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Guantanamo: 1000 Days of Hell
After three years' incarceration, Guantanamo Britons are set to be freed
12 January 2005
It has been just over a thousand days since Pakistani security officers broke down Moazzam Begg's front door and bundled him into the boot of a waiting police car.
His terrified wife and three children looked on helplessly as Mr Begg was taken away in the middle of the night, transported to Bagram air base near Kabul before being flown to the infamous prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The former law student and bookshop owner from Birmingham joined hundreds of other "unlawful combatants", shackled and dressed in orange jump suits, and then held without charge, trial or even access to lawyers.
For much of his detention he has been held in solitary confinement, often exposed to extreme weather conditions and deprived of basic necessities.
His letters home, supported by testimony from former Guantanamo detainees, reveal that Mr Begg may also have been tortured by US military officials, increasingly desperate to extract a confession from him.
Last night the end of his ordeal appeared to be in sight after the British and American governments brokered a deal to release Mr Begg and three other Britons from the notorious US detention centre.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said following "intensive and complex" discussions with the US, the four men would be returned to Britain to face questioning. But for Mr Begg and his elderly father, Azmat, who has tirelessly campaigned for his son's release, freedom will come at a price.
Their reunion after three turbulent years is likely to be tempered by the psychological and physical toll of the ordeals endured by both men. Mr Begg, or detainee JJEEH#00558 as he is known to his American captors, will not be the same man who first left Birmingham with his family four years ago to help educate children in Afghanistan.
Azmat Begg said: "I will be very happy, I will be the happiest person that he is released. But my concern is about his mental health and his physical health after he has spent three years in solitary confinement without talking to people.
"I am very much worried because I was told that even after three or four weeks in solitary confinement, like he had, that people go out of their minds." The detainee's father, a retired bank manager, is still haunted by the telephone call that he received from his son while he was in the boot of the police car driving through Islamabad.
Read More
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=599984
It has been just over a thousand days since Pakistani security officers broke down Moazzam Begg's front door and bundled him into the boot of a waiting police car.
His terrified wife and three children looked on helplessly as Mr Begg was taken away in the middle of the night, transported to Bagram air base near Kabul before being flown to the infamous prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The former law student and bookshop owner from Birmingham joined hundreds of other "unlawful combatants", shackled and dressed in orange jump suits, and then held without charge, trial or even access to lawyers.
For much of his detention he has been held in solitary confinement, often exposed to extreme weather conditions and deprived of basic necessities.
His letters home, supported by testimony from former Guantanamo detainees, reveal that Mr Begg may also have been tortured by US military officials, increasingly desperate to extract a confession from him.
Last night the end of his ordeal appeared to be in sight after the British and American governments brokered a deal to release Mr Begg and three other Britons from the notorious US detention centre.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said following "intensive and complex" discussions with the US, the four men would be returned to Britain to face questioning. But for Mr Begg and his elderly father, Azmat, who has tirelessly campaigned for his son's release, freedom will come at a price.
Their reunion after three turbulent years is likely to be tempered by the psychological and physical toll of the ordeals endured by both men. Mr Begg, or detainee JJEEH#00558 as he is known to his American captors, will not be the same man who first left Birmingham with his family four years ago to help educate children in Afghanistan.
Azmat Begg said: "I will be very happy, I will be the happiest person that he is released. But my concern is about his mental health and his physical health after he has spent three years in solitary confinement without talking to people.
"I am very much worried because I was told that even after three or four weeks in solitary confinement, like he had, that people go out of their minds." The detainee's father, a retired bank manager, is still haunted by the telephone call that he received from his son while he was in the boot of the police car driving through Islamabad.
Read More
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=599984
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