"I Helped MI5. My Reward: Brutality And Prison"

[Gold9472]

'I helped MI5. My reward: brutality and prison'
When Bisher al-Rawi agreed to work for the British government, he thought he was doing the right thing. He spent four gruelling years at Guantanamo Bay for his efforts. In this remarkable interview he breaks his silence and tells his extraordinary story to David Rose

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus...137115,00.html

Sunday July 29, 2007
The Observer

James Bond used to interview informants in nightclubs and luxury hotels. Le Carré's George Smiley preferred park benches, or safe houses in Belgravia. But when Bisher al-Rawi met the men from MI5, they chose somewhere more prosaic: a table in the basement of the Kensington High Street McDonald's, just to the left of the stairs. 'I always had a Filet-o-Fish,' al-Rawi says drily. 'They would only drink. One supposes they didn't like the food.'

It wasn't the only difference between Britain's real and fictional spies. Having risked his life and reputation to tell MI5 about Islamic radicalism in London in the months after 9/11, al-Rawi has told The Observer the sensational story of his betrayal.

A secret telegram was sent from the British Security Service to the CIA, in which they told the Americans that al-Rawi was carrying a timing device for a bomb - in reality, an innocuous battery charger from Argos - on a business trip to Gambia. Al-Rawi, the telegram added, was an 'Iraqi extremist' associate of the preacher Abu Qatada, later described as Osama bin Laden's ambassador to Europe and now in a British jail

It did not, however, mention the fact that al-Rawi had been seeing Qatada at the request of MI5.

Only a few months earlier, in the spring of 2002, while Qatada was wanted and supposedly in hiding, al-Rawi had visited him numerous times with MI5's knowledge, in the hope of arranging a meeting between him and his handlers. In addition, he had told MI5 all about his life and tried to provide an insight into Britain's Islamic scene.

All of it was thrown in his face. Arrested on arrival in Gambia and interrogated, a month later, al-Rawi was flown on an illegal CIA 'rendition' flight halfway across the world and spent four and a half years detained without charge in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. From the beginning, he says, the basis of his hundreds of interrogations was the information he had already freely given to MI5.

Last week, in two days of interviews, al-Rawi told his story for the first time. He was speaking out for one reason - to help his friend, Jamil el-Banna, who was arrested in Gambia with him and shared his ordeal. Like al-Rawi, he has now been deemed to pose no threat by the Americans. But el-Banna, a refugee from Jordan long settled in Britain who has five British children, is still in his cell in Guantanamo - because the UK government has refused to allow his return.

Now 39, al-Rawi looks older and thinner than in photos from before his arrest. Clean-shaven, in designer jeans and a sweatshirt, he remains animated and articulate, punctuating even the grimmest episodes with an expansive, mischievous laugh.

His family came to Britain when al-Rawi was 16 after his father, a wealthy businessman, was tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. For a time he went to Millfield, the public school in Somerset, and later studied engineering at London's Queen Mary and Westfield College. His father died in 1992 and the rest of his family - his mother, brother and sister - acquired UK citizenship. al-Rawi remained an Iraqi, in the hope that this would one day make it easier to retrieve property left behind.

During the 1990s he ran his own engineering business and learned to fly helicopters. He rarely drove a car, preferring big motorbikes. It was through his business that al-Rawi got to know el-Banna.

Al-Rawi recollects that he met Qatada at a mosque in London and gradually they became friends. 'I got to know his kids. My relationship with Abu Qatada wasn't much different from with a lot of people in the community,' said al-Rawi.

Several times before 9/11, he was asked to be an interpreter at meetings between MI5 and Arabic-speakers, including Qatada. 'On two occasions I asked the officers in private, "Is it OK to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? Is this a problem?" And they always said, "No, it's fine, it's OK."' Phase two of his relationship began a few weeks after the 11 September attacks in 2001, when two MI5 men came to his home, introducing themselves as Alex and Matt. 'The family was freaking out, so I took them in the conservatory and closed the door. They'd done their homework very well, they knew a lot about me. It was like an interview.'

They came back a week later but because his family felt uncomfortable, al-Rawi says they began to meet outside - first in a pub at Victoria, and later at the McDonald's. 'In those early days they were always offering me money. I was very clear with them. I told them I wasn't going to be paid. I agreed to talk to MI5 because I believed it would do some good.' Even before 9/11, al-Rawi says, he could see that tension was rising between Muslims and the authorities in Britain. 'I wanted to bring the two sides together.' He shrugs. 'Boy, did I fall through the gap.'

However, al-Rawi was concerned that he might somehow incriminate himself, by speaking of people who - unbeknown to him - really might have links with terrorism. He also sought assurances that everything he said was in confidence. He was asked to meet an MI5 lawyer called Simon. 'He gave me very solid assurances about confidentiality,' al-Rawi says. 'He promised they would even protect me and my family if they had to. He said that, if I was ever arrested, I should cooperate with the police. If a matter got to court, he would come as a witness and tell the truth.'

Last night MI5 declined to comment on this or other aspects of the case. Despite repeated and detailed requests, their spokesman did not return calls.

In December 2001, the government introduced the 2001 Terrorism Act, allowing foreign nationals such as Abu Qatada to be detained without charge. Shortly before it was passed, Qatada disappeared. Like most of his associates, al-Rawi had no idea of his whereabouts. But one day in early spring a stranger phoned and asked to meet him at a London mosque. He took him to a house where Qatada was staying. 'He asked me if I could help him find somewhere new.'

Through a friend, al-Rawi found him a flat near the river. 'Less than a week later I saw Alex in McDonald's. He asked me straight out: "Bisher, do you know where Abu Qatada is?" I thought to myself, if I was going to tell a lie, now was the time to do it. But I didn't. I said: "Yes, I do."' A few days later they met again, this time with Alex's boss, Martin. 'He seemed excited. Up till then the British authorities had no idea where Abu Qatada was.'

Al-Rawi told Qatada that he had informed MI5 that he knew where he was. 'He looked at me in amazement. He didn't like it, yet at the same time he tolerated it. I really thought I could bring them together.'

Al-Rawi acted as a messenger, shuttling from preacher to spy and back again. Finally, in early summer 2002, al-Rawi says, Qatada agreed to meet MI5, but barely had he informed his handlers of this when Qatada changed his mind. Soon afterwards al-Rawi got a final phone call from Alex. 'It was a brief conversation terminating our relationship. It was very tense, like breaking off with a girlfriend. He was pissed off, I was pissed off. But I was also relieved: it was a huge load off my shoulders.'

Later, after Qatada's arrest in October 2002, MI5 claimed in court that they had not known of his whereabouts for almost a year. Al-Rawi finds this implausible, as, he says, did his interrogators at Guantanamo. 'As I told Abu Qatada at the time, all they had to do is follow me on my motorbike.'

End Part I

[Gold9472]

On 1 November, al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and another friend, Abdullah el-Janoudi, a British citizen, were strolling to the gate at Gatwick airport to board their flight to Banjul, Gambia. Al-Rawi's brother, Wahhab, had plans to set up a peanut plant there and the three friends were flying to meet him. Wahhab had travelled ahead.

The previous evening, MI5 and the police had been to visit el-Banna and, according to an MI5 memo disclosed to his lawyers, tried to recruit him. He could, they said, 'start a new life with a new identity' and acquire British citizenship. He refused. But the officers promised that he could travel the next day 'without a problem' - and return to Britain afterwards.

It was not to be. The three men were stopped at the gate, searched, and detained for five days at Paddington Green police station. Searches of their homes confirmed, as further police documents state, that they contained no trace of explosives or other illegal materials, while the 'suspicious' device found in al-Rawi's luggage was, indeed, a battery charger.

While al-Rawi was being held, MI5 sent its first telegram to the CIA, describing the charger - which al-Rawi had modified to make it waterproof - as 'a timing device [that] could possibly be used as some part of a car-based IED [improved explosive device].' A second telegram three days later failed to correct this, repeating the claim that al-Rawi was 'an Islamic extremist' and saying the men would soon be on their way again.

In a report last week on the case, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee cited testimony that it was given in secret from MI5, claiming that the service had sent 'caveats' with the telegrams asking for no action to be taken. These, it was clear, were ignored. With no evidence against them, the men were released without charge from Paddington Green and allowed to book new flights for the following Friday. But the telegrams had done their job. On arrival in Gambia on 8 November all three were held, together with Wahhab and his local agent, who had come to the airport to meet them.

Next morning al-Rawi came face to face with the Americans. A man who called himself Lee was the lead interrogator.

'From the beginning, the questions made it plain that the Americans had been given the contents of my own MI5 file, which was supposed to be confidential. Lee even told me the British were giving him information. I had agreed to help MI5 because I wanted to prevent terrorism, and now the information I had freely given them was being used against me in an attempt to prove that I myself was some kind of terrorist.'

He was accused of planning a Gambian terrorist training camp - in a tiny country where he knew no one. In his last week in Gambia, one of the Americans came to al-Rawi's cell and told him he was going to a US prison in Afghanistan - the process known as rendition. 'He told me: "We know you were working for MI5", and said if I told the truth I would get out.'

The Americans informed MI5 of the pending rendition, which breached international law, but the British did nothing to help their former agent. Wahhab and el-Janoudi, who were UK citizens, were released, but al-Rawi and el-Banna did not have the protection of British passports.

Al-Rawi and el-Banna - shackled, blindfolded and hooded - were taken to the airport, where two men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas cut off their clothes and removed their hoods. Al-Rawi describes what happened next. 'They dressed me in two layers of nappies and tracksuit bottoms and a top. Over that they put a harness, and shackled and cuffed me again, fixing the chains through the harness. They dragged me forcefully up the stairs and into the plane. They forced me on to a stretcher and tied me to it so tightly I could hardly move at all. There were belts restraining my feet, my legs and my body. They covered my eyes with a blindfold, and then goggles, and something over my ears. All the way through that flight I was on the border of screaming. At last we landed, I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't over. It was just a refuelling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go.'

Arriving in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, they were driven to the CIA's 'dark prison' - a literal description. Al-Rawi's blindfold had been removed, but the darkness was absolute. The unheated cell was so cold he could feel ice crystals on the water he was occasionally given to drink. 'For three days or so I just sat in the corner, shivering. The only time there was light was when a guard came to check on me with a very dim torch - as soon as he'd detect movement, he would leave. I tried to do a few push-ups and jogged on the spot to keep warm. There was no toilet paper, but I tore off my nappies and tried to use them to clean myself. I kept telling myself: "They haven't killed me yet, this is good." You sleep and you wait.'

At last, after about a fortnight, they were taken to the American airbase at Bagram, 40 miles from Kabul, where the interrogations began again. On the way, 'they really beat me and Jamil up. Of course I was hooded, so I couldn't see anything. But you know how you see in cartoons when people get hit on the head and they see stars? I thought, ah, now I know what those cartoons mean. I saw stars.'

In Bagram, he and el-Banna came under pressure to incriminate Abu Qatada who by then was in prison in Britain, where he remains, now fighting deportation to Jordan, where he has been convicted in absentia of terrorist offences. Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who represents al-Rawi, Qatada and el-Banna, fears the real reason el-Banna has not been allowed back to Britain is a plan to send him to Jordan, where he too might testify against Qatada. Al-Rawi and el-Banna were taken to Guantanamo in March 2003. Like others released from there, al-Rawi describes a regime of isolation and casual brutality. For more than a year, until his release on 31 March this year, he was held in Camp 5, where communication between inmates is almost impossible. 'You want to speak to someone in Camp 5? No problem. All you have to do is scream your head off. It's like a cemetery.' One of the toughest periods came after three inmates committed suicide in June last year. For months the authorities retaliated by keeping the air conditioning turned to maximum. 'We were freezing the whole time. Other times they made it scorching hot.'

As the months became years, he sank into depression. 'One tried hard to be normal, to maintain balance. The thing was, the people around me were suffering so much, and in the end you can't help feeling pretty bad yourself. Jamil knew his mother wasn't well, and he begged to be allowed to phone her, to speak to her before she died. They refused, and she passed away last year.' MI5, it was evident, had not fulfilled its promise to help al-Rawi if he ever got into trouble. After he had been in Guantanamo for about six months, an officer came to see him. 'It was someone I hadn't seen before. He asked me: "Do you feel betrayed?"' Later his former handler, Alex, paid a visit: 'I suppose he was nice enough. He asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a book on base jumping. He never came back, and I never got the book.'

His last and strangest visit came from Matt and Martin. Despite the ordeal that their organisation had caused him, al-Rawi says they tried to recruit him again. 'They said, "You know, Bisher, if you agree to work for us when you get back to Britain, we'll get you out." They promised to return, but never did.'

There was to be yet another broken promise. When al-Rawi came before a Guantanamo tribunal to assess whether his detention was justified, he asked for Matt, Alex and Simon to corroborate his story as witnesses. The British refused to identify them, and the Americans said that, because he did not know their full, real names, they could not be traced.

Al-Rawi says he feels no bitterness towards America or Americans. MI5, however, has left him deeply disappointed. 'I used to think of them as cool, tough, as gentlemen. I used to speak about them in the Muslim community, saying they had a level of dignity and that we could trust them. When I got back home one of the first messages I got was from a friend who had heard me say that. He said: "Bisher, they weren't very honourable, were they?" I suppose he was right. All the credit for what I went through goes to them.'

America's Dark Secret
The Central Intelligence Agency was granted permission to use extraordinary rendition - one country moving its prisoners to another for interrogation - in a presidential directive signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. The practice has grown sharply since the 9/11 attacks.

Critics say the CIA renders suspects to avoid American laws prohibiting torture, even though many of those countries have, like the US, signed or ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.

The 'ghost detainees' are kept outside judicial oversight. Many have disappeared. Evidence suggests the CIA has rendered prisoners to countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Many European airports have been used to facilitate their transfer to such countries, say human rights groups which have obtained the flight logs of several planes leased by the CIA.

The practice is now exercising the minds of European legislators. Swiss senator Dick Marty released a report last year which concluded that as many as 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA in Europe and rendered to a country where they may have been tortured.

The allegations have been denied by the White House, which insists no detainees held by the US have been tortured. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that 'rendition is a vital tool in combating transnational terrorism. Its use is not unique to the United States.'

But evidence from prisoners in Guantanamo suggests the US does practise interrogation techniques which many lawyers argue are tantamount to torture. The most notable is 'water-boarding', where detainees are tricked into believing they are going to drown. Interrogation methods during extraordinary rendition remain one of America's darkest secrets.

End

[78naujsrk]

absolutly disturbing jon......

jon as i have told you in the past my father died in a tragic accident a couple months prior to 9-11, well the anniversary is today and reading these stories with the added burden of the anniversary has made me cry a bit. i am so afraid that eventually these practices will become common place, and the reasons for brutallity will become more and more exceptable. the wrong place at the wrong time type thing you know?....well anyways thanks again for supplying the mountain of information that you do.

by the way i just finished watching 9-11 mysteries what a great movie. lots of demolition information, just fastinating material, things that are so obvious yet the mass of people just let it go like it is nothing

i know that you have spoken with some of the people who lost family members on 9-11 but have you had much contact with any of the survivors? the people that were in the buildings on 9-11- the firefighters or police? just curious....take care man

[Gold9472]

No. I haven't. Sorry about your dad.

[Gold9472]

I've spoken with Janette MacKinlay. She's a survivor.

[78naujsrk]

i'm sure she has an intersting story (to say the least). I would be very intrigued to talk to someone who was in the building that day.

[AuGmENTor]

I did a bunch of work for a woman named Leslie Haskin who was the (I think) the last survivor out of tower one. She went on to write a book about her PTSD, the spiritual side of it, and her recovery from vertigo and agoraphobia... Has a decidedly religious spin to it. The title of it is "Between Heaven And Ground Zero." We had lots to talk about, as she was running uptown and I was running downtown. We figured that we must have passed each other by almost certainly. She has a powerful story to say the least.

[78naujsrk]

i never realized you were there on 9-11 that must of been insane....do you live in nyc?i'm a bit of a country boy so i get a little wierd in big cities.


my girlfriend is serbian and they had to leave there because of the crazy shit that was going on in the late 90's....the messed up thing is she appears to not really fully understand what happened there ....in the 90's it was still yugoslavia and hadn't been broken up yet, and to be honest i'm not that well versed when it comes to the whole conflict either but from what i've gathered yugoslavia was somewhat of a test for these guys.....the UN went in there and helped to stir up emotions (while playing the peace keeper roles) the more powerful people went around certain areas and systematically killed people....my gf said she saw people getting killed, bombs flying over head, houses being destroyed....she said that they had to leave quick and they couldnt take there dog....these assholes went in the house, destroyed the house and killed the dog (her grandparents went back when the conflict died down)...thats not even the worse part...i guess one of there neighbors down the street didn't leave and when her grandparents came home this guys head was on a steak in the front yard....just brutal .......and this is my point....the bullshit that these assholes are pulling right now will ultimatly lead to police actions of this nature here at home....and besides that it shouldn't happen anywhere.....anyways they proved with yugoslavia that they could get away with it (this is just my opinion) and next it was afghanastan and now iraq. nobody is stoping these people. the UN goes in early (secretly) causes the problems (getting people with diff opinions excited to the point they car bomb a church or something of this nature) next thing you know the ignorant masses are killing one another and then the UN goes in and takes control, calming everyone down and killing a few more during the process and then wow guess what we now have access to this sea over here and we can drop our pipeline in this country because no one is gonna stop us now after all this killing the people who didnt die are just happy to be alive the last thing they are going to notice is this big pipeline.....it's just fucking messed up man... and like i was saying i don't believe my girlfriend even understands any of what went on there ....she knows it was people with diff religious opinions or what not ....and look guys i may not have hit the nail on the head completly here but this is basically what they did over there and its what they are doing in iraq right now on a much bigger level....do you ever think about what they could of done with this 600 billion dollars if they invested it in education instead of destruction....but i'm sure tons of that money is going to the companies that are building the bombs and rebuilding over there.....oh and wait those companies have ties to those leading this country....anyways my point of this rant was that last night i was having this petty arguement with my girl last night and she mentioned being back home during the war and it dawned on me that she prob had PTSD and that would explain much of what she puts me through...lol....anyways thanks for reading my rant and take care all.....................

[werther]

damn that's one hoffiric tale you recounted 78naujsrk.

[78naujsrk]

werther i'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not....i know i get a bit worked up and kind of jump from topic to topic and for that i apologize...my heart however is in the right place and i just want to share my disgust of the way things appear to be heading these days

anyways i went and found a link about the yugoslavian wars if anyone is interested

http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html