 |
  Video: The Prisoner |
|
In his first primetime interview on American television, a former
detainee in U.S. prisons abroad tells NOW a disturbing story alleging
kidnap, torture and murder.
British citizen Moazzam Begg, who spent three years in captivity at
American detention facilities in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
gives us a rarely seen intimate view of a detainee’s life inside the
prisons of the ‘war on terror.’
Begg describes a beating he witnessed while being held at a U.S. prison
in Bagram, Afghanistan. “I saw his body being dragged in front of me,
battered and bruised, limp,” Begg said.
|
Program Resources: » Video » Listen to this show [mp3] » Transcript » E-mail this page to a friend |
|
|
Taken suddenly from his home one night in Pakistan, Begg was imprisoned
without any charges ever pressed against him. He spent almost 20 months
in solitary confinement at Guantanamo, and he said there was no doubt
that the Geneva Conventions did not apply there or at any of the other
U.S. foreign prisons where he was held.
NOW’s David Brancaccio traveled to Begg’s hometown in Birmingham,
England to find out how a Muslim man from an educated, middle-class
family ended up in an a street gang and grew entangled in militant
Islamic politics.
The 37-year-old husband and father of four was accused by the U.S. of
having “strong, long-term ties to terrorism,” an allegation he firmly
denies. Although he was set free from Guantanamo last year having never
been found guilty of any crime, the U.S. government is adamant that his
detention was justified.
As for the remaining 450 Guantanamo prisoners, Congress is working to
hack out new laws for trying terrorism suspects after the Supreme Court
ruled last month that international law does apply to “enemy
combatants.”
Begg recalls a conversation about Guantanamo prisoners that he had with
a security guard at the detention camp. “One of the guards, what they
said to me is that, ‘Hell, if I wasn’t a terrorist when I came here I
would be by the time I was released because of what had been done to
me.'”
::Tullycast:: 