EXCLUSIVE: Lakhdar Boumedienne (Number 10005) Talks with US/ABC News

Photo - Courtesy of Wikipedia

ABC VIDEO here

This one posted at Salon dot com (minus early ads) here

EXCLUSIVE: Recently Released Gitmo Detainee Talks to ABC News
Held Seven Years, Former Aid Worker Tells ABC News He Was Tortured




By JAKE TAPPER, KAREN TRAVERS, and STEPHANIE Z. SMITH
June 8, 2009

For 7½ years, Lakhdar Boumediene was known simply by a number: "10005."

Lakhdar Boumediene is released after 7 1/2 years in Guantanamo Bay detention.These were the digits assigned to him when he arrived at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, swept up in a post-Sept. 11 dragnet and accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies in Sarajevo.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked him about this alleged plot, which he denied playing any part it.

"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."

The 43-year-old Algerian is now back with his wife and two daughters, a free man in France after a Republican judge found the evidence against Boumediene lacking. He is best known from the landmark Supreme Court case last year, Boumediene v. Bush, which said detainees have the right to challenge their detention in court.

The 43-year-old Algerian is now back with his wife and two daughters, a free man in France after a Republican judge found the evidence against Boumediene lacking. He is best known from the landmark Supreme Court case last year, Boumediene v. Bush, which said detainees have the right to challenge their detention in court.

After what Boumediene described as a 7½ year nightmare, he is now a free man. Boumediene: "I don't think. I'm sure" about torture.

In 2001, Boumediene, his wife and two young daughters lived in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He worked for the Red Crescent Society, having done stints for the organization in Pakistan and Albania.

He was arrested by Bosnian police in October 2001 and charged with conspiring to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies. He called the charges false and ludicrous.

"They search my car, my office, nothing. Cell phone, nothing. Nothing. Nothing," he said.

The charges were dropped, and the Bosnian courts ordered him and five others freed. But under pressure from the Bush administration, the Bosnian government handed him over to the U.S. military.

On January 17, 2002, Boumediene's hands and feet were placed in shackles, and he was put on a military plane en route to Guantanamo Bay. It was a time of high anxiety, and the Bush administration was taking no chances.

Two weeks later, in his State of the Union address, President Bush touted the arrests in Bosnia to show early progress in the war on terror.

"Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy," Bush said in his address. To this day, officials of the Bush administration have provided no credible evidence to back up that accusation.

Boumediene said the interrogations began within one week of his arrival at the facility in Cuba. But he thought that his cooperation, and trust in the United States, would serve him well and quicken his release.

READ the rest of the article (4 pages) and more than 120 or so COMMENTS which are snow-balling rapidly and ADD Your Own here

And/OR hope you also COMMENT at the end of this post here at One Heart...

You will also find this interview link and more at Candace Gorman's GTMO BLOG which is featured on the US National ABA Journal - which is featuring the GTMO lawyer's Blog here Be sure to follow her recent "rash" of items - she will give you some succinct behind the scenes "leads" often missed. (See more titles below)

There's a lot happening with this story at Salon dot com today (Greenwald) with two video news links as well - also with over 111 Comments and UPDATING by 4:20 PM ET here

OF course find plenty of Comments at Huff Post: here

Find an earlier item on Boumedienne -BBC/Worthington) here

Thanks for tuning in!

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PS Here are the titles of more recent items at the ABA/Recent Posts from The Guantánamo Blog Find all these below here

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I guess the more they try to explain it the angrier I get. Now if you read the latest excuses (click on the title) you will find this

Vagabond Scholar: The Torture Apologia Chart

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POETIC INTERLUDE
STALK- LAURA ELRICKPart dystopian urban cartography, part spatial-poetic intervention, this video/poem tracks a solitary figure (dressed iconically in the manner of a Guantanamo detainee) as it shuffles through work-a-day Manhattan at lunchtime. Appropriated text is…

So much for the kinder, gentler administration
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FIND all of these topics above here