STATEMENT OF RELEASED GUATANAMO DETAINEE

Statement of Binyam Mohammed

Courtesy of Reprieve (www.reprieve.org.uk)

I hope you will understand that after everything I have
been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable
of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to
Britain. Please forgive me if I make a simple statement
through my lawyer. I hope to be able to do better in days
to come, when I am on the road to recovery.

I have been through an experience that I never thought to
encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal,
"torture" was an abstract word to me. I could never have
imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult
for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one
country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all
orchestrated by the United States government.

While I want to recover, and put it all as far in my past
as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people
who still remain in those torture chambers. My own despair
was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me.
I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.

I am grateful that in the end I was not simply left to my
fate. I am grateful to my lawyers and other staff at
Reprieve, and to Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, who fought for my
freedom. I am grateful to the members of the British
Foreign Office who worked for my release. And I want to
thank people around Britain who wrote to me in Guantánamo
Bay to keep my spirits up, as well as to the members of the
media who tried to make sure that the world knew what was
going on. I know I would not be home in Britain today if it
were not for everyone's support. Indeed, I might not be
alive at all.

I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not.
There are still 241 Muslim prisoners in Guantánamo. Many
have long since been cleared even by the US military, yet
cannot go anywhere as they face persecution. For example,
Ahmed bel Bacha lived here in Britain, and desperately
needs a home. Then there are thousands of other prisoners
held by the US elsewhere around the world, with no charges,
and without access to their families.

And I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many
have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven
years. For myself, the very worst moment came when I
realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me
were receiving questions and materials from British
intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in
Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people
who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised,
had allied themselves with my abusers.

I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should
be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to
endure what I have endured.

Thank you.

--Binyam Mohamed