If you like to see eric talk in a longer segment about his book the nazis next door go to booktv. Org type in his last name in the search function. Mohamedou slahi was a more tarynan engineer and was kept at Guantanamo Bay without being charged. During the book event two of his attorneys discuss guantanamo diary and his legal case. This is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] good evening. Im Bradley Graham open ore of politics and prose along will be wife. On behalf of the entire staff, thank you so much for coming out on this dark and stormy night. A few quick administrative notes. Now would be a good time if you have a cell phone or Something Else that might go beep later to turn it off. When we get to the q a part of the session, because we have cspan here it would help them to hear your question. If you could make it up to this microphone right here. And at the end, before you come up to get your books signed our staff would appreciate it if you would fold up the chairs youre seated in and lean them against something that wont topple over. Were in a rather unusual situation here this evening in that were hosting an event for a book, guantanamo diary, without the author. Thats because the author, Mohamedou Slahi is still in prison at guantanamo. He has been there since 2002, and he still is in the same cell he was where he wrote the book. Back in the summer and fall of 2005. He is there even though he has never actually been charged with a crime and even though a federal judge ruling on a habeas corpus petition, ordinary his release five years ago. The u. S. Government has appealed the judges decision so the case continues to grind its way through the court. We have members a couple members of mohamedous legal group here, and ill be moderating a discussion among them. First ill take a few minutes and provide some background to the case. Mohamedous handwritten account of how he ended up at guantanamo and his extreme treatment there constitutes the only diary by a serving detainee that has been published. Its immensely revealing and descriptive, quite scary and disturbing in many places but also ironic and humannous at times humorously at types and astonishly gracious. At the end theres a note regarding a recent conversation with one of his lawyers he says he holds no garage against any of the people he mentions in the book. He appeals to them to read and it correct it if they think it contains any errors and he dreams to one day sit with all of them around a cup of tea after having learned so much from one another. Now, that gives you some hint of mohamedous voice and the kind of thoughtful and humane way he comes across. Born 44 years ago in mauritania he is the first member of his large family to attend university. The first even to travel on a plane. He went to germany to study Electrical Engineering. Though he ended up in afghanistan in 1991 to join the insurgency against the communistled government there. Thats when he swore an oath to al qaeda, which was operating the camp where he was trained. Once the communists were ousted and muslim factions fell to fighting each other, mohamedou left. He has said that marks the end of his commitment to al qaeda. Back in germany he completed his degree in Electrical Engineering and worked in germany for most of the 1990s. But during that time he remained friends or 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 a cousin and a former brotherinlaw who was a prominent member of al qaeda. In late 1999 mohamedou moved to montreal and got involved with a large mosque there. Another person who attended that mosque a. L. Jeeran immigrant and al qaeda member ahmed was arrested shortly after mohamedous arrival for plotting to bomb the los angeles airport on new years day. Investigating the millennium plot mohamedou was questioned by canadian authorities about possible terrorist 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. Then in november 2001 several months after 9 11, he was summoned by a mauritanian police, and taken in a cia plane to a prison in ammann, youre where he was interrogated and held for nearly eight months. In july 2002 he was flown to Bagram Air Base in afghanistan, after a couple of weeks there he was transported to guantanamo arriving in august 2002. Now, at goon mohamedou was subjected to a number of socalled interrogation techniques approved by then defense secretary donald resumes field. The was deprived of food and sleep, held in extreme temperatures, spent long days in isolation, doused we very cold water, beaten, chained to the floor in agonizing position and confronted with threats to kill him and kidnap his mother and other family members. He says that he began to make false confessions in order to stop the torturous treatment. In the summer and fall of 2005 three years after arriving at the prison in cuba, mohamedou wrote the pages that would become the guantanamo diary. The pains were written in english. His fourth language, which he learned mostfully mostly in u. S. Custody, and the pages were expressly intended for public readership but 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, 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 here where theres not a word that you can read. The responsibility of editing the manuscript ended up with larry seem, a poet and Nonfiction Author who has written extensively on immigration and crosscultural issues. For a number of years larry directed the freedom to write and International Program at pan american center. Also the author most recently of the torture report, what the documents say about americas powe post9 11 torture program. Now, remarkably larry has never met mohamedou. The pentagon denied his request, even to go over and edit with the guantanamo inmates but mohamedou did authorize publication of the book sight unseen. So who do we have here this evening . Two people who have been very closely involved with the effort to free mohamedou. Immediately to my right is nancy hollander, who is based in new mexico and has practiced criminal law for more than 30 years and has considerable experience defending clients charged with offenses related to terrorism and national security. And next to her is hina shamsi who helps litigate cases related to national security, Civil Liberties and human rights. So lets begin with talking a little bit about the legal team. The two of you constitute quite a formidable pair yourself, but there are others on the team. Right . How many others are on the team and how does guantanamo prisoner end up having such skillful legal representatives . I can explain how we got this case. And it started in 2005, when a lawyer in france sent me an email a lawyer i had met because we had been doing some training together. He sent me an email saying that a lawyer in mauritania mr. Ebeta had asked him if perhaps they could find mohamedou, that the family believed him to be in guantanamo, and i found thats where he was and agreed to represent him. I also then discovered the center for Constitutional Rights had assigned a lawyer to him. They were assigning lawyers just as quickly as they could to all of the prisoners, and they had assigned a woman named sylvia royce, and they picked her because she spoke french and we assumed that mohamedou spoke french because mauritania had been 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 our first trip to guantanamo and we went we met on the way there, and we walked in to see him. The guards took us to the hut where they had him it wasnt the hut where he lived but where they were doing the interviews and he stood up and he smiled and he put his arms out as though to embrace us, but he didnt move. And i stood there wondering why he didnt move, and then realized in some horror he was chained to the floor. And couldnt move. And we literally sylvia and i walked into his embrace, and he gave us 90 pages, which was the beginning of this book. Shortly, some point later, sylvia left our team and decided to represent someone else. Another lawyer in albuquerque agreed to work with me, teresa done duncan so she started that year. And then in 2009 the aclu joint us hina and her tame, give jonathan now a professor but at seton hall but works with us, and art spitzer in washington. Then we needed a lawyer to go sit with mohamedou during his testimony. So i recruited another friend of mine linda moreno, from tampa, to go and sit with him. All of this is probono. When i asked terry to do and it 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 and by the way, theres no money. So that is how it all started, and thats how he ended up with this big team. Plus he has the lawyer in mauritania mr. Ebita who works with us also. Thats how it started in this case and actually our cocounsel is here today, art spitzer. But i also want to recognize that mohamedous case is one of many that have been brought on behalf of guantanamo detainees, and the center for Constitutional Rights has done a tremendous job recruiting people to represent the population. Remember, there were over 774 people there at the time. And it is particularly heartening to see many of our colleagues in what is sometimes referred to with dark humor that you bring to this kind of situation, that mohamedou brings to his situation the guantanamo bar association. Im glad to see many of you here. The proceeds of the book where are they going . We set up a trust for mow mamadou mohamedou and theyll go into the trust to help him rebuild his life but at his instruction, we have also actually used some of that money to send one of his nephews to a college, and he wants to get all of the people of college age in his family educated and then he would like to if theres enough money and we sell enough books start a foundation to actually educate girls in mauritania. But we would like him to have the money to rebuild his life when he gets out. Lets talk for a bit about the case that the government thought it had against mohamedou. Now, again, havent been any charges formally filed against him, but theres suspicions about him have been clear over time. And those suspicions and their case seem to have evolved some with the government retreating from its most damning allegations. Initially the claim was that mohamedou had aided in the 9 11 attacks and he had materially supported forces associated with al qaeda. But the government isnt claiming that anymore. Is that right . Do you want to take this . 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 1999 and that was because he was in he actually came to montreal just as the person who was ultimately arrested for that plot was leaving montreal. They didnt know each other. Theres no reason to think they ever had any connection except that they prayed at the same mosque. So everyone who played at that mosque was under suspicion, and they learned 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. And then 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 then shortly after that they accused him of being one of the recruiters for the pilots in 9 11. Ultimately, the government couldnt prove that because it wasnt true. And the judge ruled that mohamedou could not have even known about 9 11. So, that allegation is gone. So all that were left with is that he was at one time part of al qaeda. And its important to remember that the al qaeda that he fought with in 1990 and 1991, against the soviet union, the United States was supporting that effort support ited it with millions of dollars, with munitions and weapons, and theres no secret about that. If you have 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 that came and attacked us many years later. But that is where we are with the government. You know i think the judges decision back in 2010 is really instructive because he said, hes the first person who is a neutral person to have reviewed all of the evidence in the case, and he decided that the evidence in the case was either not credible, because it was obtained through torture or coercion or for other reasons. And i remember reading the first time i was able to read the diary years ago so much more became clear to me because mohamedou talked about the torture that he was subjected to that resulted in him providing false information about himself and others because essentially he was told that he was told what they wanted him to say. And so he was also in a position, he says in the book, of the more incriminating the fiction he could make up, the happier his interrogators were. Theres one point he talks about whenever they asked me about somebody in canada i had some incriminating information about that person even if i didnt know him. Whenever i thought about the word i dont know i got nauseous because i remember the words of redacted. All you have to say, now were quoting, redynamicked, all you have to say is, dont know, i dont remember, and well f you. And thats the on sent that was used. So he said i erased thats words from the dictionary. That passage comes of you read about the pain he goes through and one of the things again as i think about this book and in the last year, that we have had with more information coming out about torture, our debate about torture in the last few months has been so debased in a way because its focused on effectiveness, and effectiveness doesnt matter right . Its unlawful, its imparl, and this sews there are two things that torture absolutely guarantees, one is pain, and the other is false information. Why was is that the government even suspected mohamedou in connection with 9 11 . Somebody incriminate him under torture or otherwise . Well, they there was some evidence that he had met Ramsey Ben Al sheed in his home two years earlier and the judge said who is he . One of the people who is currently charged with one of the 9 11 defendants, will be on trial in the military commissions in guantanamo, and he is in guantanamo, and the judge found that all that proved was that they had met two years before 9 11, and that is when judge robertson said in his opinion, thats no evidence that mohamedou knew anything about 9 11 but the government in 2003 was just desseparate to find people desperate to find people to charge and was convinced that everyone that they had must be guilty of something, and they were determined to do that, and the other thing that we have learned, just recently is 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 . And mohamedou gives another example that they said we know you want you were conspiring to blow up the tower in toronto and he talks about this in the book. And he said i didnt even know there was tower in toronto but i said yes of course issue was involved in that. And they asked him about another young man in florida, and mohamedou talks about how terrible he felt that he said all these terrible things about this man who he didnt even know 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 allowed it out is because the governments own investigations have talked about mohamedous torture specifically. It was a Senate Armed Services Committee Report in 2008 that devoted 11 pages and described what he described, but we have never heard it from his side from the side of the person who is the victim. He talks about it. You can feel it. You can taste it. You can smell what he goes through, because he gives us such vivid accounts, and yet even with that he still maintains his humor and his humanity, and he understands there are good people and bad people and he even talks about how you dont get to choose your family, and he didnt get to choose this family but that his Prison Guards and interrogators became his family, and so you really get a sense from him of the pain of the torture and yet at the same time the humanity that drives him and keeps him i think, keeps him sane. Even show it seems the government no longer sees mohamedou as being connected to 9 11 theres still the issue of these connections to some members of al qaeda that mohamedou had through the 90s and especially this tie to his former brotherinlaw who is abu who was a senior al qaeda member. How problematic do you think that might be for him. Ill talk about abu. Abu is a very interesting situation. He is a distant cousin of mohamedous and was related to mohamedous exwife, i believe. He supposedly was with Osama Bin Laden as a spiritual leader, a mauritanian, obviously, but he left in 2001 and in the 9 11 report it actually says that he disapproved of the 9 11 bombings abuse he said they were a violation of the koran. We now know, and we didnt know for a long long time that he left at that time and went to iran 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 then was released after he was interrogated by the americans. So although all throughout the years we have been battling the government, they said its because mohamedou was connected to his cousin abu and now abu is out and a free man and mohamedou is still there. And we dont know what he and the government discussed because the government has been unwilling to turn that over to us. I think that relates to and goes back to your question about what is the basis for continuing to hold him when all of these allegations have been discredit or rejected and dont really stand. And it seems at this point that the basis that the government factually has is guilt by long ago association that he disavowed, not an actual wrongdoing and here i think its particularly telling that at one point in i believe it was around 20062007 that maybe earlier than that that the government thought well what are we going to do . And assigned the former top military prosecutor at guantanamo, colonel mo davis to figure out whether there was criminal charges that could be filed against him. And mo davis has given interviews saying he wasnt able to come up with any criminal charges to filed against mohamedou, and yet he continues to be held. Now, when you look im going because im a lawyer talk a little bit about the legal issues here. When you look at the legal basis, right . There is no basis because mohamedou never actually engaged in any kind of hostilities against the United States. If youre going to have lawful detention it has to be in violation of the laws or war, and he wasnt even near any kind of battlefield because he was picked up in mauritania. He voluntarily turned himself in to his National Police in order to answer questions they might have and so one of the things that we have been hoping for and 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 that are especially if im going to duck about the law prisoner review boarded that have been set up within the administration to determine whether people continue to pose a threat and if not to clear them for release. We have some criticism. Theyre excessively secret. Not enough due process safeguards but thats a possible way out for people. And another way is the department of defense to no longer contest his habeas case decide throat got. Let us get a court or the that ordered him released and puts an to end this yearslong purgatoriy he has been in. Are these socalled confessions which he claims were made under duress and has renounced, are they a problem for him in either case . I dont think they are. The government agreed, realizing they tortured him without saying it not to use any of his statements during the actual what they called the torture time. They then wanted to use statements he had made afterwards while he is still in the same place still interesting entire gifted by the interrogated by the same people. The judge said he would not rely on my statement that mohamedou made unless there was somebody else who supported it. And i think everyone now pretty much realizes that those were just made up. Thats what happens when people get tortured. They just say yes to whatever they need to. The worst i think the worst thing that happened in many ways, more than the torture more than beating him, more than standing in stress positions, more than the sleeplessness if you read the book, youll read all about it. But in many ways the worst thing they did was they brought in a guy who was captain collins. 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 was a complete fake. But what they did was use the fact that they knew he had been very close to his mother. He didnt know it was a fake and it was really at that point he said, ill just tell you anything you want. And in many ways, that may have been one of the worst things they did. And also of course, illegal and a violation of the various treaties that were supposed to uphold. If. If i can follow on about mohamedou and his relationship with his mother. It becomes very keir how dear she is to him. Very clear how dear she is to him and he talks also about the first time that he received an actual letter from his mother and he talks about touching it and smelling it because she had touched it and we know because of interviews that the family has given, that and the letter she wrote that his mother wrote to him that his mother was praying for him every day, wanted to see him once again and that is just not going to happen because mohamedous mother died in 2013. And that was during the tenth year of his detention at guantanamo and that wish of his and hers will never be fulfilled. Let me add one more thing about that. It tells you Something Else about the tragedy of guantanamo. We learned that his mother had died from the lawyer in mauritania and we talked to his family and they were afraid to tell him, that she had died. They were afraid this would send him into a spiral of depression. But they were also afraid that he would find out by through the guards, and we had to ask the government, basically, plead 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, and Teresa Duncan was the one who had what she considers the worst part of this whole case, was she was the one who had to tell him that his mother had died and he dedicated the back to her, and he cant have get those years back and he cant get her back. And the government knew from the very beginning how close he was to her and used it against him. How much of what mohamedou describes conclude corroborated now by other declassified documents . I think 100 . 100 . The first time it is kind of an interesting story. The fbi had an investigation because the fbi some fbi agents were complaining that they were being accused of torturing him, and they said, were not involved. We have walked away from this. And so the fbis internal the Inspector General for the fbi did an investigation, and actually discovered that some members of the military were saying they were fbi so the fbi would get into trouble for what they were doing. But in the course of that investigation, they declassified the first information about his torture, and then there was a Senate Armed Services Committee Report the same year, 2008 which devoted 11 pages to describing his torture and then there were a couple other investigations. So everything that he describes the government has admitted it did to him. Theres still parts of it that are being withheld and kept secret. I think above all, it should be mohamedous talking to you instead of nancy and me glad to the we for be able to do it, and it should be mohamedou who is telling you his full story of everything that happened. Part of the redacted text chunks of redaction is a poem he wrote about his treatment. You wonder why the government needs to redact a poem that a guantanamo detainee wrote. Id love to hear what his poetry is and how he is approaching this but we cant. I think theres a level of secrecy, really devastating secrecy, that continues to surround guantanamo the fact that everything in here was classified until the end of the sixyear long litigation 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 6,700 pages of an investigative report into the cias torture that are still being withheld from the american public. And so theres still more of this story that needs to be told and must be told. And i want to touch on another aspect that mohamedou illuminates 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 . And in a place that was devoted to dehumanizing him, mow mohamedou humanizes his torturers and jailers. He tries to understand them. He describes their relationships. The talk about the political and theological conversations they have, the english they teach him, about the jailers, the friendliyer ones who tell him and whisper to him youre not who i thought you were. Youre not who i was told you were because remember, these were People Service men and women were being told they were guarding the worst of the worst. Right . Remember that phrase from Donald Rumsfeld and some of mohamedous torturers and jailers come around and say thats not who you are. Thats not now that it ive gotten to know who you are, and he really tries to understand why it would be that they are in the place theyre in and why he is in the place he is in, and some of the most moving parts of the book are when mohamedou describes trying to understand what must be going through the minds of american men and women as they are doing these things to him and continuing to hold him. Significant to me the details he reveals are that the tone of the book, which youre describing is also quite remarkable. He says that he only wants to describe what he saw, what he experienced, not to exaggerate and he seems to be able to maintain that tone throughout. Let me ask, you know, more than 50 others at guantanamo have already been cleared for release, but theyre not going anywhere for various reasons. What difference do you expect this book might make in winning release of mohamedou . Go ahead. Well, we hope it makes a very significant difference. Obviously what we want to do is really bring home to people mow mamadous story the story that mohamedou wanted told himself and show the engines and unlawful nature of his ongoing detention. We hope that people are moved by his story that they will join us in the campaign which we call free slahi, on our web site at aclu. Org free slahi, and pet decision the secretary of defense not to contest the dod the habeas case anymore and its been heartening response. In the few days since we launched the petition over 20,000 people have signed, and were obviously hoping for a lot more. Were hope that people like you will read this book and talk about and it join us, but we every single year since ive joined the case, ive thought, let this be the year that we set him free, and this year, this year yeah. This year ive been doing this for ten years, and i really dont want to do it for 11. We have some time for questions. If youd like to ask something, can you please step up to the microphone over here. Only one . Yes, only one this evening. Two questions. The first is, what else other than the poem do you suppose has been redacted, what kinds of things do you suppose have been redacted . And the second question is, if he is cleared for release, will he be able to return to mauritania . I can answer the second part and tell you, yes. Teresa duncan one of our cocounsel, was in mauritania with our investigatorment they met with government officials of this is not the same government that turned him over to the United States illegally. And they would welcome him home. There were originally three mauritanians in guantanamo. One of them is home. One of them is cleared for release, and so hes mohamedou could both go home. So thats not a problem. Ill let hina answer the other question. The reason i can answer this other question is because i actually dont know what is behind the redactions so i can look at publicly available information and talk about what might be behind the redactions because from the governments perspective im not in a position of confirming or denying what is actually there. I think the redactions range from odd redactions of female pronouns when its clear that what is happening is sexual humiliation and sexual abuse. But then even those redactions of inconsistent because sometimes her is redacted and other times it isnt redacted. Other aspects are the names of people or identifying information, which you can understand for the governments perspective would be more reasonable. But yet still it ends up protecting those who have committed violations of law. And then the editor of the book seins combed through the publicly available documents out there and says he has Read Everything out there about him and he actually has footnotes in which he explores what he thinks might be behind the redactions. And that may provide some if not definitive answer to your question certainly more illumination in response to it. Nabsy couldnt answer that because she does have security clearance and does know what is behind the redaction but hina doesnt. Has this book been translated into other languages . And if not why not . This book is in the process of being translated into 23 other languages. We have contracts with in 23 countries, nine of them, i believe, came out on january 20th. Youll find information. They have been active along with the aclu. Ccr, the center for Constitutional Rights advocates for all of the guantanamo clients all the time. Why do you use the word redaction and in the . I use a lot. Tonight im using redaction, but it is. I i dont know if you can answer this question, but i just wanted to know currently theyre is a political culture with americans and the world at general. Terrorism general. Terrorism is not a thing that does not affect us. Its more like its this grand active harm against the homeland anymore. In the post 911 world, but it is more a crime that will be committed as if a person was robbing a bank or committing a murder. Do you think that with that culture, this post 911 world that americans we will be more inclined to see guantanamo and other blacks throughout the world, the United States closed eventually. Do eventually. Do you think that the culture of protecting americans can protect the human rights is emerging in the later years of this decade . 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 that we can actually deal with consistent with our values consistent with the rule of law. I am not sure that everyone is theyre yet. There are too many of our politicians and policymakers who would like to rule based upon fear and fear mongering about terrorism. The threat as opposed to actual fact. 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 do not think that we are there yet to really have a ways to go. There is knew legislation that has just been proposed by certain senators that would seek to well, congress has made a lot of mistakes when it comes to guantanamo by trying to prevent it from being closed there theyre is more legislation, knew legislation that would make it even harder. Here also if you we will bear with me i just want to quote something from the book and from what he says because he is speaking to us. 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 no theyre is a small extremist minority that believes everyone in this cuban prison is evil and that we are treated better than we deserve but this opinion has know basis but ignorance. I am amazed someone can build such an incrementing opinion about such people here she does not even no. That was written years ago. Thats right. You must have anticipated my question. I wondered if you would read from the book so that we could get a sense of his voice. Do you have any other favorite passages . So many you no, can i just read go ahead. Go ahead. He is talking about when he actually arrived at guantanamo. This is after he has been held in jordan and tortured for almost eight months. This is is after he was then taken to bagram and abused and tortured for a couple of weeks. And he gets to quantify the mold and says he gets to guantanamo and says i care less about the time it would take the americas to figure out i was not the guy they were looking for. I trusted the american Justice System too much and showed shared that trust with the detainees from european countries. We all had an idea about how the democratic system worked other detainees, for instance, those, those from the middle east did not believe it for a 2nd. Their argument lay on the growing hostilities extremist americans against muslims and arabs. With every day going by the optimist lost ground. The interrogation methods worsened considerably as time went by, by, and as you shall see those responsible for gitmo broke all the principles upon which the us was built and compromised every great principle such as Benjamin Franklins giving up essential liberty to attain a little temporary safety deserve neither. I dont even know what i would want to read. I just want you to read this book. I want you to read this book i i had not picked out any particular things that i wanted. I had i had not picked out any particular things that i wanted to read. Let me one of the things one of the worst things that happened was when they took him out of a boat and one of the other really terrible things they did was never let him pray, and that was part of the specific interrogation technique by the way secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote exactly what could be done. And 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 began to bringing the floor violently with heavy boots, dogs barking, doors closing loudly. Redacted. We we were staring at each other not knowing what was going on. My heart was pounding because i knew a detainee was going to be hurt and that detainee was me. Suddenly a Commando Team broke into our interrogation room. Everything room. Everything happened quicker than you could think about. Mother fokker i told you you are gone said redacted. His partner punching me everywhere. He too was masked from head to toe. He pressed me the whole time without saying a word because he did not want to be recognized. The 3rd man was not masked he stayed by the door holding a dogs collar. Who told you to do that. You are you are hurting the detainee screamed redacted was know less terrified than i was. I could not address the situation. My 1st thought was they mistook me for someone else. My 2nd thought was to try to recognize my environment. Blindfold the mother fokker if he tries to look. One of them hit me hard across the face and quickly start goggles on my eyes earmuffs on my years in a small bag around my head. I started to bleed. All i could here was redacted cussing as this and have that. I was. I was overwhelmingly surprised. I thought they were going to execute me. That is the beginning and when he goes out on the boat boat and that is what starts what he calls the recipe command that is when it began. It went on for months and months and months that is just the beginning of it. Just one other part. Stop praying, mother mother fokker, you are killing people. My mouth and nose started to bleed. Bleed. My lips grew so big i technically could not speak any more. We were able very early on to get his medical record. In fact in his medical record it shows that his ribs are broken. So we were able to glean that part pretty early on in this case, they had broken his ribs when i took them out of the boat. But mock executions are not only immoral but illegal under the treaties that the United States has signed. So it is you no, one of those things that the United States the convention against torture specifically says that mock executions are illegal and it also says that those who torture must be prosecuted. That is under the treaty obligations. Those who are tortured are supposed to receive damages. In our case neither has happened. First, i want to say, thank you so much for pursuing this. I am glad our country has people like you. I am astonished this book got published and i would like you to talk about how that happened when theyre are so many other things that are secret. Maybe it is related to my 2nd question. President obama told everyone on tuesday night that he is determined to close guantanamo. What is keeping him from doing that . Did allowing this book to be published, maybe he is hoping this we will help him . This book took six years or more to get out. It was written in 2,005. We get the 1st 90 pages and then he sent it in bits and pieces. We we were able to get it declassified in a form call protected protected status. It means we could talk about it. We could talk talk about on the telephone. We could send it back and forth. She was able to read it but what it really means is you cant tell the press about it. You cant tell the public about it. You cant publish it. We continue to argue and fight. We had years of litigation about this saying that we believe that part of our advocacy was what we are doing now, the court of Public Opinion that this is part of how we as lawyers are supposed to operate. The government disagreed. The court disagreed and finally told us that if we wanted to have the whole 466 pages, this handwritten original document completely cleared we would have to send it back to whatever agencies the government determined and have to give up the attorneyclient privilege that he had over his writings because at this time they were written to his lawyers. He agreed to do that, and that take another two years. Then i came back and it was still protected and we had to have another fight. By that time most of what had happened to him was public, so they really couldnt keep it from us any longer. On the 2nd part of your question, this week is the six Year Anniversary of pres. Obama coming in office and promising to close guantanamo within a year. That obviously has not happened. There happened. Theyre are all sorts of political and partisan reasons for that. I think the failure belongs to all three parts of the government. A voice of the executive branch for not following through on its commitment in a timely way. It belongs to congress that has put up barriers to release people and it belongs to the court which have given the government excessive deference about his detention argument is so that judicial review of detention decisions is becoming a rubberstamp. I think all three need to change but i do think that theyre is momentum. For the 1st time more prisoners were released than at any. Since 2,009. There are 54 men who have been cleared for release out of the 122 that still remain and we and others are pushing for there release as soon as possible, as soon as they can be transferred to countries where they will be protected from rights violations. We need to prosecute the people against whom theyre is genuine evidence of wrongdoing, and we need to release the rest. Prisoner review boards which i talked about earlier one way, i one way hopefully not contesting a hideous case like this one is another way. We see greater momentum, but far far more needs to be done if this place will close before president obama leaves office. Time for one more question. I wanted i wanted to know if you feel as his lawyer that you have enough that you have the opportunity to get your hands on all the information you needed to defend him and also though i still dont see how if it is proven that theyre was torture, why the case against him is not thrown out if it was torture isnt that grounds enough to throw out any case against somebody . To answer the 1st question, know, we have not seen everything. The government has kept a great deal of information from us that we need, that we believe is exculpatory and favorable we cant determine often. We cant get much information that we need. Can they continue to keep secrets even from the lawyers and have security clearances. We cannot get the information that we need to really defend him. The government has done everything that it can to make it difficult to represent these clients. We we have to go to guantanamo. Every time if he 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 a month in each direction. It is not like representing anyone else. The government has done this intentionally so that it becomes very difficult to represent them. Go ahead. That is also true for virtually every other guantanamo detainee. It is very hard for every lawyer representing every detainee because we have the same kind of concerns and constraints. In this way it is not unusual that he is not the only person who has been tortured. There are many others remaining and they continue to be unjustly detained because unfortunately the fact that theyre was torture that all of the incriminating evidence came from that has not been enough to secure his release. It should be but it has not been enough and he is not alone. Theyre are other people like him and part of our effort is to tell the story and help people understand that the same generosity that he asks in his book toward americans and individuals is the generosity that i hope we have told the people were Still Holding to see them as individual human beings and determine their case and ensure their release and put an end to the ongoing travesty that is guantanamo still today. So i wish mohammed do 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 i am confident that when he does get out and is able to view video of the talk this evening that he we will certainly appreciate the justice that both of you did to him in his book and his cause. Thank you very much. [applause] so we can step your book with his signature
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