http://www.tkb.org/NewsStory.jsp?storyID=63477
Guantanamo prisoner ignorant of Sept. 11 attacks until he arrived in U.S. prison camp The Associated Press, Apr. 14, 2005 KUWAIT CITY Nasser al-Mutairi, who returned home in January after three years in locked in Guantanamo Bay, said Thursday that he hadn't even heard of the Sept. 11 attacks when he was seized by troops in Afghanistan in 2001 _ on suspicion that he was an international terrorist. Al-Mutairi insisted he was doing charity work in Afghanistan and had no knowledge of _ or role in _ the attacks on the United States that triggered the war. The first time he heard of the attacks was after he arrived at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, he said. "I was in shock, I had nothing to do with the situation," the bearded 27-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, a day after he was released on bail by a Kuwaiti court. "I hadn't heard of (the attacks), we did not have radios or televisions." In a rambling interview at his home in Sabahiya, a remote suburb south of Kuwait City, al-Mutairi spoke of a grueling prison ordeal that included being shot and catching pneumonia, and the psychological stress of a long internment. He said he traveled to Afghanistan a year before the U.S.-led war on terror, distributing food to poor Afghanis displaced by the country's civil war. The U.S. military freed him from Guantanamo and flew him back to Kuwait in January. Authorities here took him into custody when he arrived at Kuwait's airport. While in the U.S. prison camp in Cuba, American interrogators showed him photos and videos of the hijacked planes slamming into the New York City twin towers. "It is a horrendous incident, and I thought then that our detention in Guantanamo was their way of taking revenge," he said. Al-Mutairi said he never fought in Afghanistan or had any contacts with the Taliban who ruled the country when he arrived, or Saudi-born Osama bin Laden whose al-Qaida terror network is accused of carrying out the attacks in New York and Washington. The former prisoner is to stand trial on charges of harming Kuwait by working for a foreign country, joining a foreign military without permission and undergoing illegal weapons training. Al-Mutairi denied the charges in court. On Tuesday, a judge released him on bail but banned him from leaving the country. Al-Mutairi said he was arrested near Mazar-e-Sharif by followers of anti-Taliban warlord Abdul-Rashid Dostum as he tried to leave the country. He was thrown in the dungeon of Qala-e-Jangi fortress. Guards took the prisoners into the yard the next day and shot at them. Al-Mutairi said he suffered gunshot wounds in both thighs. "We spent eight days in the dungeon standing in cold and filthy water and I caught pneumonia," said al-Mutairi who walks with a limp. Some prisoners were then taken to a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, and it was there when he was arrested by American forces and transferred to Kandahar, then flown to Guantanamo where he said half of his left lung was removed because of the pneumonia. He also underwent physical therapy for his legs. On the U.S. Naval Base, he felt there was "a psychological war" against prisoners. Food was rationed in small amounts. When prisoners asked for seconds, guards threw the food out of the serving pans instead of giving it to them, he said. "They deliberately poured tea and left it to become cold before they served it to us," he said on his first full day of freedom. "They bothered me when I prayed by playing loud music or stamping their feet hard beside me." When an American officer told him after a military hearing that he was going to be freed, al-Mutairi thought he was playing psychological games. "I did not believe it until I saw the Kuwaiti delegation," he said, smiling and shyly looking at the floor of the sitting room. Eleven Kuwaitis are among more than 500 terror suspects from some 40 countries still held at Guantanamo. Asked how he felt about his experience in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, al-Mutairi said he felt "maybe some regret that I was too hasty to do charity work on my own. It would have been better to have gone there with a government organization." de-jk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. 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