Tag: Lakhdar Boumediene

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

On Saturday MSNBC’s Chris Hayes aired an exclusive taped interview with former Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene. Boumediene, , a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was arrested with five Algerian men in Bosnia in October, 2001 and charged with plotting to blow up the American embassy in Sarajevo. He was held for seven years at Guantanamo without charges or explanation. Boumediene was the lead plaintiff in Boumediene v. Bush, a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that Guantanamo detainees have the right to file writs of habeas corpus in U.S. federal courts. He and the five other detainees were released from Guantanamo on May 15, 2009 after a US Federal Judge found that “the Bush administration relied on insufficient evidence to imprison them indefinitely as ‘enemy combatants.

Through a translator, Boumediene explains life as a Guantanamo prisoner, about his torture, and his life after his release.

“I’m a normal man,” said Boumediene, who at the time of his arrest worked for the Red Crescent, providing help to orphans and others in need. “I’m not a terrorist.”

Ah ha! Greenwald links to a 3 minute youtube of the interview:

In an ABC News EXCLUSIVE today, Jake Tapper has an interview with Lakhdar Boumediene. It has aired in part on Good Morning America and will hopefully be seen far and wide.

Glenn Greenwald has more with good info and lots more links.

Lakhdar Boumediene is an Algerian who, while living in Bosnia working for the International Red Crescent, was arrested by the Bosnian government (at the behest of the Bush administration) shortly after 9/11 on charges of plotting to blow up a U.S. and British embassy, but was then quickly cleared by Bosnian courts of any wrongdoing and ordered released.  But as he was about to be released — in January, 2002 — he was abducted by the U.S. military inside Bosnia and shipped to Guantanamo, where he remained without charges for the next almost 8 years, and was clearly tortured.

Will we finally get some sanity from an “informed citizenry” now?

I suggest you call or email any of your “moderate” friends and family and urge them to watch it.

Also jimstaro has posted about this at l’orange, go give him some love over there (if you dare make the trip!).