{"id":327362,"date":"2021-09-27T15:24:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T15:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=8b88f7805a04a4e82252dce5e95476c5"},"modified":"2021-09-27T15:24:56","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T15:24:56","slug":"i-was-detained-in-guantanamo-for-14-years-after-being-kidnapped-and-sold-to-cia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/27\/i-was-detained-in-guantanamo-for-14-years-after-being-kidnapped-and-sold-to-cia\/","title":{"rendered":"I Was Detained in Guant\u00e1namo for 14 Years After Being Kidnapped and Sold to CIA"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Mansoor<\/a>

We speak with Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guant\u00e1namo Bay detainee who was held at the military prison for 14 years without charge, an ordeal he details in his new memoir, Don\u2019t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guant\u00e1namo<\/em>. Adayfi was 18 when he left his home in Yemen to do research in Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped by Afghan warlords, then sold to the <\/span>CIA<\/span> <\/span>after the 9\/11 attacks. Adayfi describes being brutally tortured in Afghanistan before he was transported to Guant\u00e1namo in 2002, where he became known as Detainee #441 and survived years of abuse. Adayfi was released against his will to Serbia in 2016 and now works as the Guant\u00e1namo Project coordinator at <\/span>CAGE<\/span>, an organization that advocates on behalf of victims of the war on terror. \u201cThe purpose of Guant\u00e1namo wasn\u2019t about making Americans safe,\u201d says Adayfi, who describes the facility as a \u201cblack hole\u201d with no legal protections. \u201c\u200b\u200bThe system was designed to strip us of who we are. Even our names were taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Today we spend the hour with Mansoor Adayfi. At the age of 18, he left his home in Yemen to do research in Afghanistan. Shortly before he was scheduled to return home, he was kidnapped by Afghan warlords and sold to the <\/span>CIA<\/span> <\/span>after the September 11th attacks. He was jailed and tortured in Afghanistan, then transported to the U.S. military prison at Guant\u00e1namo in 2002, where he was held without charge for 14 years, many of those years in solitary confinement. Mansoor became known as Detainee 441. In 2016, he was released against his will to Serbia, which he compares to Guant\u00e1namo 2.0. By the time Mansoor was released, he had spent more than half his life in prison.<\/p>\n

Mansoor Adayfi has just published a memoir titled <\/span>Don\u2019t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guant\u00e1namo<\/em>. I spoke to him Friday from his home in Belgrade. I began by asking him to talk about how he ended up at Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p>\n

\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>OK, let\u2019s fly back like 38 years, which, actually, I \u2014 like, when people ask me, \u201cHow old are you?\u201d I say I\u2019m like 24, because I don\u2019t count Guant\u00e1namo, like try to cheat. Anyway, I born in a tiny village in Yemen, Raymah, born like with 11, 12 \u2014 11 brothers and sisters, large family, very conservative family. I studied my primary school and secondary school in the village. We had no high school, so I had to go live with my aunt in the capital, Sana\u2019a, which was like a new world.<\/p>\n

When I finished with my high school, I was assigned to do some research in Afghanistan. I was like a research assistant in Afghanistan. This is how my journey started there. In Afghanistan, I spent a couple months researching and doing some of the research required to be done.<\/p>\n

One day, after 9\/11, I was kidnapped by the warlords. They were actually interested in the car; they weren\u2019t interested in us. Then, when Americans came, the American airplane, they were throwing a lot of flyers offering a large bounty of money, which could change Afghanis\u2019 life. So, Afghanis found out that the more you give them high-rank people, the more you get paid. The price ranged between $5,000 to like $200,000, $500,000.<\/p>\n

First of all, we were taken as \u2014 held for ransom. Then I was sold to the <\/span>CIA<\/span> <\/span>as an al-Qaeda general, middle-age Egyptian, you know, a 9\/11 insider. I was taken to the black site, where I was, like, tortured for like over two months, then from the black site to Kandahar detention \u2014 was one of the funny things.<\/p>\n

When I arrived at Kandahar detention, I was totally naked there. It\u2019s like another \u2014 it\u2019s a long journey. Second day of my arrival, guards came to move me to a tent. After the interrogation, I was asked to sign a paper that the Americans have a right to shoot me and kill me if I try to escape. I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to sign. Of course I will try to escape. I shouldn\u2019t be here in the first place.\u201d So, yeah, I was beating \u2014 I refused to sign. They put my hand on the paper; they signed it themselves. I said, \u201cNo, that doesn\u2019t count. I have to sign with my \u2014 like, willingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>And when you talked about a bounty being paid to the warlords who handed you over to the U.S. <\/span>CIA<\/span> <\/span>and then you were tortured at a black site, do you know where that black site was? And when you say \u201ctortured,\u201d what actually happened to you in that two-month period? If I \u2014 I hate to bring you back there, but what actually happened?<\/p>\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>You know, I don\u2019t know where \u2014 until that day, I don\u2019t know where the black site is, where that place. But I was kept, before that, at one of the warlord home. I was treated like a guest, teaching his kids classes \u2014 math, Qur\u2019an and so on. And after that, I was \u2014 when the Americans came, they stripped naked. They put me in the bag, hooded, and they shipped me to somewhere I don\u2019t know, \u2019til that day.<\/p>\n

So, in the black site, it was one of the worst experiences in my life. Sometimes I\u2019m afraid to get back there, because \u2014 not because fear. It\u2019s just, you know, to relive that trauma, because there was no limit to whatever they can do to us, 24 hours.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>And these were U.S. soldiers?<\/p>\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Yes, U.S. soldiers and with also Afghanis, where people actually lost their life there, because they were looking for Osama bin Laden, where is Mullah Mohammed Omar, where are the new attacks, the sleeper cells. And they have a long list and photos and all kind of things.<\/p>\n

So, yes, I mean, those black sites, I believe no one knows how many people in that ended there and how many people actually died there. But there was no limitation to whatever they can do to you. I mean, we spent \u2014 hang on the ceiling all the time, upside down, even blindfolded, naked. The food and drink, just pour rice and water in our mouth. Sometimes they \u2014 we also do our thing sort of standing, and there\u2019s no rest. Twenty-four hours, there\u2019s a programming, like sleep deprivation. We have only sleep \u2014 they give you 30 minutes, like, then six hours, then 20 minutes, if you can sleep \u2014 loud music, beating, waterboarding. They used to put us in kind of like a barrel and roll it in the ice and shoot. And the first time I did, I thought that I died, because they rolled it, and they shot with a gun. I, like, was looking: \u201cWhere are the holes?\u201d But I was still alive. So, yes, I mean \u2014<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>And so, you were taken from there to Kandahar, and then you were held where in Kandahar before being brought to Guant\u00e1namo?<\/p>\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>I think, Kandahar, we were at the airport. They have a detention \u2014 they built a detention prison in Kandahar. It was tents surrounded with like high walls of barbed wires. We could see the airplanes taking off every time.<\/p>\n

So, when we saw \u2014 when we used to see the small airplanes, we knew they bring a new group of people. But we called \u2014 the big one, we called \u201cthe beast,\u201d the Air Force really big one. So, that, when it comes, we all, like, panic, because we knew some people was going to leave, and they\u2019re going to disappear. So, even that trauma, just waiting for your name or number to be \u2014 no, name \u2014 our name to be called.<\/p>\n

They took us. And they call it a process station. Or they just drag me to that place, hang on the pole, strip naked, shaved. And there were all kind of humiliation, I mean, just too much to talk about it. So, we were packed on orange jumpsuits. Everything was orange \u2014 shoes, socks, uniform, shirt, T-shirt, pants. Everything was orange. And they have also goggles, ear muffs. My mouth was duct-taped, my eyes, too, also then hood. And they put one more thing upon me special, because as a big fish: They put a sign around my neck which said, \u201cBeat me.\u201d So, every 15, 10 minutes, I get beaten all the way for the next over 40 hours, until we arrived at Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>And what did they say you did? What were the charges against you?<\/p>\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>You know, at the black site, I was accused to be an Egyptian. They asked me I was in Nairobi and was recruiting, money laundering, I was al-Qaeda camp \u2014 head of the camp, trainer, a commander \u2014 all kind of accusations. I tried to deny them, but I admit to everything, you know? But the problem was with the details. I couldn\u2019t give them the details. By the end, like two months and a half, when they found out I wasn\u2019t that person, they just throw me in Kandahar detention. And from Kandahar, the same files were sent with me, where the interrogation started again about the same person, and in Guant\u00e1namo over and over and over again.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Now, I want to just be very clear: You were 18 years old.<\/p>\n

MANSOOR<\/span> <\/span>ADAYFI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Yeah, I turned \u2014 I was 18 years old when I was kidnapped. I turned 19 in the black site.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Former Guant\u00e1namo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi. We\u2019ll be back with him in 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

[break]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest \u2013 Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Mansoor<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of Guant\u00e1namo wasn\u2019t about making Americans safe,\u201d says former Guant\u00e1namo detainee Mansoor Adayfi.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,6066,6,463,35920,438],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327501,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327362\/revisions\/327501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}