PAKISTAN: Pakistani former Guantanamo Bay prisoner says his the time spent in the prison has ruined his life

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mohammad Sagheer says his one year detention at in the prison has ruined his life and he suing the United States and Pakistan government's for the damage he claims it caused him. Sagheer was the first Pakistani detainee who was released from the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002. He was arrested by the forces of Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Kunduz province in 2001 while he was on a preaching mission and was later handed over to the U.S. forces on suspicions that he had links with al Qaeda. Sagheer says as a result of his imprisonment he has lost business, his family has sunk into debt and his children have been forced to quit schools. "When I returned from Guantanamo Bay, the (town) people were very happy. I was very happy also," Sagheer said. But his happiness was to be short-lived. "For about three or four months I did not know what had happened but then I realised that my sons had spent lots of money when I was not here. My timber business had collapsed, so they had borrowed money from people here and there. Then they borrowed money on interest," he said. The family had borrowed over 1,500,000 rupees ($25,000) to hire people to search for him in Afghanistan. Sagheer says he sold a small piece of land and a house to pay back some of the debts, but now the rest of his creditors are demanding their money back. The 54 year old had a thriving timber business, but his wood-chopping machine, his sole source of livelihood in his mountainous Pattan village, over 300 kms northwest of Islamabad, was badly damaged in a massive earthquake last year. Frustrated by tensions and severe financial crisis, Sagheer says he plans to migrate to some other city if his hardships persist. Thousands of Pakistanis from Sagheer's home district Kohistan and elsewhere in Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan volunteered to fight alongside the Taliban after U.S.-led forces launched strikes in Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Although Sagheer said he had no links with al Qaeda or militants, he insisted that the Taliban were good people because they fought for Islam. He said he was severely beaten and tortured during his detention in both Afghan and U.S. detainment centres, but claims his present sufferings are even greater, because he was not getting help from anywhere. "In the whole of Pakistan, no one has ever offered me any monetary support, although everybody is aware of my condition," he said. Sagheer has filed a suit for $10.4 million in damages against the United States and Pakistani governments in a Pakistani court, claiming he was illegally detained. "Economically he is, I must say, in a shambles, disarray, and I don't think he is still in a position to do anything. He doesn't have anything. I think he is running on debt even now," Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry, Sagheer's lawyer told Reuters Television his office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. He says Sagheer is not only physically very weak but also mentally disturbed and deserves the 10 million dollars - and more - for the mental and physical torture he has been through.

ITN Source | September 12, 2006

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