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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Hi I am Marco Werman. This is The World. President Obama vowed to shut down the US military prison at Guantanamo. That was almost two years ago. And Mr. Obama has yet to find a way to fulfill that pledge. Today he suffered another setback. The Senate approved a bill that would ban the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US for trial and incarceration. Now what has officials say they’re preparing an executive order that would formalize the detainees’ indefinite detention without trial while setting up a system for periodic reviews of their cases? Lieutenant Colonel David Frakt is the US air force reserve JAG corps. He’s defending Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad. Frakt says the executive order might bring about an improvement for the detainees.

DAVID FRAKT: What’s important about this new review process is that at least as it has been reported the detainees will be entitled to a council to a system in the process. And that did not exist in the earlier combatant status review tribunal administrative review board process. And I think that’s a major improvement.

WERMAN: Some people have said this draft order is equivalent of a parole board for prisoners. Is that accurate for [xx]?

FRAKT: Well it does have some of those features. What we have focused on before was was this person an unlawful combatant at the time that they were captured? And that may have been in 2001-2002-2003. And it does very little look at is there a continued basis to hold them now. And so this hearing process may say well we were lawfully holding them in our opinion but is there a good reason to hold them? Perhaps they have renounced terrorism, or they have cooperated, or conditions have changed in their home country and we’re comfortable that could release them without concern of them rejoining the fight. So in that sense it does have some parole board like features.

WERMAN: So are we going to hear them what some of those good reasons are for holding these detainees?

FRAKT: I would hope that we would. This is a large question that remains regarding these 48 individuals that allegedly are too dangerous to release but cannot be tried for any crimes. And I have always wondered and asked how can that be? Is it we cannot try them because they never committed any crimes, or we can’t try them because the evidence of their crimes was obtained through torture and coercion. We really don’t know. So this will be an opportunity to put to the test the government’s claim that these people really are too dangerous to release, yet somehow cannot be tried.

WERMAN: I’m just wondering, I mean many civil liberty groups have been vocal in the criticisms of this draft executive order. Do you feel like we are heading to this kind of new space where there are two worlds where people can get charged and some people won’t get charged?

FRAKT: Well, my primary criticism of this is that it may lend of a near of legality and legitimacy to indefinite detentions that may not be well founded under international law. There clearly is a right to detain people and not to charge them that are captured in an armed conflict that are enemy combatants. But what about people who have some affiliation with some terrorist group, that are picked up outside of an active theater of war? For a lot of civil libertarians there’s concern that we’re importing a military detention model into what really should be a criminal justice process.

WERMAN: You know, president Obama pledged to change things at Guantanamo. Do you think what we’re seeing now is just a kind of a fine tuning of the same policy basically as the Bush administration?

FRAKT: Yes. I mean it is an improvement. Conditions at Guantanamo have improved for the detainees and there has been an effort to make Guantanamo comply with domestic and international law rather than simply declaring it to be a law free zone. Yet, the underline policy of holding suspected enemy terrorists forever remains the same.

WERMAN: Lieutenant colonel David Frakt defended Guantanamo detainee Mohammad Jawad. He is a professor at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando. Thanks very much.

FRAKT: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• BBC coverage
• Profile of Ahmed Ghailani
• Closing Guantanamo

(Photo: Katy Clark)

“The alternative to any payments made would have been protracted and extremely expensive litigation in an uncertain legal environment.” He added that it wasn’t clear that the government would be able to defends its security and intelligence agencies without compromising national security.

British authorities, including the head of the country’s spy agency MI6, have been saying for weeks that Britain doesn’t torture or condone torture or turn a blind eye to it. So why pay the compensation? John Walker, a former head of Defense Intelligence, said the paying the settlement makes it see as if British authorities were, in fact, complicit: “Which is very strange only a month after the head of MI6 stood up in public and assured the nation that we did not partake in torture,” he added. “I think those two things are seemingly incompatible.”

As part of the settlement, the government does not admit guilt, and the former detainees do not have to drop their allegations. Still, Peter Goldsmith, who was attorney general in Tony Blair’s government, said it was the right move to pay.

“I think the most important part of this settlement is that it now clears the way for the public inquiry into these allegations of torture and complicity to torture which has already been announced,” he said. “The Government has made sure that the claims are settled so that they can now get on with the public inquiry and we can get to the bottom of these allegations.”

What remains to be seen is whether the payouts will have any impact on other Guantanamo-related litigation. Former detainee Mamdouh Habib, an Australian, is suing his government for alleged collusion in torture. His lawyer, Clive Evatt, said today’s announcement is a positive sign for his client.
“If the British government is prepared to pay out a certain amount of money to their citizens who have exactly the same identical case as Mr. Habib, then I suppose one could point to that in assessing damages in Mr. Habib’s case.” He added that it’s a psychological boost for his client to know that prisoners in a similar situation have settled for what appears to be a substantial sum of money.

Defense lawyers aren’t the only ones pleased with the British government’s settlement. Analysts say say there has also been much crowing on Jihadi websites. Download MP3

• BBC coverage
• From the archives: Katy Clark’s Guantanamo coverage on The World (2002-2009)
• Katy Clark’s Guantanamo photos (2007)

It’s one of only 6 African teams competing in the soccer tournament. The country we want you to name extends into the Sahara Desert.

And it’s the only Muslim majority country competing in South Africa. The game against the US is a big deal for the Desert Foxes.

One player said: “This game could change our lives and give us memories we’ll always have.”

And here’s something you may not know. This match will be watched with great interest by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay:

“I mean they talk about all day long about who played about how they scored that goal and this goal and this player that player making those who are not watching want to watch.”

We’ll hear more about Guantanamo detainees tuning in to the World Cup.

So this World Cup game coming up tomorrow is a big deal in Guantanamo…. Why ?

US versus Algeria. Algeria is the answer to our Geo Quiz.

Alexandra Gutierrez is a reporter based on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Listen to the interview:

Download MP3

• Closing Guantanamo
• Katy Clark’s Guantanamo stories

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  The Obama administration is still reviewing its options as to where to try key terrorism suspects, and that includes alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  Plans to try him at a federal court in New York generated a lot of opposition, and that’s kept alive the option of military trials.  Guantanamo could be the venue.  The suspects are already there, and the legal system to try them is ready to go, as The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: Former President George W. Bush signed orders back in 2006 setting up military tribunals for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.  In doing so, Mr. Bush was adapting a long established system of military commissions to a modern threat.  Still, critics charged that the commissions were a lesser form of justice than either civilian or other military courts.  President Obama seemed to agree, and shortly after taking office he suspended the military tribunals and launched a review.  Realizing, though, that the commissions might be a necessary option, President Obama signed his own version of the Military Commissions Act last fall.  Navy Captain John Murphy is Chief Prosecutor in the Military Commissions office at the Pentagon.  One of the biggest changes under President Obama, he says, is limits on the type of evidence that can now be admitted.

JOHN MURPHY:  “There can be no torture, obviously.  That was true in the previous statute as well.  But no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner can be introduced.”

CLARK: Also any statements introduced in trial now have to be voluntary, rather than merely reliable.  And when it comes to hearsay evidence, the burden is now on the party who offers it, to prove its reliability.  Captain Murphy says defendants also have greater freedom to select their own military lawyers under the revamped Military Commissions Act or MCA.

MURPHY: “I think that the new MCA that is currently in effect is an improvement over our prior law, and I believe it represents fair justice.  We’re ready to move forward, when we’re directed by our leadership to prosecute cases under that statute.”

CLARK: But not all lawyers are as enthusiastic as Captain Murphy is to see the military commissions resume.  Law Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University has represented several Guantanamo detainees.  He says it remains unclear to him what the government means when it says no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner will be allowed.  Denbeaux wonders if that includes evidence obtained after a detainee has been deprived of sleep for several days.

MARK DENBEAUX:  “Now, I think you could argue evidence after 48 hours of being kept awake with loud noises and strobe lights isn’t reliable.  But the standard here also is – is it humane?  Are courts gonna say keeping people awake for 24 hours are inhumane?  Fourteen hours?  Eighteen hours?  The questions here can’t be solved by saying we’re not only not allowing in torture.  We’re also not allowing inhumanely obtained evidence.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy says it’s up to the judge to determine what’s admissible, based on what Murphy describes as ‘the totality of the circumstances’.

MURPHY:  “I would also add, too, that prosecutors make their own decisions before we ever offer evidence.  And within my office, if we make a determination that a statement or other evidence is likely to be excluded under those rules, that is, that it’s cruel, inhumane, degrading or torture or not voluntarily provided, then we’re not gonna offer it.”

CLARK: Still, other legal experts interviewed for this story say that no matter what changes the Obama administration makes, the military commissions at Guantanamo are flawed beyond repair.

JOHN HUTSON:  “For me, there’s absolutely no question that the best place to try terrorists is in federal court.”

CLARK: John Hutson served as Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy from 1997 to 2000.  He’s now Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire.

HUTSON:  “Let’s say that you came here from Mars.  And you were told that we have some really, really bad guys that we want to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.  And we’ve got two judicial systems that we have to choose between.  One of them, it successfully prosecuted 200 cases since September 11^th, ’01, and most of those guys are still in prison.  It has experienced judges and prosecutors and court personnel.  And it clearly complies with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.  That’s one system.”

CLARK: Hutson describes the other system as having tried just three cases since 9/11.  Two of the defendants pleaded guilty and are now free.  The third didn’t participate and was found guilty in absentia.

HUTSON: “Which one would you select?  To me, that’s just a no brainer.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy of the Military Commissions Office has heard such arguments before and shrugs them off.  He maintains there’s no better law team than his to handle terrorism cases.  Captain Murphy adds that one of the reasons why the Office of Military Commissions has only held three trials at Guantanamo so far is because proceedings have been on hold there for the past year.  The Office of Military Commissions is now preparing three more cases.  Preliminary hearings at Guantanamo are expected to resume later this month.  The next trial is set to begin in July.  For The World, this is Katy Clark.

MARCO WERMAN:  The Obama administration is still reviewing its options as to where to try key terrorism suspects, and that includes alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  Plans to try him at a federal court in New York generated a lot of opposition, and that’s kept alive the option of military trials.  Guantanamo could be the venue.  The suspects are already there, and the legal system to try them is ready to go, as The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: Former President George W. Bush signed orders back in 2006 setting up military tribunals for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.  In doing so, Mr. Bush was adapting a long established system of military commissions to a modern threat.  Still, critics charged that the commissions were a lesser form of justice than either civilian or other military courts.  President Obama seemed to agree, and shortly after taking office he suspended the military tribunals and launched a review.  Realizing, though, that the commissions might be a necessary option, President Obama signed his own version of the Military Commissions Act last fall.  Navy Captain John Murphy is Chief Prosecutor in the Military Commissions office at the Pentagon.  One of the biggest changes under President Obama, he says, is limits on the type of evidence that can now be admitted.

JOHN MURPHY:  “There can be no torture, obviously.  That was true in the previous statute as well.  But no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner can be introduced.”

CLARK: Also any statements introduced in trial now have to be voluntary, rather than merely reliable.  And when it comes to hearsay evidence, the burden is now on the party who offers it, to prove its reliability.  Captain Murphy says defendants also have greater freedom to select their own military lawyers under the revamped Military Commissions Act or MCA.

MURPHY: “I think that the new MCA that is currently in effect is an improvement over our prior law, and I believe it represents fair justice.  We’re ready to move forward, when we’re directed by our leadership to prosecute cases under that statute.”

CLARK: But not all lawyers are as enthusiastic as Captain Murphy is to see the military commissions resume.  Law Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University has represented several Guantanamo detainees.  He says it remains unclear to him what the government means when it says no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner will be allowed.  Denbeaux wonders if that includes evidence obtained after a detainee has been deprived of sleep for several days.

MARK DENBEAUX:  “Now, I think you could argue evidence after 48 hours of being kept awake with loud noises and strobe lights isn’t reliable.  But the standard here also is – is it humane?  Are courts gonna say keeping people awake for 24 hours are inhumane?  Fourteen hours?  Eighteen hours?  The questions here can’t be solved by saying we’re not only not allowing in torture.  We’re also not allowing inhumanely obtained evidence.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy says it’s up to the judge to determine what’s admissible, based on what Murphy describes as ‘the totality of the circumstances’.

MURPHY:  “I would also add, too, that prosecutors make their own decisions before we ever offer evidence.  And within my office, if we make a determination that a statement or other evidence is likely to be excluded under those rules, that is, that it’s cruel, inhumane, degrading or torture or not voluntarily provided, then we’re not gonna offer it.”

CLARK: Still, other legal experts interviewed for this story say that no matter what changes the Obama administration makes, the military commissions at Guantanamo are flawed beyond repair.

JOHN HUTSON:  “For me, there’s absolutely no question that the best place to try terrorists is in federal court.”

CLARK: John Hutson served as Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy from 1997 to 2000.  He’s now Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire.

HUTSON:  “Let’s say that you came here from Mars.  And you were told that we have some really, really bad guys that we want to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.  And we’ve got two judicial systems that we have to choose between.  One of them, it successfully prosecuted 200 cases since September 11^th, ’01, and most of those guys are still in prison.  It has experienced judges and prosecutors and court personnel.  And it clearly complies with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.  That’s one system.”

CLARK: Hutson describes the other system as having tried just three cases since 9/11.  Two of the defendants pleaded guilty and are now free.  The third didn’t participate and was found guilty in absentia.

HUTSON: “Which one would you select?  To me, that’s just a no brainer.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy of the Military Commissions Office has heard such arguments before and shrugs them off.  He maintains there’s no better law team than his to handle terrorism cases.  Captain Murphy adds that one of the reasons why the Office of Military Commissions has only held three trials at Guantanamo so far is because proceedings have been on hold there for the past year.  The Office of Military Commissions is now preparing three more cases.  Preliminary hearings at Guantanamo are expected to resume later this month.  The next trial is set to begin in July.  For The World, this is Katy Clark.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Obama reaffirms Guantanamo Bay prison closure plans
• Katy’s debrief after her return from Gitmo
• Katy’s previous Guantanamo coverage on The World
• Q&A: Closing Guantanamo

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH, Boston.  Shortly after taking office one year ago today, President Obama issued an Executive Order.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now.  We will be setting up a process whereby this is going to be taking place.

WERMAN: The President’s deadline for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is this Friday.  Mr. Obama bas already said he won’t meet that time line, though he remains committed to closing it as soon as possible.  The World’s Katy Clark recently toured the detention facility to find out what Guantanamo looks like on the eve of the President’s deadline.

KATY CLARK: The detainee library at Camp Delta is a good place to gauge the pulse of Guantanamo eight years after the first prisoners arrived.

ROSARIO: In this room we have our biggest selection.

CLARK: The librarian identifies herself only as Rosario, and she doesn’t allow her face to be photographed. Still, she proudly displays the camp’s collections, which occupied just one small room in a drab prefab building a few years ago.

ROSARIO: It used to be next door and it used to be small room that we have approximately about 5,000 books. Currently, we have 14,000 books.  With magazines and DVDS, we are around 17,000 items.

CLARK: Rosario says the library had to expand because the detainees have been here so long they’ve already read and watched everything in the room. One thing camp commanders here have learned over the years is that keeping detainees occupied goes a long way towards keeping the peace.  There are now art classes in several of the camps, and some detainees are learning to read and write in both English and their native languages.  Close to 75 percent of the men being held here are now considered compliant, meaning they follow the camp rules. That’s up from around 11 percent two years ago.  Still, there were reportedly more than 800 assaults on the guard force last year.  And one guard tells me how small things continue to surprise them.  Like when detainees in Camp Four refused to play with the foosball table in their recreation yard.  They thought the players’ faces looked too western.

GUARD: So they demanded that we grind these off before they played with the foosball table. So we had to grind the faces off of all of the foosball little bunnies here, so they would not touch the table because it looked too westernized, really.

CLARK: In this same recreation yard, President Obama’s Executive Order to close Guantanamo by January 22, 2010 is posted for all detainees to see.  The guard says the detainees have been looking forward to that date, though no one’s expecting to be leaving by the end of this week.

GUARD: Most of these detainees they get a lot of info before we even get it.  I mean, between lawyers and ICRC, believe me sometimes we walk out on the block and they say hey guard let me talk to you.  You know, we’re closing on the 22nd. Really? Got something in writing?

CLARK: For his part, President Obama has acknowledged that closing Guantanamo has proven more difficult than he’d anticipated, and a recent poll suggests that more than half of Americans think the facility should remain open.  Rear Admiral Thomas Copeman is Commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. He says the uncertainty surrounding the future of the detention operation doesn’t bother them too much.

ADMIRAL COPEMAN: I think there was anticipation several months ago that we’d be closing in couple of weeks. But for us down here we’re not looking forward or disappointed or anything like that because we know that when we wake up in morning we have to provide their safe human, legal, transparent care and custody of these folks. That’s our job.  And when we get orders to transfer them wherever that may be, that’s what we’ll do and then we’ll wrap up operations here after last detainee leaves.

CLARK: Copeman says he could transfer the 200 remaining detainees out of Guantanamo in about 10 days if he had to, but there’s still a lot to be worked out.

ADMIRAL COPEMAN: First of all, you have to Point B designated right now.  Point A is GITMO. There is no Point B that’s been approved by the Congress and all that kind of stuff and funded.

CLARK: When Major Sam Maldonado of the Rhode Island National Guard got his orders last summer to deploy to Guantanamo, he was looking forward to being one of the last units to rotate through here, though that’s about all he’ll say on the matter.

MAJOR SAM MALDONADO: Rhode Island was initially involved in the opening and I thought what a neat thing to have Rhode Island also involved in the closing of that. But that was the only thing that I was looking forward to, not fact it was closing, but the fact that Rhode Island would be part of one of the units to close so, GITMO.

CLARK: Others, like Brigadier General Timothy Lake, the Deputy Commander of the Joint Task Force, say they’re concerned about what will happen to the detainees once Guantanamo closes.

GENERAL LAKE: I’m here at Guantanamo now and in the foreseeable future I might be back out on the battlefield. These individuals might in fact be on the battlefield in whatever capacity. I don’t know where they go, what they do, how they do it.  Really, we have very smart people that’s actually reviewing, doing that analysis and we’re all trusting that they make the appropriate decision.

CLARK: There’s also the question of what will happen to the facilities here once the detention operation is shuttered.  Over the past eight years, the U.S. Government has spent tens of millions of dollars on high-tech prisons and courtrooms at this remote base.

JOSHUA NISTAS: I’m going to pull it that way actually…

CLARK: Petty Officer Third Class Joshua Nistas opens a rusting gate into the original detention camp here known as X-Ray.  Camp X-Ray housed the first detainees brought to Guantanamo in January 2002.  The cells here resemble open-air dog cages.  X-Ray was closed after four months, but it remains a potent symbol for those who’ve spoken out over the years about alleged abuse and torture at Guantanamo.

NISTAS: You have to be very careful because now it’s very weak.  Nails don’t hold down too well.

CLARK: Several different judges have issued orders to preserve Camp X-Ray as evidence, but soon, there won’t be much left worth preserving.  It makes you wonder if this is what the entire detention operation will also look like years from now, that is if it ever closes.  For The World, this is Katy Clark, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Katy’s update from Guantanamo (Jan 6)
• Katy’s previous Guantanamo coverage on The World
• FAQ on closing Guantanamo

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. When Barack Obama became president he promised to shut down the US prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year. He’s going to miss the deadline. In fact the closure of Guantanamo has become even more difficult since Christmas day. That’s when a man who studied in Yemen allegedly attempted to blow up a US airliner. The White House then suspended the repatriation of Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo. Those Yemenis account for about half the prison’s population. In a moment we’ll speak with a top Yemeni diplomat about the terror threat from his country. But first we turn to the world’s Katy Clark for an update on Guantanamo. She’s just returned from her third trip to the facility since August 2002. So Katy I guess the question is what’s new there?

KATY CLARK: Well you get the sense that it’s no longer this high risk interrogation operation but more of a babysitting operation right now.

SHARP: How so?

CLARK: Well I mean maybe that’s exaggerating things a little bit but one of the starkest examples of that was in our tour of Camp 5 which is one of the maximum security prisons that have been built there over time. One of the cell blocks that they walk us down on our tour used to have an interrogation room in the first room of that cell block and now it’s a TV lounge with a refrigerator and detainees goes in there one at a time. And although they still have a shackle around one of their legs they can watch movies and get drinks out of the fridge and sit on this cushy couch. I mean it was weird to see that.

SHARP: Any other sort of really striking changes or developments?

CLARK: Well they take art classes now. They take language classes now. And that sort of underscores the sense that it’s not such a dangerous place anymore. The people being held there maybe are not so dangerous as they used to be. And one of the things that does seem to be different down there as well as the effort that is being made to have the guards and the detainees get along a little better than they have in the past. One of the individuals that I met down there is a fellow, a US military contractor, who was introduced simply as Zack – we didn’t get his real name or his full name.

SHARP: You mean it was withheld.

CLARK: Yeah the name was withheld for security reasons. And he is a Muslim-American who is employed as a cultural advisor at Guantanamo. He’s been there since September 2006. He’s only recently started talking to reporters. And his job he says is to work to teach and educate everybody who interacts with detainees about the detainees’ culture and religion. And it was really interesting the way he described his job. I want to play a bit of an interview that I did with him there. And it starts with how he says he helps newly arrived guards.

ZACK: I show them you know. They pray five times a day. This is how it’s performed you know so if you’re knocking on the cell door and you see the person doing all the movements you know that’s done do not knock the door. Wait until that one person is done praying because you know he’s not going to answer you. All these little things you know I was able to teach you know and you know we have new people all the time here you know so I’m always continuing to teach everyone who works on the blocks about all these things.

CLARK: How do they detainees here view what you do? It seems as if they might look at you as the enemy.

ZACK: It’s not an easy job. It’s a difficult job because some they call me you know traitor, some they call me enemy of guard you know. Some you know because I was able to learn you know which group of detainees want to talk to me. Which one want to sit down man to man and do business you know.

CLARK: You talk about some of the games that were played early on. For instance … .

ZACK: Some of the games that were played you know it’s happened to me you know when I first came here you know. One detainee says a guard stepped on the Koran and urinated on it. I said okay.

CLARK: A story that was reported.

ZACK: A story that was reported. And he said come on down and see it with your own eyes. So I go down there you know. And I say to the detainee where is it? And my eye contact with the detainee says where is the footprint? The boot prints? You know boot prints are not easy to remove you know because once they go it’s not the [INDISCERNIBLE]. I dusted it off. I said okay then where is the urine. Smell it. I’m smelling you know. I’m not smelling it. But I’m not arguing also because my job is to listen and take in whatever I’m hearing and not argue. And I was saying where is the urine. He said look at it. So here is the book. Here’s the edge of the book. And it was exactly half a circle. You give me one human being that can urinate that uniformly. See you’re laughing. I did not laugh for the detainee or nothing. I said here is another copy but I went to another detainee who was more religious leader you know and I said guys this is what this person did so quit it.

CLARK: What kind of response did you get? I mean where they like kids who were caught in a lie?

ZACK: Yes, yes, yes. You know it’s something you know nobody’s going to admit you know. I mean another … . I mean just their ideology and their thinking you know just makes them believe you know. Like another example they’ll say as well it says in the Koran kill Americans. I looked at the kid – not kid you know just a guy – anybody younger than me is kid you know. You know and I said you know, okay no problem and just [INDISCERNIBLE] to somebody else, I said, can you show me where it says that? Maybe you know all these years I have not been able to find it you know. No he means this and he means that. So there’s always that game and manipulation and using religion as a weapon.

CLARK: That’s Zack, the US Defense Department’s cultural advisor down at Guantanamo Bay.

SHARP: He sounds like an interesting character. What was his background before he went to Guantanamo?

CLARK: He is Muslim-American. He said he’s of Jordanian descent and he had worked for the US military in Iraq back in 2003 as an interpreter and he sees this as just a continuation of this work. And it was interesting because I asked him if he had any concerns at some point in the job that he has had interacting very closely with the detainees, if he fears for his safety at some point when these men are released from Guantanamo if they might seek him out, which has been a common fear of the guards there. Some would describe it as a paranoia even. And he said if it happens it happens. I can’t really do anything about it. But I’m not going to let them kill me easily.

SHARP: Katy thank you.

CLARK: You’re welcome.

SHARP: The World’s Katy Clark just back from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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• Katy’s previous Guantanamo coverage on The World
• FAQ on closing Guantanamo

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: The would-be bomber on the Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit reportedly got his explosives and training in Yemen. That’s focused a lot of attention on the country. Yesterday the Obama Administration announced it’s suspending the repatriation of several detainees from Yemen currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The reason given is the deteriorating security situation in their home country.  The World’s Katy Clark is in Guantanamo.  Katy, just how many detainees will be affected by this decision?

KATY CLARK: Well, it’s tough to say. I mean, they won’t go into details about specifics. I was under the impression that fewer than 200 detainees are being held here. A good half of those were to be released to Yemen. Now, I’ve heard various numbers that maybe it was 75, maybe it was as many of 91, but they are in a holding pattern right now. So that’s a good size of the population still being held here.

WERMAN: Have you had a chance to speak with any of the detainees?

CLARK: No, that’s never an option here. They are kept very much for their own privacy reasons away from reporters whenever reporters come here.  So basically what I know about what’s going on with them is what I am told from the guards, from the people in charge of the mission here. And we’ve asked whether or not the current situation has people frustrated. People were getting ready to get on an airplane to go home or to go to Yemen anyway, or to go to somewhere else, and that that’s all been put on hold. But the guards say right now that they haven’t seen any overt frustration on the part of the detainees. Maybe it’s just, you know, that they’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and this is just waiting some more.

WERMAN: How do the detainees know what’s going on? Do they have access to newspapers or radio?

CLARK: They do and that’s actually one of the changes that I’ve been seeing since my previous trips here. They have access to three newspapers in different languages. They have access to satellite television. Some of the detainees could watch television 20 hours a day if they wanted to so they could be following the news. They also get news bulletins posted in their recreation areas, but it seems to be that the newspapers and the satellite TVs, they’re really keeping them plugged in.

WERMAN: If they are in this limbo state for right now, is there any sense of what will happen to these detainees instead of repatriation to Yemen?

CLARK: No, nobody seems to know and every time you ask that question here, people say, “Our job is just to make sure things run smoothly here. Any of those types of decisions are happening in Washington and we’re just waiting word on that.”

WERMAN: The World’s Katy Clark speaking with us from the U.S. Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Thank you very much, Katy.

CLARK: My pleasure, Marco.

WERMAN: By the way, when Katy Clark says prisoners are not allowed to give interviews for privacy reasons, this is in fact in accordance with the policies of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Geneva Conventions prohibit prisoners of war being paraded or subject to public humiliation. There’s no outright ban on media interviews, but according to the ICRC, it’s better to discourage interviews since it’s impossible to tell if a prisoner is being forced to say things.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Law professor Mark Denbeaux on archiving Guantanamo cases
• Katy Clark’s Guantanamo coverage (2002-2009)

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Guantanamo’s detainee population is now down to 223. In the past few years, several hundred men have already been released.  A few more have been cleared for release, and are expected to be sent overseas soon for resettlement.  For some former detainees, life after Guantanamo is a huge challenge.  The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: It was quite a sight.  Four former detainees frolicking in the Atlantic Ocean off the Coast of Bermuda this past summer.  It gave the impression that life post-detention might be pretty sweet, but that’s not necessarily the norm.  Take the case of Sami Al-Haj, who was on assignment as a cameraman with Al-Jazeera when he was captured in Pakistan in late 2001.  He was held for more than six years as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo.  During his detention he says he was beaten and sexually assaulted.  Then May 2008, Al-Haj was released and returned to his native Sudan.  He was never charged with a crime.  Yet Al-Haj told Iranian-based Press T.V. that more than a year after his release he remains “A misfit” at home.

AL-HAJ: Still, my son doesn’t deal with me as a normal father, and even my wife and our close family like sister, brother, and even our friend is keeping away from me because they doesn’t want to want to put themselves in trouble and I lost many friends.

CLARK: What Al-Haj is experiencing is part of what Eric Stover calls the Guantanamo Stigma, something that haunts some of the more than 500 freed detainees.   Stover is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.  He spent last year interviewing 62 men once held at Guantanamo.  He says many of them said they were ostracized by their own families and communities after their release.

ERIC STOVER: We heard of cases in many countries where former detainees were trying to find work but unable to do so.  You know, they were away, and a three or four years hole in resume, and if they said they were in US custody, they often didn’t get the jobs they were seeking.  We found that in fact six of the 62 former detainees only six had actually found meaningful employment.

CLARK: Without jobs and the proper support networks, Stover says there’s little to stop these men from turning or in some cases returning to Jihad against the United States.  Joshua Colangelo-Bryan is a New York based attorney who represented six detainees.   All of them are now free.  He would like to see the United States and other governments do more to keep these guys on track.

JOSHUA COLANGELO-BRYAN: It certainly is in the interest of all reasonable people to have the Guantanamo detainees who were released integrate themselves back into their societies.  Where home countries have the capacity to provide support, be it psychological or material, they certainly should.

CLARK: The State Department has the job of facilitating transfers of released detainees to their home countries or to third countries, but it won’t say whether it does any more than that to help these men readjust.  Often the mental wounds former Guantanamo detainees carry with them re-open after their release.  Berkeley’s Eric Stover says one man now living in the Middle East whom he tried to interview, went into hiding during the week they were scheduled to talk.  Stover describes him as “the worst case scenario” of any of the former detainees he met.

STOVER: The family said that he had left the house without shoes and that this was happening quite often.  He just was completely disoriented and was in clear need of psychiatric care.

MOAZZEM BEGG:  Where is the welfare for the people who have been tortured? Where is the support system for people who have endured cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment?

CLARK: This is Moazzem Begg speaking at the launch of the Guantanamo Justice Center in London.  Begg and other former detainees created the center to help men like themselves who’ve been left traumatized by their experiences at Guantanamo. It’s not the kind of organization that will win plaudits in Washington, but its goals may just coincide with Washington’s so long as those goals focus on former detainees moving past their time in captivity and living peaceful lives.   For The World this is Katy Clark.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.