on the floor. I told you you were gone. His partner cat tensioning everywhere on my face when i read this. He too was amassed from head to toe. He punched me the whole time without saying a word because he didnt want to recognize. The third man was not asked. He stood by the door holding a dogs collar. Who told you to do that . You are hurting the detainee who was no less terrified than i was. As jimmy, i couldnt adjust the situation. My first thought was they mistook me for someone else did my Second Thought was to try to recognize my environment by looking around but one of the cars is squeezing my face against the floor. Blindfolded if he tries to look. One of them hit me hard across the face and quickly put goggles unmasking the airbus on my years in a small bag over my head. Afterwards i started to believe all he could hear was redacted cussing. I was overwhelmingly surprised. I thought they were going to execute me. That is the beginning of when he goes out on the boat and that is what he called the recipe and it went on for months and months and months and that is just the beginning of it. Just one other part. Stop praying. You are killing people he said and punched me hard on my mouth. My mouth and nose started to bleed. Mike lipps grew so big it technically couldnt speak any more. Now we were able very early on to get his medical records and in fact in his medical records, it shows that his ribs were broken. So we were able to prove that part of the early on in the case, that they had broken his ribs when they took him out on the boat. But mock executions are not only immoral, but illegal under the treaty that the United States have signed. So you know, it is one of those things the United States says that mock executions are illegal and also said that those who torture must be prosecuted. That is under the treaty obligations and those who are tortured or supposed to receive damages. In our case, needs veris happened. First i want to see thank you for pursuing this. Im glad our country is people like you. Im actually very astonished this book ever got published and i would like you to talk about how that happened when theres so many other things are kept secret. Maybe that is related to my second question. President obama told everyone on tuesday night to day of determined to close wonton amo. What is keeping them from doing not ended allowing this book to be published, maybe hoping this will help him. Well, this book took six years or more to get out. Mohamedou wrote it in 2005. We got the first 90 pages and then they sent it in bits and pieces. We were getting it declassified but it is protected. Protected status but it means hina and i could talk about it. We could talk about it on the telephone. We could send it telephone. We could send it back and forth so she was able to read it quite early. Or what it really means is you cant tell the press about it. You cant tell the public about it. You cant publish it. We continued to argue and fight and we had years of litigation about this saying we believed that part of our advocacy was a weird to me now, with the court of outlook opinion, that this is part of how we as lawyers are supposed to operate. The government disagreed, the court disagreed obviously. And finally told us that we wanted to have the whole 466 pages and the hand written document completely cleared, we would have to send it back to whatever agencies the government determined and we would have to give up the attorneyclient privilege over the writings because at this time they were written to his lawyers. He agreed to do that and i took another two years. And then it came back and it was still protected we had to have another fight. So by that time most of what it happened was public so they really couldnt keep it from us any longer. Just on the second part of your question. This week is the sixyear anniversary of president obama coming into office in closing guantanamo within a year. That obviously hasnt happened. Theres all sorts of political and partisan reasons for that. But i pasha failures wants to operate parts of the government to it belongs to the executive branch were not always through on that commitment in a timely way. It belongs to congress that is put up barriers to release the people in it belongs to the courts which has in sundays case and others given the government excessive deference about his detention argument of the judicial review is essentially becoming a rubberstamp of those kinds of decisions. I think all three need to change but i do think there is momentum. For the first time in the past year, more prisoners were released that in any point since 2009. There are 54 men who have been cleared for release out of the 122 that still remain there and we and others are pushing for their release as soon as possible, as soon as they could be transferred to countries where they will be protected from rights violations. We need to prosecute the people against him there is genuine evidence of wrongdoing. And we need to release the last. Prisoner review board which i talk about earlier are one way of doing it. Hopefully not contested the habeas corpus late this one is another way of doing it. We see greater momentum but far, far more needs to be done if were going to close before president obama leaves office. We have time for one more question. I wanted to know if you feel there is a lawyer that there is enough you had the opportunity to get your hands on all the information you needed to defend him. And also, i still dont see how was it his prison that there was torture, why the case against him isnt thrown out if it was torture, if all the concessions were received under torture, isnt it grounds enough to throw out any case against somebody quiet well, to answer the first question, no, we have not seen everything. We still the government has kept a great deal of information from us that we need that is exculpatory and favorable to mohamedou, that we cant see. We cant determine where somebody who had said something was interrogated who was who reported it is. They continue to keep secret even from the lawyers do have security clearances. We cant get the information that we need to really defend him. The government has done everything it can to make it difficult to represent his clients. We have to go to guantanamo. It is hard to get there. It is expensive to get there. Every time, for example is mohamedou writes a letter it goes up to a secret place and gets put in a secret drawer and we have to go and read it. We have to go there to read it. If we want to write to him everything takes about a month in each direction. It is not like representing anyone else. The government i believe has done this intentionally so it becomes very difficult to represent him. Go ahead. That is also true for virtually every other guantanamo detainee there. It is very, very hard for every lawyer representing every detainee because we have the same concerns and constraints. So i wish mohamedou himself could have been here to present his book. Lets hope that when the paperback version comes out, he will be able to do so. But im confident that when he does get out and is able to view the video of the talk this evening, he will certainly appreciate the justice that both of you did to him his book, and his cause. So, thank you very much. [applause] they have his cool stamp that has mohamedous signature so we can stamp your book with his signature. So please come and get some books. Theyre available at the cash register. [inaudible conversations] every weekend booktv offers programming focused on Nonfiction Authors and books. Keep watching for more here on cspan2 and watch any of our past programs online at booktv. Org. Booktv continues now. Tony harnden recounts a british battalions efforts to prevent the taliban from seizing a province of afghan while awaiting the arrival of u. S. Marines in 2009. Mr. Harnden discusses his book with the National Security reporter for the washington post. Its about an hour. Toby, thank you for joining me today on after words. I run the military blog check point with the washington post. I have tony harnden the bureau chief from foe sunday times of london. Were talk today about his book dead men risen just released in the ute. Bat unit traveling through afghanistan in 2009, welsh unit. Toney, can you explain the title of the book . Dead men risen is a phrase in a poem. Its not a very famous poem. But a Company Commander who was killed in action in june 2009 his mother sent him out a collection of First World War poems and he seized on the phrase dead men risen because his company was an amalgam of bits of other countries, all these men thrown together who havent trained together, and to build an esprit decore he was saying you are dead men risen and the title was number nine company. And that company being in
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