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Interview by Stephen Grey, in Sanaa, Yemen. (Translated from Arabic. Transcript and translation copyright BBC Newsnight.) Bashmilah was arrested in Jordan in August 2003, where he says he was brutally tortured. Transferred by US agents to Afghanistan, he was held at a US base before being flown several hours, together with two other Yemeni prisoners, to a place of secret detention, by his description a CIA 'black site'. After one year and seven months of solitary confinement, Bashmilah was returned to Yemen in May 2005. According to the Yemeni government, the US asked for him to be detained - but never sent a file containing charges. He was released in March 2006. (links to Amnesty reports about his case: Secret Detention in CIA Black Sites and Below the Radar )
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW: "My name is Mohammad Farag Ahmad Bashamila from Yemen and my age now is about 37 years old. Q: Where were you held in prison outside Yemen?
Then I was transported from that prison to another prison by means of two aircraft, the first was a jet aircraft that took for about 3 to 4 hours. Then we waited in the airport for another aircraft, a propeller plane and we were transported by this aircraft for 2 or 2 ½ hours to an unknown place.
Q: After Jordan, you were taken to Afghanistan is that right, and can you tell us about this place?
A: This is a big likelihood, that they transported me to Afghanistan, and probably it was Bagram in Afghanistan.
Q: What made you think or lead you to conclude that you were in Bagram in Afghanistan?
A: From the type of food that they gave us. It was the same food that I know is from that country. Also, when I was in prison if I was ill, they used to let me out from time to time, and I used to hear voices from beyond outside the prison we were in and some of them were Afghan. This is what led me to think I was in Afghanistan.
Q: Who held you in detention? Who was keeping you prisoner?
A: Of course, when I was first arrested, I was arrested in Jordan. They handed me over to foreign authorities, and I assume they were American. I know that from some of the interrogations they conducted with me in this prison, which I think was Bagram. Some of the interrogators were American and had translators with them.
Also, while I was being interrogated by the Jordanians, they used to threaten me that they would hand over to the Americans.
Q: Do you believe that for all the time after you left Jordan, you were in the hands of the Americans?
A: Yes, they were the people that both interrogated me in the first prison and transported and interrogated me in the last prison I was kept in.
Q: So, that means that the interrogators came with you, followed you, from the first prison you were held in to the second prison?
Yes, the same interrogators, translators and doctors that were in the prison in Afghanistan were also in the last prison.
Q: So in general, do you think you were treated well in these prisons? What were the conditions in which you were kept?
A: Well, at the beginning of my arrest, it was a big shock to me and my family because we didn’t expect that I would be arrested. There was no accusation against me and I had a proper and correct passport. When I was first arrested, I had my mother and wife with me. My wife was from Indonesia and my mother from Yemen. She doesn’t speak Indonesian and my wife didn’t speak Arabic and they were in a strange country that was very different to Yemen.
I was in an awful mental situation because all my thoughts were about how my mother and wife would manage in Jordan. My mood was really very terrible. I was subjected to some physical torture when I was held in Jordan but didn’t feel anything because my whole mind was worried about the mental state I was suffering fro. My thoughts and concerns were about my mother’s health and also my wife, who was outside her country for the first time.
Q: What about the conditions you were held in by the Americans? Were you held with many other prisoners? How did they treat you? A: Of course the treatment was better than the treatment in Jordan. I believe that the main reason was they had a report [sound missing for about 5 secs.] When I reached them, my mental state was very bad. They knew the reason for the arrest and the way in which I was arrested in Jordan. I believe they tried to relax my mental situation a little; they even let me out in the sun and treated me in a sort of nice way and so on. But the interrogations were continuous and we were confined to that prison for three months in solitary cells. Sometimes when they would take me, I heard the sounds of other prisoners in the other cells to my right and left but I couldn’t talk to other people that were imprisoned.
Q: So you were held on your own for this entire time? Q: 17 months in solitary confinement?
Q: What was it like to be held alone for so long?
Q: But the only thing you had to read was the Qur’an?
Q: In the first place, in Afghanistan, can you just describe the exact conditions you were held in, what was the cell like, what was in the cell, and what privileges did they give you? A: Of course, the cell in Afghanistan was about 2 metres by 3, small, it didn’t have any heating in it and the weather was very cold there. The other thing is that there was no bathroom, no toilet. There was a bucket that we had to urinate and defecate and they gave us a container of water to wash and for our ablutions for prayers. We didn’t leave this room unless we were called for interrogation or one day a week to go to the barber.
Q: Did he have a bed to sleep on and what were the cells made of, just the detail of what it looked like?
A: There wasn’t a bedstead or bed, there was just a mattress and blanket, and a bucket to urinate and defecate in and we were chained by our legs for a period of about a month after our arrival. Then they opened the chains on our legs, but when they called us for interrogation, they bound us by the hands and legs, covered our heads and put us in the interrogation room ready to be interrogated.
Q: Can you describe the chains that you were held in in Afghanistan?
A: Of course, the chains were the handcuffs that are used in all countries, by the security forces and also the leg chains. However, I saw there was some writing on these chains and cuffs which said ‘Made in Pakistan’. This is what I read and there was a number in English as well.
Q: Ask him again to explain the chains and show again his hands and show where they were attached.
A: Of course, the chains were made of iron ...put on the one hand and then put on the other hand with just one ring in between them so they were close to each other. You couldn’t move the arms apart and they could only be opened with a special key the guards had.
And likewise, the leg chain was a chain put on the right and left legs with a chain with about 24 small links like this, exactly 24 links which bound our left and right legs so that you could move around the room. It was a small room, so you couldn’t really move in it.
Q:You were then transferred to another place. Where do you think that place was?
A: Of course, I can’t be precise about where the second place was, but when I left this prison, l learnt that there were other people who left with me. How did I know? Because when they chained and locked us up, we were laid down in a vehicle in rows, I sensed a person on the left and the right by means of touch but we couldn’t see or hear, and I couldn’t talk. I sensed by touch.
Q: They transported you lying down like corpses?
A: [Mohammad] One with his head here, one with his head here [indicating head to toe], one with his head in this direction… Q: How did they take you and how long did it take to go from the second to the third place?
A: At first, they took us in a car from this prison. I was in a room outside of the cells. There had been problems in the cells, and they took us out to a big room. On the day of the transfer to another place, they took off my clothes and took pictures and they took some physical measurements of my body and gave us some different clothes in preparation for the journey. They took us by car for about 10 minutes or less to the airport. Then they took us in an aircraft. There was a person next to me on my right and I was on his left. This aircraft flew for a period of about 3 or 4 hours in the air. It was a small jet aircraft; I think it was a small Boeing. Then we stopped at an airport for about half an hour or three quarters of an hour, and we began to hear the sounds of propeller planes or helicopters that transported us to from that airport to another airport or prison in another country or the same country that took about 2 1/2 hours in that helicopter.*
Q: Where in the world does he think this place was in his opinion?
A: By God, I don’t know. If I only had known, I would have been a little relieved. But I didn’t know where I was, except in a prison, I went up and down steps but I don’t know. I didn’t see any person, except the interrogators and the guards. I didn’t see the sun or the air, I didn’t see anything, I mean I didn’t see anything of nature for as long as I was in this prison. I was in my room and didn’t go out except for one day, to go to wash or for a hair cut or for interrogation. I was in my room and didn’t know about the presence of other people or anything.
I forgot to tell you that there was music in the old prison, direct music for 24 hours so you couldn’t sleep. My mental state was terrible. Every half hour, the guards would knock the door and not let you sleep, they woke you up and so my mental condition became very bad. This is in addition to what happened to us in terms of fear.
Q: From all the clues and things he noticed and heard, where in his opinion was this other prison, where would he guess it was? A: The guards were different to the guards that were in the old prison. They had bigger build and taller and they were wearing masks so you weren’t able to distinguish their features or which nationality or race they were from. Also, what prevented us from distinguishing the location was that the same interrogators that interrogated us in the old prison were the ones that interrogated us in the new prison, except that some replacement interrogators appeared and some female interrogators and doctors. But we couldn’t determine what place we were in because I was taken from prison to prison without being able to hear, see or sense. I couldn’t determine where I was in the world.
Q: But were there any clues, for example by the temperature, by the type of food, or the times of prayer, anything that makes him think he was in a different part of the world rather than still in Afghanistan?
A: Of course, the last place that we were transferred to differed a lot from the first place we were taken to. Firstly, the type of food was the type of food I know from Europe, because I spent some time in France once. The rice they had was cooked, like white rice and they brought us canned beef, as well as some foods that we were not used to, not in the Arab countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan or the neighbouring countries. It was food that was strange to us. We had to refrain from eating the food sometimes because we didn’t like it.
Q: What about the temperature, weather and the prayer times?
A: The weather we had was cold weather. I think I arrived in this country in April 2004, and the weather was cold all round the year, that’s how it felt to me. I don’t know where this country was but it was cold. Regarding the prayer times, about three months after we arrived there, they began to give us tables with the prayer times but these prayer times were not like the prayer times we were used to in the Arab countries. Such that in the Arab countries, the latest time for the evening prayer reaches 8 o’clock or a quarter to eight. Whereas, in this country, the evening prayer reached up to a quarter to nine.
A: So I don’t expect that we were in neighbouring Arab country as the evening prayer reached up to the time in the calendars that they prepared for us.
Q: How cold though, how does he describe the cold, this is the cold in the cell or the cold when he arrived in the plane?
A: Of course, it was cold in the cell, I don’t know if it was cold for everyone or if it was because my body and the state of my health was weak at the time and I had lost 15 kilograms. From the time I was arrested until I was transferred to the last prison, I lost 15 kilograms. I don’t know if it was because my body was weak so I felt the cold 24 hours, or whether the temperature was cold for 24 hours a day all round the year.
Q: Can you describe in detail, how he was held in this prison, was it the same as in Afghanistan or was it different, what the conditions were?
A: Of course, at the beginning of my arrival at this prison, my mental state was affected more because I was expecting that I would be returned back to Yemen from the first prison in Afghanistan, I had suffered enough in that place. However when I came to the other prison, my mental state worsened because knew that I would be staying in yet another prison for an unknown period of time, particularly as the new prison had a new lavatory and new cameras which indicated that we were going to stay there for who knows how long. In addition to the fact that the interrogators in that place said something to me that affected me a lot inside. They said to me ‘welcome to your permanent home’. This affected my state even more.
Q: They told you might be held there forever?
A: I suppose he said this word to me to get me to begin to cooperate with them or if I was hiding something to bring it out. However, I was frank with them and I said everything that I knew and that I didn’t have any connections to extremist organisations or propaganda organisations and I had no connection with anything that was going on around the world in the way of explosions,
…. that I was living in Indonesia for business and it can’t be proven that I had any part in any wrong activities internally or externally. What affected my mental state is when that interrogator said those words to me.
Q: Why were they holding you all this time, what were they accusing you of?
A: I wasn’t accused of anything. The only accusation is that I obtained a Yemeni passport from the Yemeni Embassy in Indonesia, as I lost the old passport and I took out a new passport in Indonesia. When I arrived in Jordan, my passport was new. There was no exit from Yemen, and no entry into Indonesia and so they suspected me at the airport in Jordan. They asked me about the passport and I told them I obtained it from the Yemeni Embassy in Indonesia. They took the passport from me and said to me that I should try to inquire about it with the general secret services in Jordan. So by virtue of the fact that there was nothing found against me and that the matter seemed to be quite routine to me, I happily went to the secret services and went back more than once to follow up with the security authorities because I didn’t know why my passport had been impounded.
A: Specifically, I went with my mother to the hospital because she needed to have a heart operation and they needed a proof of identity to sign for the operation. I didn’t have any proof of identity so I went to the Secret Services and I was arrested there. So I didn’t return to my mother, nor did she go into hospital.
Q: But there must have been something bigger they accused you of, they must have said you were a terrorist or a member of al-Qaeda, or knew Bin Laden. There must be something they were accusing you of!
A: No. In this regard, they just asked me a question, ‘Have you been to Afghanistan before?’ I replied to them answering, ‘Yes, I went to Afghanistan’. So when I informed them that I had been to Afghanistan, they didn’t interrogate me as to why I went, or how long I stayed in Afghanistan or did I join any organisation. All they knew is that I had been to Afghanistan and they chained me up right away, took me to the apartment I had been staying in, searched it thoroughly and locked my mother and wife into a room. Then they took us to the secret service headquarters. I didn’t see them again until I came back to Yemen.
Q: But what did the Americans ask? You were questioned how many times, what were they asking?
A: When I was handed over to the Americans, they handed me over with only the accusation that I had been to Afghanistan. However, the Americans began to interrogate me in detail about when I went to Afghanistan and who the people I had seen were, did I happen to meet Osama bin Laden, or did I visit any organisations or join any terrorist organisations inside Afghanistan and what were the military courses I had received in Afghanistan. Mostly they were concentrating on whether I had any connections with any organisation in Afghanistan and praise God I didn’t have any connection, I only went to the session about improving ideals, the preparatory session only. I didn’t take part in any battles and I didn’t meet Osama bin Laden face to face, all I knew is that I went to Kabul and stayed for a period of three months, got sick and left directly for Indonesia.
Q: Did you answer all their questions, did you sign any statements or did you refuse to cooperate?
A: Of course, in Jordan, when they were asking me these questions before they handed me over to the Americans, my mental state, as I indicated earlier, was very exhausted due to what had happened to me at the time of the arrest when I lost my mother and wife. So when they began to interrogate me, the interrogator informed me they were just questions and when they had finished questioning me, they would release me. They kept asking me one question and they said reply to it with short answers.
A: However, I signed lots of papers! I didn’t even look at what was in these papers I was signing. Why? Because I said maybe they will help me to get out. However, there were words in these papers that were 100% different to those I had put and this is the basis on which they handed me over to the Americans.
Q: You said that you were treated badly in Jordan. What exactly did the Jordanians do to you?
A. I didn’t inform any authority at the time about the measures that I suffered from, both inside and outside Jordan. I didn’t explain to them the mental or physical torture. I didn’t tell anyone, it’s something I keep to myself and I don’t want to tell anybody about it.
Q: But you were physically tortured in Jordan?
A: Yes, I was tortured but I don’t want to relate the details of the torture. Q: And why do you not want to tell us?
A: I prefer to keep it to myself inside, so my family is not affected by what I suffered when they hear about it.
Q: You think if they heard the truth about what happened to you in Jordan, it would hurt your family to know?
A: Of course, every human being loves their child, so when your father, mother, your brother or sister or your wife knows that you were subjected to this, they will look at you with looks of pity and compassion. So praise God, I went through a crisis in Jordan that was dreadful, but I got through it and God willing I will keep it to myself. I don’t want to inform anybody about it.
Q: In the hands of the Americans, were you either physically or mentally tortured?
A: Well, in the condition that I was in when I was handed over to the Americans, they weren’t able to torture me mentally or physically because I was in such a bad state. On the contrary, they made an effort to raise my morale and improve my situation so that they could actually interrogate me regarding what they wanted to investigate about me.
Q: And then?
A: After a while, they began to interrogate me and ask a lot of questions, but praise God, nothing was proven against me to enable them to physically torture me. However, there was mental torture, it was there and some of the causes were that I was kept in solitary confinement where I didn’t see anyone. The secondly thing is there was music 24 hours a day so you couldn’t sleep, read or pray.
And also another thing, when we tried to relax or sleep, the guards would look in at you and knock the door so you had to wake up and raise your hands to show you were alive and not dead. This is enough to bring about a very awful mental state. However, I was not subjected to physical torture.
Q: They deliberately tried to keep you awake, all this time, all the time you were held by the Americans?
A: No, not like this, but in the first prison in Afghanistan. When they transferred us to the other prison, it was modern so the guard didn’t need to come to knock the door because there were two cameras above the door watching you.
If you moved from the bed to the toilet, the camera would move with you towards the toilet and observe you wherever you were. So they used to watch us from their location. They watched us but didn’t need to wake us or know if we were sleeping or dead.
Q: Tell me about this music that was played the whole time.
A: There was music when I arrived. It was noisy western song music. There was an opening high up in the wall covered with iron grill and I suppose there were speakers for every room so you couldn’t hear what was happening next to you. If they wanted to take someone for interrogation, you weren’t able to hear and in addition, this kept us in a state of anxiety so you couldn’t sleep or concentrate. Concentration vanished in such a situation. We stayed like that for a long time.
Then, they began to change and threw in some Arabic songs for us that were the worst Arabic songs. They were songs we couldn’t understand the meaning of. sung by female Arab singers. When we listened, the words began to get inside our heads and they made our mental state more exhausted than the western songs because we didn’t understand what they said in the western songs, but we understood what they said in the Arabic songs.
Q: So this carried on the whole time you were in Afghanistan.
A. Yes, 7 whole months it was like this. I was in this situation in the small cell with this loud music for 3 or 4 months. Then I was transferred to outside this to a bigger room, because I was in a very exhausted state in this situation, so I was transferred to a bigger room and my hands were bound in chains. I was chained by a long iron chain to the wall.
There was an iron post in the wall and I was chained to this by a chain attached to my wrists. If I had to lift my hand, I could hardly do it due to the weight of the chains
Q: The music continued?
A: Yes. The music used to reach from the other rooms around me because it was very loud and I could hear it. But my situation was better than theirs. I suffered in that place, so they transferred me to a room that was less harmful than the tiny room. Q: But it was three months basically in the small cell when they played the music constantly in his ears. A: Yes, it was three months.
Q: And in the other prison, in the secret prison, did they also play music there or use any other psychological tortures?
A: No in the last place, there wasn’t any of this. There were speakers, but they didn’t turn them on unless you committed an infraction. The infraction would be if you let your voice be heard or let others know that you were there. If you raised your voice or broke any other rule, the music would be turned on for you as punishment. But, praise God, I didn’t do anything. However, my mental state was terrible because I was in solitary confinement and I stayed in this situation without seeing anyone, without hearing anyone and without speaking to anyone except the interrogators, so my mental state was really awful.
Q: So you lost all that weight and you were in a very bad psychological way. Why did this happen? What made you turn like this?
A: When I was transferred to the second prison, I sensed from the first interrogator I met there, the one who said ‘Welcome to your new home’, that he was telling me the situation. I had gone there without any reason, without any proof, without any accusation, so my psychological state began to deteriorate and I went on hunger strike. I went for 10 days without eating or drinking. There were some interrogators and doctors giving me food to eat and drink but I didn’t respond to them. So, they took me to the interrogation room, tied me up and gave me food through my nostrils.
Q: They forced food down inside you through your nose?
A: Yes. One day from here [shows L nostril] , one day from here [shows R nostril]; one day from here [shows L nostril] , one day from here [shows R nostril]. I was chained up and couldn’t resist. In this way, I realised that this was really awful and it made me more tired. I wasn’t achieving anything through this strike, so I decided to return to eating again.
Q: So you’re saying this destroyed you psychologically?
A: Well the situation is that anyone who goes to prison is psychologically destroyed. The biggest thing though is when you go to prison without any reason, or accusation. The destruction is even greater.
Q: They never said to you, ‘we accuse you of doing this act, of this crime?
A: The fact is there weren’t any accusations for them to make against me. It was possible that they were looking for an accusation. Once it happened that they asked me about a person who was in Indonesia. They informed me that I went with that person to the DHL office to send letters to England. I told them that I didn’t go. The interrogator said, ‘I am 100% sure, as sure as these papers are in front of me, that you were with that person. And that person is wanted.’
I told him ‘Brother, I didn’t go and I swear by God. I know I didn’t go and God knows I didn’t go’
He tried to fight me with this question until I broke down and I had to take pills to calm down to be able to sleep. After a while, he ascertained that I was not that person who went with that person to that office.
Q: You’ve said they asked you the questions about intelligence about what you knew, but did they have any specific accusations against you?
A: No there weren’t any. But in the time I was in prison, they would take what I said and send it back to the people working for them who would prepare questions and send them back for me. One of the questions accused me of going to the DHL office with that person to send letters to Britain and that I knew people there. I refuted this matter and informed the interrogator that I don’t know anyone in Europe, I don’t know anyone in Britain and I don’t know the person who went to the place you are talking about. The interrogator insisted on that day that I was the person who went and he was 100% convinced that I was the person that went to that place. So these questions and pressure affected me psychologically, and he was threatening me. So I went to my room and in those days I began to use the sleeping pills to calm down. Then, after he continued investigating and following up and communicating, they ascertained that I was not the person they wanted regarding the accusation they had made. I’m just going to go over some things I missed out. [Interpreted]
Q: How many visits did he have from the Red Cross?
A: From the time they arrested me in Jordan right up till when I was handed back to Yemen, I didn’t meet any organisations or legal humanitarian authorities whatsoever, until I met the first organisation that had begun began to make inquiries about me, Amnesty International, who I met in Yemen in June. This was the first foreign organisation that met me. While I was in prison. I didn’t meet any organisations. There was neither the Red Cross nor any humanitarian organisation to watch out for me, nor a lawyer to communicate with my family. None of that happened to me, nothing at all.
Q: How many times did anyone from the American side ever come and ask you if you had any complaints and check how you were being treated?
A: No-one ever asked about my condition, whether I had any demands or if I had any wishes. All that took place between me and them was interrogation, showing me pictures, questions or names of some people. This is what happened. I never met any humanitarian organisation that asked about me or who I could ask about the situation of my family or connections or any requests. It’s true that there were some psychiatrists that attended us to ask about our mental state and if we were eating and sleeping, but they didn’t lift us out of the condition we found ourselves in.
Q: You don’t want to speak about the torture in Jordan, but can you tell us about what the effect it had on you was?
A: As I indicated before, when I left Jordan, my mental state was really terrible. Firstly, for the reason that I knew Jordan as being an Arab and Muslim country and an ally of Yemen. I can enter Jordan with my Yemeni passport without having to obtain a visa. I said that with my Yemeni passport I can enter Jordan without obtaining a visa. The opposite is the case when I want to go to Saudi Arabia; I have to get a visa from the embassy. However, there are agreements between Jordan and Yemen such that any Yemeni citizen can go to Jordan and consider it to be his own country, like Yemen. So, I entered Jordan on the basis as if it were Yemen, and also on the basis that I went for medical treatment for my mother. I didn’t expect what happened to me to happen and this is what affected my mental state even more. Therefore I feel bitter in myself about what happened to me in that country. *
Q: Overall, what has been the effect of this whole experience on your family
A: I didn’t know anything about the effect it had on my family except that my mother was able to come and visit me for a period of 10 minutes one day after my arrest by means of the embassy. When she reached me,. I told her to follow up with the Embassy because there was nothing against me.
So I told her to go to the embassy and when they knew that I had told her to follow up my case with the embassy directly, two days later they transferred me over to the foreign authorities.
Q: Globally, overall, from the three years of your detention, what has been the effect of that?
A My father passed away during this period, while I was in prison in September 2004. He was the only breadwinner my family had and was taking care of my mother and some of my sisters. So when he died, they didn’t have anyone apart from God because there was only me. The death of my father increased the burden on the family on top of the burden they already had because I was in prison, worsening their mental state more than me because I didn’t know until I came out.
Q: Finally, just detail about the secret prison. You mentioned that the prayer time came later in this prison. How did you know the time?
A: They gave us calendars that they took from some Islamic websites. If you want to know the prayer times in any country, you enter the name of the town, country or location you are in and send it to any Islamic website and they will send you the calendar and prayer times for that country. So we knew the prayer times. In addition, there was clock mounted outside the glass by the door, so we knew the prayer times.
Q: You think you were in a prison in Europe?
A: I’m not able to be specific, but it wasn’t an Arab country.
Q: OK, Thank you.
INTERVIEW (THE FOLLOWING DAY) WITH MOHAMED BASHMILAH AND NAEEMA ALI AL-SABR, (BASHMILAH’S MOTHER)
A: I am Naeema Ali Al-Sabr* from Ta’izz
Q: You’re the mother of Mohammad?
A: Mother of Mohammad Farag Bashmila
Q: Can you tell us the story of when you were in Jordan of how your son was arrested?
A: I went to Jordan. We woke up in the hotel in the morning and went to the secret services to ask for his passport. They took him in while we stayed sitting. Then they said ‘Get up, we’re going to the hotel!’ So we went. Half way there, my son went past in a locked van. I didn’t know but his wife called out Mohammad, Mohammad! They said ‘Sshh! Don’t talk!’ They took us to the hotel, put us in a room and locked the door. They searched all our belongings minutely and brought the papers relating to my medical treatment and the money for my treatment, and took my son.
The next day, I went to the Secret Services and asked ‘Where is my son?’ they said, ‘He isn’t here with us’. I said ‘What do you mean, not here?! You took him, you and you!’ Two police in civil clothes took him from the hotel. He said ‘No. He’s not here.’
Q: Did they give you any information in the end about what happened to him and where he’d been taken, that he was taken out of Jordan?
A: No, they didn’t give me any information, but I went to the Yemeni embassy and informed them that they had taken him from me and that when I went to visit them, they told me he wasn’t there. Afterwards, the consul, Mohammad Saleh, talked to them. He said to them ‘How come you took him from the hotel and his mother asked about him and you said he isn’t there?’ They said, ‘No, he is here with us, go and visit him’.
Q: So you went to visit him in the prison. What did you find out in the prison when you went to see him?
Q:And did you find out, were you told that he was transferred to another place, to Afghanistan, how did you find out that he had left Jordan?
[Mohammad repeats Qn. in Yemeni Arabic]
A: I came and went from the secret services to the embassy to the secret services. The embassy said go to the secret services, so I went to them and they said ‘He’s not here with us, he’s left us. We can’t say if he’s gone to the Emirates or Yemen’. I said ‘How wouldn’t you know?! He was walking. He didn’t have any money with him! He’s not an animal incapable of making a phone call!’ They just said ‘He’s not here with us’. When was the next time you actually had news about where he was?
[Mohammad repeats in Yemeni Arabic] A: I followed up with the Yemeni embassy. They said write everything down that happened from when you were taken to the hotel and go to the Foreign Ministry in Sana’a, inform them and let them follow up. So we went to the Foreign Ministry in Sana’a, to Political Security. They wrote a first, second, third, fourth fax. One fax came back saying he’d gone to the Emirates, another said he went away, another fax said maybe he went to Yemen and the last fax we received said he’d gone to Iraq.
[Mohammad repeats] When she followed up at the embassy, they told her to refer back to Yemen and follow up my case from there. So she went to the Foreign Ministry who followed up with the Jordanian secret services and the last thing they told her was that they had released me and I had gone to Iraq, that this was the latest news. Q: And when was the next time you heard some news about where he really was?
A: I went back to the Yemeni Embassy. They said they would send me here. The Yemeni Embassy sent me. They said the Jordanians say he isn’t here, go to your country, go to Sana’a and follow up and we will see what they say.
[Mohammad adds] After that she went to the embassy and they asked her to go back to Yemen as there was no benefit to staying in Jordan and that she should follow up in Yemen. But she didn’t hear any more news about me until I returned to Yemen.
Q: How did you manage all this time? You hadn’t heard any news about your son. How did that affect you?
A: It affected me. I got ill, I got dizzy. My sugar levels went up and I was taken to the Islamic hospital and stayed for 15 days. We looked for him but it was no use. We didn’t find him. People asked ‘where’s Mohammad’? We said ‘We don’t know. With the secret services that took him.’
[Mohammad clarifies] When you came back to Yemen, until I came back to Yemen, how were you? How did you spend all this time? What was your state of mind like?
[Mother continues] My state of mind? Finished! Blind, I didn’t see anything. My son had gone. His father had gone. How would my state be?
[Mohammad adds] She’s saying her mental state was poor. Her sugar levels went up; she got diabetes as well as her heart condition due to the strain. My wife also got ill and went to hospital many times. On top of all this, my father died around this time and he was the only support taking care of them during my absence in prison. So it happened that my mother lost two people, my father and me, due to this unfortunate trip.
[Mohammad clarifies] You were patient. [Mother] Yes I am patient, and his wife Jamadati Kiki, [sic.] where could I take her? I had to send her back to her country; we sent her back to Indonesia. The other [Yemeni tr.] wife had a little daughter from him who said she missed her father, I didn’t know if he would come back. I was living alone, his older brother is in France, and he became French.
[Mohammad adds] After my father, I was her only family as my elder brother has lived in France for a long time. My mother didn’t know how to communicate with her, so she sent her back to Indonesia again.
Q: What did you believe all this time, nearly 2 years, in your mind? What did you suspect had happened? Did you have any suspicions?
A: [Mother] Every night, I cried every night. I prayed to God, please send him back.
[Interpreter] Didn’t you have any suspicions about where he was?
[Mother] Not any more, we were content with just the doubts. I cried for him and his father. [Interpreter tries to clarify what she is saying]
[Mohammad] She was crying over my loss and then at the loss of my father and she gave herself over to praying to God and lost hope, she had no idea how to find me.
Q: Did you believe he was alive?
[Mohammad] Did you have any hope that I was alive?
[Mother] No. We said it’s over. We were convinced he was no more, but still, I contacted the Human rights people.
[Mohammad] She thought maybe I was dead but began to feel some hope when she followed up with the Human rights people.
Q: Mohammad, for you, when your mother came to see you in the prison in Jordan, what message did you want to give her? How did you feel when she came to see you there?
A: [Mohammad]: My only concern was to sort out their situation and know what support they had during the two days they had been away from me. How they had left the apartment we had been in and that I knew how they were going to manage after that. So, first of all, I told her to go to the embassy to follow up my case. Then I reassured her that I wasn’t wanted for anything in Jordan in the first place and that she should go to the Yemeni embassy and follow up to have me transferred to Yemen.
Q: For you, your family must have been the big worry when you were inside this gaol. You didn’t know anything about what had happened to them for the nearly 2 years you were inside the prison.
A: Yes, and therefore after they went to the embassy, my mood became very down, particularly after I was transferred from Jordan to the second prison and I used to imagine and picture every day that my mother and wife were standing in front of the gate of the secret services searching and asking for me. But after a while, praise god, after about 3 months, my condition began to improve after my return and after I turned to God and after the loss of any hope that I would return to them my mental state began to get better so praise God my condition began to stabilise a little.
Q: When did you first see your son again? A: [Mohammad] When did you see me for the first time after I returned?
[Mother] When you first came to Yemen? No-one told us.
[Mohammad] Where did you see me? [Mother] There were some people in our building who came back from a buying and selling trip to India and they saw him next to the Political Security handcuffed, that’s where they took him. They didn’t tell me either, but they told the neighbours they had seen Ba-Shamila.
[Mohammad] When I arrived in Yemen and they took me from Sana’a airport to Aden airport, some people saw us when I was handcuffed to a soldier while they were taking me to Political Security in Aden. So they didn’t tell my family directly, but they told my family’s neighbours and they began to follow up my case with the political security in Aden.
Q: But when did you first meet them again? [Mother] After they told us, we went to search at the Political Security department. We asked if he was there and they said, ‘Yes he’s been missing’. We said ‘Yes’. Then we went inside, that’s all. He said. ‘Go in and look, your missing son is here’. [Mohammad] f course, after they began to follow up, she said my son is lost and they told her he is here and they arranged a visit. We saw each other for the first time through the prison bars. Q: You know your son better than anyone in the world, so I just wonder what has been the effect of this experience on him? How has he changed from when you saw him again and spoke to him? How has your son changed from being in this experience? [Mohammad repeats question in Yemeni dialect] Sure he’s changed! They tortured them, they wore them out, they beat them, they killed them, they kept them underground. Then 2 months after we told the human rights people we had the news about my son, simply because of the follow up of the human rights organisation. [Mohammad] She says they exhausted them and their condition changed because they suffered from being in a prison like a tomb and they came back to real life, but not like the way they were before, different. END OF INTERVIEW - INTERVIEW CONDUCTED May 12/13, 2006, SANAA, YEMEN Transcript / Translation from Arabic - copyright BBC Newsnight.
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Exclusive interview with Mohamed Bashmilah, one of the first prisoners allegedly held in a CIA secret 'black site' prison to tell his story.