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much of that is true? None

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of it is true. Previously

0:41

on Serial. We are humanitarians

0:43

here. That was my belief. That is

0:45

how we talked about it. That is

0:47

what we believed. Everybody's in good shape.

0:49

Everybody's looking good. I mean, just everyone

0:52

was getting drunk and getting laid. I

0:54

tried to explain everything I can and

0:56

tried to persuade them that we're not

0:58

the people they're looking for. This whole

1:00

thing, man, it's like I

1:04

still have resentment about this guy.

1:06

I still think that he's complicit some

1:08

way, and we'll never know how. From

1:19

Serial Productions in The New York Times,

1:21

this is Serial Season 4, Guantanamo. One

1:24

prison camp told week by week. I'm

1:26

Sarah Koenig. After

1:39

September 11th, a call cascaded down through

1:41

the ranks of the military. If

1:44

you speak another language besides English,

1:46

raise your hand. Pashto,

1:48

Urdu, Arabic speakers, we need you. So

1:51

at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, a

1:54

slight young supply clerk named Ahmed

1:56

Al Hallebi raised his hand. I

1:59

felt important, by the way. Yeah, I'm

2:01

like, wow, I'm like, everybody

2:03

wants my skills. Like, yeah, I'm

2:06

here. So I

2:08

went and they tested me and of course I passed. Of

2:11

course he passed. He's originally from Syria. A

2:14

couple of months later, senior airman Al

2:16

Halabi landed in Guantanamo, November of 2002,

2:19

less than a year after the camp had opened. He'd

2:22

be working as a translator, but the military calls

2:24

a linguist. Ahmed said he

2:26

got no advanced training for this job. Instead,

2:29

as soon as they got off the plane, the

2:31

new arrivals gathered in a huge empty hangar for

2:33

a briefing. You get a

2:37

quick briefing of, you know, you're

2:40

here, don't feed the animals,

2:42

don't, you know, do this and that.

2:44

Don't touch the iguanas. It's going to

2:46

be hot and hydrate. You

2:48

know, just the basic information. They literally are telling you

2:51

about the iguanas and the animals, the first thing you

2:53

get off the plane? Yeah, of

2:55

course. That's, yeah, that's like

2:58

the very first thing. And at every

3:00

briefing you hear about the iguanas, at

3:02

every single briefing that you get,

3:05

they talk about the iguanas. I don't

3:07

know why, because they said this is

3:09

an endangered species. Don't feed them. Don't

3:11

touch them. Whatever. And,

3:13

you know, they go on with other things. This

3:17

was and still is an important

3:19

rule at Guantanamo. Don't feed the

3:21

iguanas. But then when

3:23

Ahmed was showing me photos later of his

3:26

time in the Air Force and at Guantanamo. Oh,

3:29

this is military. This is the iguana.

3:32

Of course, I'm feeding the iguana. You're

3:34

not supposed to do that. I know. That's

3:36

what they said. No, they

3:38

said don't feed it, but it was

3:40

very, very cute. She's coming and

3:42

looking for food. So I left

3:44

something outside and ate it. So I'm like, she

3:48

better eat. She needs more. More

3:51

Guantanamo. If

3:54

the government tells me not to feed the iguana,

3:56

I will never feed the iguana. But

3:59

Ahmed fed the iguana. I

4:01

took this as an opening to analyze his

4:03

relationship to authority. You're

4:06

not a stickler for the rule

4:08

for the sake of the rule. It's more

4:10

like if it feels rational to you, you'll

4:12

follow the rule, but it feels totally irrational

4:15

you're dealing with the harm. Is

4:17

that true? That is absolutely true. Okay. It's

4:20

absolutely on point. I mean,

4:25

rules are rules and I respect the rules, but

4:29

there's an alternate to

4:31

the rules. You know? That's

4:34

what the military likes to

4:36

hear. What did they say? The

4:39

alternate fact? Alternate rule. Alternate rule.

4:42

At Guantanamo, Ahmed El-Halebi followed

4:44

some alternate rules. At

4:49

Guantanamo, Ahmed El-Halebi followed some

4:51

alt rules. That is, he

4:53

broke some rules. Rules he considered

4:55

minor. His miscalculation was

4:57

assuming that were he to get busted

4:59

for breaking minor rules, the consequences he'd

5:02

face would also be minor, but

5:04

the punishment would match the crime. What

5:07

he didn't bank on was that American

5:09

investigators and prosecutors in a fever of

5:12

hypervigilance were also operating under

5:14

a system of alt rules and alt

5:16

facts, which once arrayed

5:18

against him nearly destroyed his life. At

5:23

age 24, Ahmed was facing the full force

5:26

of the government, accused not just

5:28

of being a criminal, but of being an enemy. And

5:31

then about a year later, the government let him

5:33

go. What

5:35

happened to Ahmed, it's safe to say, is also

5:38

what happened to many detainees at

5:40

Guantanamo. Someone with authority

5:42

suspected they were dangerous, and then looked

5:44

for information to support that suspicion.

5:48

But for the most part, the information our

5:50

government gathered about detainees is invisible to the

5:52

public. Smirky, often

5:54

secret, uncontested. So

5:57

that all these years later, we regular people don't really know

5:59

what to think. Whether or not it was

6:01

right to hold them or right to let them go, we're left

6:04

guessing. Ahmed's

6:06

case, though, made it back home to

6:08

the mainland, to a court-martial

6:10

in sunny California and voila, a fat

6:12

record of trial. Witness

6:15

statements and search warrants and hearing transcripts

6:17

that tell us exactly what went down.

6:19

The who, the why, the what in the

6:22

name of all that is sacred garish details

6:24

of the case against Ahmed El-Halabi. Ahmed's

6:27

never told this story before, not in 20

6:29

years, not in full. It's

6:31

going to unfold over two episodes. Part

6:34

one, after the break. For

6:44

fans of heart-racing, bone-chilling, and

6:46

mind-bending stories, Audible has everything

6:48

you need. Audible is the

6:51

leader in audiobooks, so you'll always find the

6:53

best and freshest selection of mysteries and thrillers

6:55

to choose from. Sometimes

6:57

you just want to get lost in a classic

6:59

whodunit, and sometimes you want to get wrapped up

7:01

in a twisted new mystery where the tension is

7:03

high and you can't stop listening just to find

7:06

out what happens next. Audible

7:08

can take you places anywhere you can

7:10

imagine, and whenever you want, on a

7:13

run, doing errands, commuting, or just relaxing

7:15

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7:17

just audiobooks. Audible also gives

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you binge-worthy podcasts and exclusive originals,

7:21

with thousands of included titles you

7:23

can listen to all you want.

7:25

More get added every week. So

7:27

whether you're into thrills and chills,

7:29

or any other genre you might want to explore, remember

7:32

there is more to imagine when

7:34

you listen on Audible. Your first

7:36

audiobook is absolutely free when you

7:38

sign up for a free 30-day

7:40

trial at audible.com/serial. I'm Julie Turquitz.

7:44

I'm a reporter at the New York Times. To

7:46

understand changes in migration, I traveled

7:49

to the Darien Gap. We've

7:51

been risking their lives to pass through the

7:54

border of Colombia and Panama in the hopes

7:56

of making it to the United States. We

7:58

interviewed hundreds of people. try and

8:00

grasp what's making them go to these links.

8:03

New York Times journalists spend the time

8:05

in these places to help you understand

8:07

what's really happening there. You can

8:09

support this kind of journalism by subscribing to

8:11

the New York Times. Ahmed

8:15

joined the Air Force in the year 2000. He'd

8:18

just graduated high school, was working two

8:20

jobs, restaurant, post office, living

8:22

with his old school dad in Dearborn, Michigan, and

8:25

experiencing the generational chafe of a 20-year-old who

8:27

wants out from under. So he

8:29

figures, let me check out the military,

8:32

an option his father did not condemn.

8:34

But Ahmed muscles forward, finds one of

8:36

those storefront recruiting strips, Air

8:38

Force recruiter signs him up, they send him

8:40

here and there for training, and finally off to

8:42

Travis Air Force Base to work the night shift

8:45

as an airplane parts guy. Not

8:47

a flashy job. But Ahmed thrived in

8:49

the Air Force. He earned an early

8:51

promotion to senior airmen. At

8:53

the base commissary, he bought an aspirational lieutenant

8:56

insignia and planted it on his desk. This

8:58

was his 20-year plan. He'd be stationed

9:01

all over the world. I

9:03

maybe retire as like a lieutenant colonel or

9:05

maybe a colonel. And I'll be

9:07

like the first, you know, person

9:09

who from Syria made it this far,

9:11

right? They had all these ideas.

9:14

He was in it to win it. Still,

9:16

Ahmed knew he was an oddity at Travis. A

9:20

Muslim Syrian Arabic-speaking airman. He

9:22

figured he was anomalous for at least a hundred mile

9:24

radius, which people were mostly

9:26

cool about, he said, until September 11th.

9:28

And then his differences began to prick.

9:31

A few people made comments about his

9:34

name, Al-Halabi. Sounds like Airman al-Qaeda to

9:36

me, or questioned his loyalties.

9:39

For the most part, Ahmed let this stuff slide. His

9:42

English wasn't as strong then. He wasn't confident

9:44

he could marshal the arguments and the vocabulary

9:47

to change anyone's mind. And

9:49

then came the call for Arabic speakers. Ahmed

9:52

and his Arabic were needed at Guantanamo,

9:54

so they sent him to Guantanamo. And

9:56

suddenly he's seeing all these troops like

9:58

him. Muslim, speaking people

10:00

who were also serving. And not just

10:03

Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines, National Guard.

10:06

And that was like amazing,

10:08

you know? Like that

10:10

is the best thing I ever

10:12

seen. Like I see uniform, you

10:14

know, people from my, you

10:16

know, from my culture, right? Like even

10:18

though from different countries, like not even

10:20

Assyrian, there's no Assyrians. Well,

10:22

there was one guy, but he wasn't from Damascus

10:24

like Ahmed, so he didn't really count. Anyway,

10:28

Ahmed's getting to know this gaggle

10:30

of linguists, about 30 people, Russian

10:32

speakers, Urdu speakers, Pashto speakers, Turkish

10:34

speakers. Most are Muslim, some are

10:36

Christian, some are religious, some are not. Ahmed's

10:39

Arabic, spoken and written, is excellent.

10:42

Many of the Arabic linguists at Guantanamo

10:44

couldn't say the same. He's

10:46

placed in the Doc X office,

10:48

Document Exploitation, which means letters basically.

10:51

His job is to translate letters, detainees' right

10:54

to their families, and also letters

10:56

the family's right to the detainees. After

10:58

they get translated, the letters go to the intel

11:01

folks who decide what to censor. So

11:03

as soon as we arrived, we

11:05

saw that there's

11:09

boxes of backlog. Boxes

11:11

and boxes of backlog. Outgoing or

11:13

incoming? We don't know,

11:16

just huge boxes. The

11:18

Doc X backlog, around 1,500 letters

11:20

by one estimate, was a big

11:22

deal. The camp was holding 600 plus

11:25

men at the time. Another Doc

11:27

X translator told me the International Committee of

11:29

the Red Cross was complaining that some families hadn't

11:32

heard from their detained relative for more than a

11:34

year. But these letters,

11:36

a lot of them were complicated. Impressive

11:38

to read maybe, but agony to translate.

11:41

The detainees would write of dreams, discuss

11:43

stories from the Quran, which might require

11:45

a high level of Quranic knowledge on the part

11:48

of the translator. So you don't say, translate a

11:50

reference to a seventh century martyr named Jafar who

11:52

flies with the angels as Jafar the

11:54

pilot, and thereby send the whole intel group into

11:56

a tiz because they think they might have a lead

11:58

on the 20th hijacker. which happened.

12:02

Besides being devout, some of the

12:04

detainees were erudite. Akhmin remembers

12:07

their written Arabic was dense and formal.

12:10

Quotes from medieval time,

12:12

right? It's

12:14

un-nun, never-ending. And

12:16

they have nothing to do and they've got a

12:19

month to write this letter, right? So

12:22

they they take a very long time.

12:25

So... So they've

12:27

got like a half-page introduction and

12:29

like few sentences of

12:32

news which has no news. And

12:35

then another half-page of conclusion. One

12:38

well-crafted letter like that, if you translated

12:40

it word for word, it could take

12:42

you hours. They're working long shifts

12:44

in this trailer and they're writing this stuff

12:46

out by hand. So they

12:48

start looking for shortcuts. Maybe

12:50

instead of literal translations of all those

12:53

poetic introductory prayers, for example. Why don't

12:55

we just say greetings? Oh,

12:58

okay. So we did that. We started

13:00

saying greetings and you just skipped like five

13:02

lines. Akhmin is a

13:04

computer guy. He'd been working toward a degree in

13:06

computer science. He scandalized that

13:08

they're doing this work with pen and paper.

13:10

It's so slow. He's

13:12

got a personal laptop. So they

13:14

ask the boss, can we bring in our own

13:17

computers to use for these translations? The

13:19

boss okay's it. They're waiting on office

13:21

computers. But in the meantime, sure, knock yourselves

13:23

out. Akhmin brings in his

13:25

laptop. A couple other people do too.

13:28

They begin to conquer the backlog. Maybe

13:32

some of what I'm telling you here sounds fiddly and

13:34

small. But the details of

13:36

Akhmin's story, exactly how he did his job,

13:39

exactly what he did in his spare time,

13:42

these all start to matter now. Because

13:44

many months later, Akhmin's going to see a

13:46

lot of these same details reflected back,

13:48

funhouse style, on a criminal charge sheet.

13:51

His whole self is translated. By

14:02

the end of that first year, the

14:04

prison complex was growing. More detainees had

14:06

arrived on the island. The guards, the

14:09

medical staff, the Muslim chaplain, everyone needed

14:11

more help communicating. So Ahmed

14:13

started working inside the prison blocks. I'd

14:16

assumed the translators at Guantanamo were treated

14:18

with reverence, or at least respect. They

14:21

were skilled and rare, like

14:23

neurosurgeons or magicians. But

14:25

in fact, Ahmed and many of the other linguists

14:28

occupied a liminal and sometimes lonely

14:30

realm at Guantanamo. They

14:32

were a link between us and them,

14:34

needed by all, but fully trusted by

14:37

none. That betweenness

14:39

at a place like Guantanamo would end

14:41

up making Ahmed and his cohort vulnerable.

14:44

So you're kind of in a... what

14:47

do you call it? A rock on

14:49

a hard place. The rock

14:51

was the detainees, who by and large

14:54

hated the interpreters. They'd throw water

14:56

on them, or pee, or whatever else,

14:58

call them infidels. There

15:00

was also a very

15:03

funny way

15:05

they used to call... So when

15:07

we would come in from the

15:10

gates of the cell blocks, you

15:12

say, Wassalut

15:15

Tarateez. Wassalut Tarateez

15:17

means here they arrive

15:21

like the low class,

15:24

low level people. Here

15:26

come the bums. Here come the bums,

15:28

exactly. Here come the bums, exactly. We

15:32

would laugh, because that's how they think

15:34

of us. The bums

15:37

were working for the American oppressors, which

15:39

of course Ahmed didn't feel that way. He

15:42

assumed the prisoners had done something to

15:44

warrant their capture and detention. Ahmed

15:46

already had a sense of who some of them were

15:48

from reading their letters, or at least what their lives

15:51

were like. But now he was talking

15:53

to them face to face, hearing their

15:55

stories. There Wasn't

15:57

an outlier. That

16:00

you like oil. This guy is really

16:02

really bad. For

16:04

you can. Not. Start.

16:07

Having these thoughts like what the

16:09

heck did he do to arrive

16:12

here is a true that this

16:14

guy's guilty or not. Actually

16:18

knew better than to openly ask that

16:20

question. All the interpreters knew better. A

16:23

friend of off met the guy recalling Nasr

16:25

to help the special projects team with the

16:28

mock rendition of Mohammadi Scylla. He masters. the

16:30

person who made me understand. How carefully

16:32

linguists like him and off mid

16:34

felt they had to tread. How

16:36

the very same skills that earn them

16:38

this important assignment made an equal

16:40

opportunity. Targets Nasr translated during. Interrogations

16:42

which sometimes get ugly. As

16:45

I'm translating, they would stop answering. or

16:47

or if they're They're one of those

16:49

stubborn people that don't answer anything. They

16:52

just had their head on the ground

16:54

near hearing me say all these nasty

16:56

insulting things about his family and what

16:58

we're going to do to his wife

17:00

and his sister, in his daughter. And

17:02

all of these things didn't. He just

17:04

puts his head up and he looks

17:06

at me like. You're

17:09

one of them. He was Adams

17:12

and I would completely keep go

17:14

on translating like as if nothing

17:16

happened types but leaving marriage. You

17:20

know, am I a lot of them up

17:22

a meet Just easier to sit out. know?

17:32

Nasr Muslim. He spent his teenage years

17:34

in the Middle East surrounded by news

17:36

of war. He gets why kid from

17:39

Yemen or Kuwait might be tempted by

17:41

the adventure and heroism Running off to

17:43

Afghanistan to join the Mujahideen to protect

17:45

Muslim man from a foreign invader. That

17:47

image of Jihad. A positive image is

17:49

drummed into him to when he lives

17:51

in the Middle East, both at home

17:53

and in the media. But.

17:55

he's also american like off med he was

17:57

living in the u s on nine eleven

18:00

He believes in this mission and

18:02

he's good at this job, truly bilingual

18:04

in English and Arabic. He's a favorite

18:06

of the interrogators, his fellow Americans, shouting

18:09

when they shout, matching their pitch. Hours,

18:12

just like, you think your Allah is going

18:14

to help you? You think your Quran is

18:16

correct? You know, it's a bunch of garbage.

18:18

It's a bah, bah, bah. And I'm listening

18:20

to this and I'm translating it. I

18:23

am translating it. I'm not changing

18:25

any of the words. But

18:29

I'm like, you're not

18:31

only disrespecting this object that's in front of

18:33

us, you're disrespecting me. I'm on your side.

18:35

I'm on your team here. Or do I

18:37

need to pick a team here? Am I

18:39

on his team? There

18:42

was some kind of personality,

18:44

like, you know, identity

18:46

crisis even within me. I'm like, where

18:49

do I belong here? I

18:51

asked Nasser a touchy feely question. Did

18:54

you ever say anything to the interrogators after about

18:56

how it made you feel? Nasser

18:58

said, no. I

19:00

didn't want to feel like I'm a sympathizer

19:03

with the detainees because that would

19:05

open up another can of suspicion.

19:09

Right. I'd always associated

19:12

a sympathizer with Nazis or McCarthyism.

19:15

But after 9-11, this word made a comeback. Terrorist

19:18

sympathizer, al-Qaeda sympathizer. Politicians

19:20

are saying it. It's coming up in

19:22

congressional hearings. Muslims all over

19:24

America were feeling surveilled, and they were

19:27

surveilled. It was the dawn

19:29

of the Patriot Act and no-fly lists. The

19:31

FBI was asking thousands of Muslims

19:33

to come in for voluntary interviews.

19:36

People's phone records were gathered. Their

19:38

mosques infiltrated. So, yeah, sympathizer

19:41

was in the air. All

19:43

the linguists I spoke to were hearing it, especially from

19:46

the guard force. If

19:48

the detainees hating the linguists was the rock,

19:50

the guards hating the linguists, that was the

19:53

hard place. With the exception

19:55

of a unit from Puerto Rico that everyone said

19:57

was nice and reasonable, The Guards, Army,

19:59

Military, And Military, Police looked askance

20:01

at the interpreters. Especially the

20:03

non white non christian ones. Augments

20:06

said they didn't even bother to hide their disdain. Kick

20:09

us out of the block sometimes.

20:11

just sometimes it you will be

20:14

working and you. Either

20:16

distributing books or Philo time

20:18

to do our work like

20:20

yo. You get out. get

20:22

out of a mere your

20:25

you sympathizers get out here

20:27

you know yoyos to spread,

20:29

turn your face. Stepping.

20:32

Inside that relationship between the guards and the

20:34

detainees with the most harrowing aspect of the

20:37

job for a lot of the interpreters och

20:39

med included now that he's working in the

20:41

prison blocks mostly because of what's known as

20:43

are saying. It or

20:46

thing I see is disturbing to

20:48

see. It was. I've

20:52

never seen a reason for. Earth

20:54

stance for immediate reaction Force.

20:57

A team of guards. He'd be called in when

20:59

a detainee was determined to be obscene in a

21:01

combat as. Their job

21:03

was to forcibly remove the detainee

21:05

from his cell, a process known

21:07

and euphemistically as a for sell

21:09

extraction. Euphemistically, it's an are saying.

21:12

They are things were frequent. they were

21:14

violent, sometimes bloody. Ten. Maybe

21:17

fifteen times. Admin said he was called in

21:19

to interpret when an earthen was about to

21:21

happen, he try to get the detainee to

21:23

comply with whatever the guards were asking, plead

21:26

with the person sometimes or maybe quietly as

21:28

the guards team leader with her. All this

21:30

is really necessary, but he says it rarely

21:32

worked. Other linguists

21:34

I talk to, including a Brooks and

21:37

army sergeant at the time, got the

21:39

impression that Osman had an especially hard

21:41

time witnessing the earth things which to

21:43

add any way made sense. Athens

21:45

lived in Syria until he was sixteen. Courses

21:47

can identify more with the detainees and someone

21:49

like Ed to learn Arabic in the army

21:52

and described himself at the time as the

21:54

quote most annoying type of born again Christian

21:56

unquote. Ed to was disturbed

21:58

by there are things he does grab and like

22:00

this. Like five years in hockey

22:02

gear. Would. Come to the cell. Spray.

22:05

Them with o sea which is near pepper

22:07

spray. And then storm in

22:09

there and hogs them capella his hands

22:11

and see together. Mind is bad. For

22:14

them on a stretcher. take him the yard

22:16

strays of water to get the pepper spray

22:18

out. And then like

22:20

take all as items. And. Eventually one of

22:22

the. Colonel's account or who.

22:25

Decided to start late saving them they

22:27

would say them as a beard. Like.

22:30

You know they receive them completely. a leg,

22:32

hair, and beard. Yeah I

22:35

as I saw and save eyebrows

22:37

our time. And

22:39

said the official explanation for the saving was

22:41

a medical one so that the. Pepper sprayed

22:44

inclined to the person's hair and

22:46

cause further skin irritation that. But

22:48

ever knew was about. I was the same as a

22:51

beard as it you know, status symbol. The

22:53

seasons ridiculous and is in the

22:55

garage and less about like he

22:58

was. He was a relief valve

23:00

for animosity it was. Boy use

23:02

simple fucking buildings like they had

23:04

the chance. A fuckin had a

23:06

chance an excuse to do something.

23:08

And they did it. Adds

23:13

discomfort with. There are things neither here

23:15

nor there. But. Athletes discomfort the

23:17

come back to bite him. To

23:25

relieve the pressure of their work. At Guantanamo, troops

23:27

commonly turned to the twin diversions

23:29

of booze and sex. But

23:32

awesome. As an observant Muslim, he doesn't drink

23:34

or go to clubs what I'm looking for,

23:36

love, listen to or he'd recently become engaged

23:38

to a Syrian woman living in the. U. A

23:40

E so I found of

23:43

refuse and going to the

23:45

prayer area just gone and

23:47

spending time there are there

23:50

were some books some grandson

23:52

was peaceful nice. Soon

23:54

enough the muslims who gathered for. Friday Prayer

23:56

became a small circle. Of friends

23:58

including army. In game he

24:01

the Muslim chaplin that Arabic wasn't

24:03

great so awkward started working directly

24:05

with he running the detainee library,

24:08

evaluating and delivering books and magazines

24:10

to detainees. Nasr. Was

24:12

also part of their group. So. Was a

24:14

Navy petty officer, a Palestinian guy who worked

24:16

in the Dark X office and us that

24:18

we not use his name. And

24:20

so is there commander. Air Force Captain

24:23

Terex Hashem. Automated captain

24:25

has some hung out a lot which

24:27

was noteworthy. And. Enlisted died and

24:29

officer palling around. The. Go Scuba

24:31

certified together. And for a

24:33

while Ackman said the various linguist clicks that

24:35

party years The video gamers, the religious types

24:37

all seem to get along. But

24:40

then augments said, the mood began to

24:42

shift. A bunch of people

24:44

off that included were originally told the

24:46

be going to Guantanamo for a ninety

24:49

day deployment. But early two

24:51

thousand and three were invading Iraq. The

24:53

military needs everyone to stay put on

24:55

duty. And Air Force Commander

24:57

is quoted in Guantanamo's weekly newsletter announcing

24:59

that airman like off mid or quotes

25:02

frozen in place indefinitely and put. Their

25:05

tours are extended until who knows when. Now

25:07

that roommate you can't stand you may be

25:09

stuck with that person for six or eight

25:11

or ten months before getting cranky with each

25:13

other. And some of the other

25:15

linguists start resenting off mid in particular. Is

25:18

always hanging around with officers Captain

25:20

Hashem Chaplin. He would sell about.

25:22

Why? Do you get to drive around with them? Often.

25:25

Said that was a big thing. Cars were a luxury

25:27

on the island. You know

25:29

I go captain us observer prayers.

25:31

Go to the beach so we

25:33

can go you know for breakfast

25:35

instead of waiting for the bus

25:37

of. So

25:40

he started seeing some people

25:42

was you know com a

25:45

jealousy. Why

25:47

am I so close to Captain

25:49

Awesome? For example, Why is the

25:52

circles so tight? People. Grumbled

25:54

it often was getting preferential treatment

25:56

that are hours per assignments. Cats

25:58

in Hashem chosen to. on what's called an air bridge

26:01

mission, a military flight to pick up a

26:03

bunch more detainees from Bagram Air Force Base

26:05

in Afghanistan and bring them back to

26:07

Guantanamo. An air bridge

26:10

mission like that was a coveted assignment. It

26:12

was exciting. It's a detailed secret.

26:14

Akhmed had only been at Guantanamo a couple

26:16

months, and he didn't even have security clearance.

26:19

But Hashim chose him anyway, which caused

26:21

an intense amount of grousing. The

26:24

atmosphere got so acrimonious, a military

26:26

inspector general came down from Miami to look

26:28

into the compulse. According to

26:31

a story later published in the

26:33

Seattle Times, the favoritism was unsubstantiated.

26:36

By month seven or eight, Akhmed said,

26:38

the alliances and antagonisms had subdivided, Christians

26:41

versus Muslims, less religious Muslims

26:43

versus more religious Muslims. Tension,

26:46

right? So we're no longer now

26:49

wanting to hang with each other.

26:52

So became separate

26:55

groups. We are

26:57

not talking like

26:59

properly. Just

27:01

talking work and even the work is, you

27:04

know, you do it, why didn't you do it?

27:06

It's not my job. You

27:09

know, the smallest thing now becomes

27:11

an issue. To

27:15

a point that some people moved

27:17

out from dorms and

27:19

changed. So they no

27:21

longer want to live with each other. Like

27:24

I moved from a room to the

27:26

kitchen. His

27:28

roommate was a loud mouth instigating Russian. So Akhmed

27:31

put a bed in the corner of the

27:33

dining area, dragged over some lockers for privacy.

27:36

He tried to keep the petty rivalries in perspective,

27:38

keep his eyes on the prize, a visa

27:41

for his soon to be wife, his summer

27:43

wedding in Damascus. Again, I

27:45

didn't care. Like, I'm

27:47

leaving. I'm going to get married. I don't care about

27:50

all of this. It's going to be history very

27:52

soon. And

27:56

then you get the

27:59

camera. A

28:02

disposable camera that Ahmed had gotten from

28:04

his secret Santa. Ahmed

28:07

had misplaced the camera. The Navy Petty Officer

28:09

said Ahmed was looking all over for it.

28:12

I remember one time Alhadi

28:14

be asking, he was asking me again and

28:16

again, he said, hey remember I had a

28:19

disposable camera in the desk here,

28:22

I used it yesterday, I'm like, I

28:25

don't know if you use it, what did

28:27

you wear? He said, I bought it here on the desk. So

28:29

somehow that camera he used,

28:32

somebody took it. Alhadi did

28:34

look for that camera everywhere, I could

28:36

never find it. And now

28:38

we know where it went. The

28:41

camera thing was the beginning

28:44

of everything, like the beginning of

28:46

the end of my career. I

28:48

believe so. A couple of lousy

28:51

snapshots we're about to do them in. That's

28:53

after the break. If

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30-day trial at audible.com/serial. Ockmaid

29:36

finally got permission to leave Guantanamo in June

29:38

of 2003. He

29:41

started what's called out-processing, packed

29:43

up some stuff into a box, clothes, some

29:45

snorkeling gear, a blanket. And

29:48

on June 24th, 2003, he

29:50

took the box to the Guantanamo post office

29:52

and mailed it back to his address at

29:54

Travis Air Force Base in California. Also

29:57

on June 24th, he signed a form that

29:59

included a security debriefing acknowledgement.

30:02

I affirm, the form read, that I

30:04

have returned all JTF Gitmo defense information

30:06

in my custody. About

30:09

a month later, Ahmed flies out. He'd

30:11

been anxious about making it off the island in time

30:13

to catch his flight to Syria, but

30:15

in late July, a seat suddenly frees up

30:17

on an outbound flight to the military airbase

30:20

in Jacksonville, Florida. As

30:22

soon as he arrives at the Jacksonville

30:24

terminal, some men approach him, investigators. He'd

30:27

like to talk to you, where's your duffel bag? And

30:30

they just pushed me. So just like took

30:32

my hand, you know, and like pushed

30:35

me and there was like one guy who opened the bathroom

30:37

door and they locked the door. So

30:39

they pushed you into the bathroom and locked the door? And

30:42

like, you know, what's going on? He said, you know, we're

30:46

just gonna do a quick search, you

30:48

know, and you know,

30:50

started going through my pockets and I'm confused,

30:53

like what are you doing? What's going on?

30:56

He thought maybe they've confused me with someone else

30:58

or maybe there was a screw up and a

31:00

translation. He remembers telling them, my

31:02

commander, Captain Hashim, is here somewhere in the airport. We

31:04

were on the same flight. You wanna grab him? Maybe

31:06

he can clear this up. No,

31:09

they wanna talk to Ahmed alone. They

31:12

handcuff him and escort him into the main terminal

31:15

where he's hoping the hundreds of people aren't seeing him

31:17

at the center of this entourage. The

31:20

men, an Air Force investigator, an

31:22

FBI guy, an Air Force counterintelligence

31:24

guy, drive Ahmed to a

31:26

nearby office, sit him down, ask him if

31:28

they can search his bags. He says,

31:30

okay. They ask him questions.

31:33

They ask him, did you take any

31:35

photos inside Camp Delta? Unauthorized photos. Did

31:38

you take pictures? I'm like, well. Well,

31:41

he did take a couple pictures. He

31:43

says he can't remember exactly what he was thinking, but

31:46

he had this disposable camera in his pocket. He's

31:49

standing outside his office trailer, which is to

31:51

his left, some fencing to his right, a

31:53

guard tower straight ahead. And he

31:56

snaps a photo, maybe half accidentally. He

31:59

says he thinks he was trying. to figure out how the camera

32:01

worked. Then he snaps a

32:03

second one, same view, but deliberate, composed

32:06

more carefully. The guard tower

32:08

isn't manned, but still, he knew he wasn't

32:10

supposed to take pictures inside the prison camp.

32:12

Everyone knew. No photo signs were

32:14

posted everywhere. Then I'm like,

32:16

oh shit, this is, yeah,

32:18

this is, I need to stop,

32:21

I'm not going to take any more pictures because, you

32:24

know, they always talk about don't take pictures. He

32:27

took a bunch more pictures with that camera of

32:29

his friends, fishing, the beach, etc., all

32:31

allowed. And then the camera disappeared.

32:34

An augment sweated it a little, asked around, but it never

32:37

turned up, so he let it go. But here

32:40

was an investigator asking him directly,

32:42

did you take unauthorized photos? I

32:45

immediately went back to

32:47

that moment, like the camera went

32:49

missing. So no

32:51

one knows if I took any

32:53

pictures. So no, I didn't take any pictures.

32:56

And he said, well, no, we

32:58

have the pictures. Like, okay, so

33:00

you have it? Great. You have my camera. So

33:03

yes, I took pictures. So I

33:05

immediately acknowledged that if

33:07

you have my camera, then okay, so I need

33:09

the other photos because I'd like to

33:12

see them. I didn't get to see them. Yeah,

33:15

that was... You were sort of missing the point

33:17

of the question. I know. I know. I actually,

33:19

I was more concerned about my problem. A little

33:45

bit. So you took pictures. It was wrong. Okay, let's

33:47

get on. Let me go. I need to

33:50

go catch a flight. I've got a

33:52

connecting flight today back to my base in California. And

33:54

then in two days, I'm flying to Syria to get

33:56

married. My mom's meeting me in London on the way.

33:58

Everyone's waiting for me in Damascus. So can

34:00

we move it along? No. Because

34:03

suspicions Ockman didn't even know where cooking had

34:06

begun to boil over. The

34:08

camera is not all they want to talk about. And

34:10

he's not the only person they want to talk to. Back

34:13

at the airport that same day, July 23rd, 2003, investigators had also stopped

34:15

and questioned

34:18

Captain Hashim. A

34:20

month and a half later, September 10th, Chaplain

34:22

James E. took that same flight to Jacksonville

34:24

to go and leave. He collected his bags.

34:27

And as soon as I got to

34:29

the door, these two FBI guys were there.

34:32

Can we ask you a couple questions? The

34:35

U.S. military has charged a former Muslim

34:37

chaplain at Guantanamo with mishandling classified information.

34:39

It was all over the news. First

34:42

the announcement of Yeez arrest. He supposedly had

34:44

secret documents in his backpack. Then

34:46

of Ahmed. Senior Airman

34:48

Ahmed Al-Hawlabi. Al-Hawlabi worked as an

34:51

Arabic translator at Guantanamo. Trying to

34:53

pass classified military secrets. Violations of

34:55

the Federal Espionage Act. So far

34:58

three former workers at Guantanamo have

35:00

been arrested in a probe of

35:02

alleged espionage days. The

35:04

alleged espionage including charges. Third

35:08

guy arrested was another Arabic linguist,

35:10

Ahmed Behelba, a civilian contractor originally

35:12

from Egypt, stopped at Logan

35:14

Airport in Boston in late September. When

35:17

customs agents searched his bags, they found 132

35:19

CDs, mostly music and videos.

35:22

But among them was one with classified information

35:24

copied onto it. Also

35:27

in late September, their friend, the Navy Petty

35:29

Officer, he's a training in Los Angeles. When

35:32

he sees a couple of Navy investigators in the lobby

35:34

of the hotel where he's staying, he

35:36

recognizes one of them from a prior assignment. So

35:38

when I saw him, I'm like smiling.

35:42

So they look there. Oh, because you're like, oh hey, how are

35:44

you doing? Yeah. But they

35:46

look at me and they look different.

35:51

Like I am guilty or something. He

35:55

found out they questioned his shipmates back in Italy.

35:58

When he went to his commander for support, the guy was a man of the way. told

36:00

him, I would advise you

36:03

to hire

36:05

a lawyer.

36:08

The investigators in

36:10

Jacksonville interviewed Ahmed for four or

36:13

five hours, including a break, when Ahmed says

36:15

they fetched him a limp filet of fish

36:17

sandwich from McDonald's. Afterwards,

36:19

they took Ahmed to jail. He

36:21

still didn't know what was going on. Pretty

36:23

soon, he sits down with a lawyer, Air

36:25

Force Major Kim London. And she

36:28

says, well, Ahmed

36:30

and Hollaby, they're accusing you of very serious

36:32

things. Espionage, aiding

36:35

the enemy, misbehavior before

36:37

the enemy. Ahmed didn't even know what

36:39

some of the words meant. Over time,

36:41

this charge sheet would grow. Attempted espionage,

36:43

making false statements, bank fraud.

36:46

At its most alarming, it contained 30

36:48

offenses. What Major London

36:50

was seeing, and Ahmed was slowly catching up to

36:53

her, was that the government thought Ahmed

36:55

was a spy, possibly part of

36:57

a spy ring, or even a sleeper

36:59

cell. That first meeting, Major

37:01

London talked him through it. And

37:03

she laid out all of the charges,

37:06

and that the government made it so

37:08

clear that they have so much evidence

37:10

and that I'm

37:13

going to go away for a very long time, if

37:15

not the execution. She

37:18

told you that. Yeah. So she said that this

37:20

is so grave that

37:23

execution is on the line. As

37:27

of July 2003, when Ahmed was arrested,

37:30

the government's principle evidence against him

37:32

consisted of two photos from inside

37:34

the wire he'd initially lied about

37:36

having taken. And

37:38

on his laptop, they'd found 186

37:40

detainee letters he'd translated that he said

37:42

he'd forgotten to delete. Not

37:45

exactly overwhelming. But then,

37:47

Ahmed, rule breaker, made this

37:49

grave situation even worse for

37:51

himself. Remember that

37:53

box? When Ahmed was getting ready to

37:55

leave Guantanamo, he'd packed a box of his stuff and mailed

37:58

it back to himself at Travis Air Force Base in Cape

38:00

Town. California. Now that box

38:02

is sitting at the base post office waiting

38:04

for him. Akhmed's in jail though,

38:06

he can't pick it up. So

38:08

he tries to get his mail, including

38:10

this box, forwarded to his sister who

38:12

lives in Anaheim. Instead,

38:14

in early September of 2003, an

38:17

investigator figures out it's sitting there.

38:19

They get a warrant, collect the box,

38:21

and bring it back to their office. Lieutenant

38:25

Colonel Brian Wheeler was the lead prosecutor

38:27

on Akhmed's case. The day

38:29

the investigators opened the box at Travis.

38:31

Wheeler was working the case at Guantanamo.

38:34

So after they opened the box, we

38:37

had a conversation on Secureline. Oh,

38:39

they called you? Yeah. Okay,

38:41

were they excited? Sure.

38:44

Yeah, I mean we, when you're

38:47

working a case, you're looking for more

38:49

evidence and this was, frankly,

38:52

I thought better evidence than what they had so

38:54

far. Back

38:56

at their office, the investigators opened some

38:59

beers to celebrate their smoking gun. Inside

39:02

the box, wrapped in a blanket, were a

39:04

bunch of papers. Many of

39:06

them innocuous, but others, well, there was

39:08

a complete list of detainee names and

39:11

their corresponding internment serial numbers

39:14

or ISNs. At the

39:16

time, the US government hadn't publicly confirmed

39:18

the identities of any detainees, so this

39:20

list was alarming. Also

39:22

in the box, they found papers related

39:25

to Akhmed's Airbridge mission to Afghanistan, the

39:27

one some of his colleagues got worked up about. The

39:30

papers included details about logistics

39:32

and security and they

39:34

were marked secret, which meant

39:36

Akhmed had knowingly sent himself

39:39

classified documents and even

39:41

more suspect had then tried to get

39:43

the incriminating box moved to his sister's

39:45

address. We have to

39:47

be very

39:50

suspicious about that. It

39:52

did not look good. Why would

39:54

he have secreted these papers out of Cuba? Why

39:57

would he try to send them to his sister? Along

40:00

with the box, investigators at Travis also

40:02

intercepted a letter to Ahmed from the

40:05

Syrian embassy in Washington, confirming

40:07

Ahmed's passage to Syria and Qatar.

40:10

Was Ahmed trying to pass information about

40:12

detainees to someone overseas? The

40:14

box contributed additional spying crimes

40:16

to the already-vertiginous charge sheet.

40:22

The government treated Ahmed not so much as

40:24

a defendant, but as an enemy asset, an

40:27

operative working for who knows who,

40:29

maybe Syria, maybe al-Qaeda. They

40:31

took no chances on security. While

40:34

he awaited trial at Travis Air Force

40:36

Base, Ahmed was confined to a makeshift

40:38

holding cell, a toiletless metal box that

40:40

his attorneys would later describe as akin

40:42

to the incident of a filing cabinet.

40:46

Later, the Air Force moved Ahmed, more than

40:48

300 miles south, to a different base which

40:50

had better jail offerings. But they

40:52

kept him isolated, forbade him from speaking

40:54

Arabic, on the phone or in person. For

40:58

his arraignment, they put him in a Kevlar vest

41:00

and helicoptered him to court, masses of cops at

41:02

the ready. When they

41:04

transported him by van, they fretted about being

41:06

followed. During one drive, a guard

41:09

reported that Ahmed was messing with his digital watch,

41:11

perhaps timing the route. They

41:13

confiscated the watch and claimed they were sending it

41:15

out for analysis. Meanwhile,

41:22

back at Guantanamo, linguists were reading the

41:24

shocking news of these arrests and not

41:27

knowing what to think. Maybe

41:29

there were spies among them. Maybe they're

41:31

going to accuse me next. One

41:33

by one, the linguists were brought

41:35

in by counterintelligence for questioning, interrogations

41:38

basically. Some that lasted six

41:40

hours, nine hours. People were polygraphed, read

41:42

their rights, quote, just to be on

41:44

the safe side. A

41:46

handful of Ahmed's fellow linguists, perhaps

41:48

to hedge their bets, would end

41:50

up writing insinuating statements about Ahmed,

41:52

describing him as excessively conservative in

41:54

his beliefs or excessively shady in

41:56

his behavior. Notably, the ones who

41:58

gave such statements. were not

42:00

Muslim. By

42:10

late fall of 2003, months after

42:12

news stories all over the world showed

42:14

Ahmed being brought into court in handcuffs, the

42:17

government's big balloon of a case against Ahmed

42:19

was threatened by a big hatpin of a

42:21

problem. We weren't sure

42:26

about the espionage. That's

42:28

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Wheeler again, the prosecutor.

42:31

The government, it appeared, had no

42:33

evidence that Ahmed passed any information

42:35

to anyone or that he planned to.

42:39

We had indications that

42:41

something had happened. What

42:45

were those indications? Do you remember what the indications

42:47

were? Well, there's

42:49

some things I can't talk about. You

42:52

can quote me on this one. It was

42:54

total bullshit. And that's Donald

42:56

Rakoff, one of Ahmed's three attorneys.

42:59

He'd been in the Air Force himself for 28 years, but

43:01

by the time he joined Ahmed's case, he was a

43:03

civilian, freer than the uniformed attorneys

43:06

to deploy spirited language. This

43:08

was probably the worst

43:10

of any U.S. military

43:13

court martial I've ever been involved in, and

43:15

I've tried 200 courts martial. It

43:19

was just a cascade of errors.

43:23

I know litigators tend to be fast and

43:25

loose with the superlative insults, but it's true.

43:28

Confusion abounded in Ahmed's case. The

43:30

government tried again and again to find

43:32

indications that the way Ahmed had done

43:35

his job in Guantanamo, the way

43:37

he translated, simplifying the prayers, the

43:39

way he'd used his computer, weren't

43:41

simply shortcuts. There were deceptions. Investigators

43:45

needled deep into his hard drive, looking

43:47

for evidence he'd uploaded secret information or

43:50

embedded it in his personal website or

43:52

emailed detainee information to someone. But

43:54

there was nothing. FBI

43:57

agents secretly raided his sister's house in

43:59

Anaheim, breaking the law. a window and rifling

44:01

through their home office, traumatizing her in

44:03

the process. No evidence there

44:05

either. Also getting to

44:07

the government's case, they did not know what

44:09

was classified and what was not. Brian

44:12

Wheeler, the prosecutor, told me that early on

44:14

in the case, he'd gone to a meeting

44:16

at the Pentagon where he'd been informed in

44:18

serious tones that the list of detainees and

44:20

their ISN numbers was classified. Not

44:22

just secret, but possibly top secret.

44:26

Minutes later, after a formal classification

44:28

review, they told him, well, maybe not

44:30

so much. That's not

44:32

secret at all. Well,

44:34

that really affected things. The

44:37

186 letters on Ahmed's computer

44:39

weren't classified either. In fact,

44:41

the only classified papers Ahmed had were

44:43

the ones from the Airbridge mission. Meanwhile,

44:47

the government's case against James Yee

44:49

was falling apart too. That accused

44:51

him of mishandling classified information, but never

44:53

produced any evidence to back it up.

44:56

After two and a half months in a Navy brig,

44:59

they let him out and eventually dismissed the charges. In

45:02

Ahmed Mahalba, the linguist arrested in Boston

45:04

would end up pleading guilty to one

45:06

count of unauthorized possession of classified materials,

45:09

a crime he insisted was unintentional on his

45:11

part. He'd spent a year and a half in jail.

45:19

It had been only two years since 9-11.

45:21

We'd just had the biggest scare of our lives. So

45:24

when you think about the weaknesses in the government's

45:26

case against Ahmed, it's only fair to keep that

45:29

in mind. If Al-Qaeda could

45:31

take control of commercial airplanes and

45:33

steer them into skyscrapers, into the

45:35

Pentagon, was it irrational to

45:37

think that they could be operating inside Guantanamo,

45:40

one of the most secure facilities on Earth?

45:43

On the other hand, the number of

45:45

times that simple, logical explanations for what

45:48

investigators and prosecutors were seeing were

45:50

brushed aside. The sheer

45:52

sloppiness of some of their work. That,

45:55

too, is remarkable. Mistakes

45:57

are one thing, but this started to

45:59

feel... like something else was at play. It's

46:03

worth pointing out the investigators looking into Ahmed

46:05

were young in their 20s. The

46:08

lead investigator, Special Agent Lance Wega, was so

46:10

new at his job he was still in

46:12

probation with the Air Force Office of

46:14

Special Investigations. The team agent

46:16

with counterintelligence experience was Wasim

46:18

Iqbal, age 22. Their

46:21

supervisor, he was older, but within a couple

46:23

of months of Ahmed's arrest, he was pulled

46:25

off the case. He'd later plead

46:27

guilty to mishandling and classified

46:29

documents and a slew of sex

46:31

crimes against two young girls. None

46:37

of the investigators would talk to me on the

46:39

record, but let's just say the people trying to

46:41

prove Ahmed was a spy, this wasn't exactly the

46:43

A-Team. Some of the

46:45

accusations they made against Ahmed were eminently checkable,

46:47

but simply hadn't been before ending up on

46:50

a charge sheet. The bank

46:52

fraud allegations, for instance, complete

46:54

nonsense. The military judge noted

46:56

the prosecution's, quote, appalling lack of evidence

46:58

for that one. Or

47:00

that Ahmed had lied about being a U.S. citizen,

47:02

when in fact he was a U.S. citizen. He'd

47:05

been naturalized just a week before he arrived at

47:07

Guantanamo. Other allegations

47:09

were so thin, yet so casually

47:12

and confidently weaponized. The

47:14

only explanations seem to be not just

47:16

incompetence, but bad faith. After

47:19

a court hearing, for instance, a government

47:22

translator realized she'd made a mistake translating

47:24

a piece of evidence the government was

47:26

relying on to show Ahmed was trying to

47:28

peddle secret information abroad. But

47:30

when she notified a prosecutor, she'd misinterpreted

47:33

a crucial word. He told

47:35

her not to mention it to anyone. He

47:37

too was thrown off the gate. To

47:46

demonstrate that Ahmed was a sympathizer and

47:48

possibly an extremist, the government

47:50

assembled a patchwork of statements from far-flung

47:52

sources, a couple of which

47:54

turned into criminal charges. He was

47:57

accused of making anti-American comments and then lying

47:59

to — investigators about that. The

48:02

lead investigator, Lance Wega, testified that one

48:04

such statement had been relayed by Ed

48:07

Brooks, the Arabic linguist and formerly annoying

48:09

evangelical Christian. Quote, Sergeant

48:11

Brooks allegedly told FBI agents that

48:13

senior airman Al Halabi said, quote,

48:15

that Camp Delta's detainees were treated

48:18

unfairly and the guards deserve to

48:20

be spat upon or words to that

48:22

effect, unquote. But when I

48:24

asked Ed Brooks about this 20 years later, he didn't

48:26

know what I was talking about. It was

48:28

the first time he was hearing he'd been part

48:30

of Ahmed's case in any way. To

48:33

prove it, I read to him from the court record, especially

48:36

as you know, we said, Oh, my

48:40

God. Okay. Yes. That

48:42

just triggered it. I did

48:44

say that in an interview, but it

48:46

wasn't to slam him like they were

48:48

saying like, Ed said some investigator had come

48:50

to him asking whether Ahmed had said those things

48:53

and Ed said, yeah, he did. But here's what

48:55

happened. There had been

48:57

an earthing that had gone south. The

48:59

interpreters had suspected this one guard of

49:01

denying a detainee food on multiple occasions

49:03

and harassing him by keeping him awake.

49:06

And so the detainee had finally spotted the guy.

49:08

The guards decided to earth him, called

49:10

for an interpreter. Halabi responded

49:13

to this earthing. They started without him, which

49:15

is completely against fucking SOP. Like they were

49:17

dead wrong to do it, but they wanted

49:19

to. So they tuned this, you know, they

49:22

earfed the detainee, they hog tie him and

49:24

then Halabi's there for like the end of

49:26

it and Halabi had come back angry about

49:28

it. It was like they deserve to be

49:30

spit on blah, blah, blah. Like not the

49:32

guards as in all like this one earth that

49:34

had gone down badly. Um,

49:37

so that is super out of

49:39

fucking context. The fact that

49:41

someone would then take me and quote

49:43

that as an anti-American, that's fucking ridiculous.

49:46

A bunch of statements in Ahmed's case

49:49

were like that ridiculous, even in context.

49:54

It really is striking how so

49:56

much of this, the inexperience, the

49:59

tenuous connection, actions, the lack of

50:01

rigor and professional restraint, all

50:04

echoes inside the case files of

50:06

Guantanamo detainees. I've

50:09

spoken to a handful of people who've

50:11

seen inside the classified intelligence files we

50:13

kept on the detainees, and most of them

50:15

told me, quote, yeah, we had some

50:17

good information, but overall we

50:19

should be skeptical. A

50:22

former CIA analyst named Gail Helth,

50:24

who reviewed the detainee intelligence, told

50:26

me, quote, the associations, the linkages

50:28

that they made, like, I

50:30

don't want to be unduly harsh to people

50:32

who are working under very intense and immense

50:34

pressure after 9-11, but the

50:37

associations they made were stupid. Another

50:43

analyst, Jake Meyer, an Army intel guy

50:45

who worked at Guantanamo for about five

50:47

years on and off, said, especially in

50:49

the earlier years, they were working at

50:51

breakneck speed to get information, and everybody's

50:53

caught up in it, and you're producing,

50:55

you're producing and compiling this massive swirling

50:57

pile of bullshit, is what he called

50:59

it. And some of

51:02

what's in that swirling pile is good and important,

51:04

quote, but as an analyst, we're supposed to be

51:06

able to filter through all the other bullshit to

51:08

find the good stuff. We found

51:10

that we probably should have been filtering through our

51:12

own bullshit. Ahmed

51:20

doesn't blame the government for investigating him. He

51:22

just wishes they'd done it with an even hand. He

51:25

said, I was able to give them the benefit of the doubt.

51:28

They didn't give it to me. Okay,

51:30

I asked him, so why did you take those papers

51:33

home? Everybody else seemed to know that

51:35

wasn't allowed. What were you thinking

51:37

when you packed up that box, for instance, with

51:39

the classified airbridge papers? He

51:42

was about to ship out, he said, and those documents,

51:44

he thought they were cool. He wanted

51:46

to keep them. And then, like, I'm not going to keep it

51:48

with me. Let me just send it in the box in

51:50

case they search and they find it on me, right?

51:53

So I'm like, I'm just sending it. So you totally

51:55

know you're not supposed to have it. Yeah, like I

51:57

said, you know, I had the

51:59

inner... telling me, maybe

52:01

I shouldn't do this, but like, what's

52:06

the worst that can happen? Of course,

52:08

the worst can happen to get arrested, right? The

52:12

word naive tends to come up when people describe

52:14

Ahmed back then. He used that

52:16

word to describe himself. Maybe that

52:18

was true, but also true,

52:20

Ahmed was the iguana feeder. He

52:23

didn't plan to do anything with those papers,

52:25

he said, so he didn't see the harm

52:27

in taking them. And these documents, he told

52:29

me, he felt entitled to them. He'd

52:32

just spent eight rough months working in a

52:34

detention facility. I'm like, yeah,

52:37

I deserve to keep something from that

52:40

time because I literally had nothing to

52:42

take, you know, leaving. Like, I

52:44

was supposed to get a medal and I didn't. And I

52:46

was very pissed off, you know, because

52:49

everybody gets a medal. But for some

52:51

reason or another, they didn't have medals

52:53

at that time. And they didn't have

52:55

the time to do a ceremony for

52:57

us leaving. And

53:00

I didn't get that. So,

53:03

you know, like, well, let me get something, we

53:06

take something. So I took these documents or

53:09

papers. The

53:12

most logical explanation for what Ahmed

53:14

did is this one, the

53:16

one he admits to that despite the

53:18

government's year long effort to prove otherwise, his

53:21

intention wasn't nefarious. It

53:23

was just damn, probably. What

53:26

shocked Ahmed about his case, he told me, was

53:28

how sudden it all was. It was

53:30

shocking, he said, to know that you can turn on

53:32

one of your own this quickly and this heavily. I

53:36

was taken aback for a second by this idea that

53:38

they turned on one of their own. Because

53:41

did the military consider Ahmed one of their own?

53:44

Maybe they didn't, not really.

53:46

And maybe that's why they didn't entertain

53:48

the logical explanation for what Ahmed did

53:50

or for what other Muslim personnel did.

53:53

Consider, around the same time Ahmed and

53:56

Captain James Yee and that other linguist

53:58

Ahmed Mihalba were all arrested. and

54:00

imprisoned and charged with crimes, a

54:03

fourth person was also stopped on

54:05

his way out of Guantanamo with a

54:07

number of classified documents in his

54:09

briefcase, his computer, his footlocker. He

54:12

was an intelligence officer, older, a decorated

54:14

Colonel, he was not Muslim. He

54:17

looked and spoke like one of their own. His

54:19

case ended with no detention, no criminal

54:21

proceedings. Instead, he got an

54:24

administrative ding and the benefit of the doubt.

54:37

The investigators I spoke to all

54:39

denied that Ahmed's foreignness, as Ahmed

54:42

put it, my accent, my funny name,

54:44

my religion played any part

54:46

in his prosecution. They

54:48

were following the facts, they said, full stop.

54:51

But in the end, it's not just the wrongness of some

54:53

of their facts that makes me disagree. It's

54:56

the origin of some of those facts. The

54:59

case against Ahmed was spun up in part because of

55:01

a guy named Jason Orlick, an

55:03

Army Reserve captain who worked as the

55:05

camp security officer. Captain

55:07

Orlick's office shared space with the

55:09

DOCX office for a while, and

55:11

his swirling suspicions about religious Muslim

55:13

personnel at Guantanamo were at the

55:15

root of the government's investigations. As

55:18

one of Ahmed's lawyers said in court, Captain Jason

55:20

Orlick, frankly, your honor, was the one that started

55:22

this whole mess to begin with. Captain

55:25

Orlick didn't want to talk to me,

55:27

but back when all this happened, the

55:29

Seattle Times newspaper did a nine-part investigation,

55:32

mostly about the Yi case, and

55:34

Orlick did speak to that reporter, Ray Rivera,

55:36

at length. Orlick told

55:38

Rivera he became suspicious of Chaplain Yi almost

55:41

as soon as he got to Guantanamo when

55:43

he sat through Yi's cultural awareness briefing for

55:46

incoming personnel, basic information about the

55:48

detainees and about Islam. The

55:51

presentation made Orlick uncomfortable, as if

55:53

Yi was justifying extremist actions. You

55:56

could ask anyone who went through that initial briefing, Orlick

55:58

as quoted as saying. Everybody

56:00

who walked out after it was over sat there

56:02

going, is he on our side or is he

56:04

on the enemy's side? After

56:07

that, Orlick began keeping tabs on Yi and

56:10

on Yi's group of friends, including

56:12

Captain Hashem and the Navy

56:14

Petty Officer and Ahmed. The

56:17

way they prayed in particular rubbed him the wrong

56:19

way. Orlick himself was

56:21

a devout Catholic and described himself in

56:23

Ray Rivera's series as accepting of other

56:25

religions, but he said the way Yi and his

56:27

quote-unquote Muslim clique behaved was strange

56:29

to him. In

56:31

statements he made to investigators, Orlick

56:34

said, many times our section could

56:36

hear the Muslim linguists, including Ahalabi,

56:38

praying at the end of the hallway. Ahalabi

56:40

and Captain Hashem would try to get others to

56:42

come to prayer. The room at the end

56:45

of the hallway became crowded with their recruits, and

56:48

they were fervent in their beliefs. A

56:51

lot of their religious beliefs mirrored those of

56:53

the detainees. Orlick

56:56

told the Seattle paper that some of

56:58

the non-Muslim linguists, some of the same

57:00

ones who'd complained about Captain Hashem favoring

57:02

Ahmed, began coming to him

57:04

with information about sympathisory things Ahmed

57:06

had supposedly said or done. Orlick

57:10

himself couldn't open an investigation, but

57:13

he could and did pass along

57:15

his concerns, especially about Chaplain Yi,

57:18

to the camp's counterintelligence officer, who

57:20

took them seriously and who in turn

57:22

pushed them up the chain until finally, in

57:24

May of 2003, the

57:27

military officially opened an investigation on

57:29

Chaplain Yi, and also on

57:32

Ahmed. Look,

57:34

nobody wants to be accused of being a

57:36

racist, prejudiced, bigoted, Orlick told Ray Rivera, after

57:38

the cases had fallen apart. But

57:41

if we hadn't done anything, some of us would

57:43

have lost our jobs. But

57:46

Ahmed's lawyers did think Orlick was prejudiced.

57:49

At the time, Captain Orlick and his

57:51

pals were passing around homemade CDs loaded

57:54

with offensive content. Ahmed's defense

57:56

tried to introduce this stuff in court, but the judge

57:58

wouldn't have it. seen it though.

58:01

Sexist, racist, jingoistic, juvenile,

58:03

Islamophobic images, cartoons, and little films.

58:06

Even worse, some years after

58:08

Captain Orlick left Guantanamo and was

58:10

promoted to Major Orlick, he

58:12

made a PowerPoint about Islam, based

58:15

in part on quote, lessons learned

58:17

at Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay,

58:19

unquote. If you Google it,

58:21

you'll see Orlick's dangerous argument that there's no

58:23

such thing as a moderate or peaceful form

58:25

of Islam, accompanied by images

58:28

of burning towers, severed heads,

58:30

bloody children, quotes calling for

58:32

death to all Christians and Jews, and

58:34

many exclamation points. According

58:37

to court records, Jason Orlick

58:39

is the guy who ended up with

58:41

Ahmed's disposable camera. It's not entirely clear

58:43

how, and had the

58:45

film developed and identified those two

58:47

verboten photos, the incident that kicked

58:50

off Ahmed's case. Lance

58:53

Wega, the lead investigator, testified

58:55

that he took extensive guidance from

58:57

Captain Orlick when he was gathering evidence, including

59:00

about what documents in Ahmed's possession

59:02

were classified, what documents included quote

59:05

unquote extremist content, even

59:07

though it turned out Captain Orlick didn't

59:09

definitively know what was classified and

59:12

didn't know Arabic. Lance

59:14

Wega was praised for this investigation, by the way.

59:16

A performance report noted that

59:18

he quote, developed one of the

59:20

most prolific espionage aiding the enemy

59:22

investigations in recent memory unquote, and

59:25

that his actions led to 18 other

59:28

investigations, none of

59:30

which turned up any serious violations, much

59:32

less aspiring, but he got an extra $2,000 as

59:35

a thank you. By

59:42

September of 2004, a little more than

59:44

a year after it started, Ahmed's

59:46

case was a shadow of its most threatening

59:48

self. The espionage aiding

59:51

the enemy, most of the false statements, the

59:53

bank fraud, had all dropped away

59:56

until about half the original charges remained and half

59:58

of those his Lord's name was said

1:00:00

were rinky-dink. Meanwhile

1:00:02

the mood of the press had soured on the

1:00:05

prosecution. Spiring at Gitmo

1:00:07

became three counts dropped against Gitmo

1:00:09

translator. Finally

1:00:11

the government was, grudgingly, ready

1:00:14

to let go. A year

1:00:16

earlier prosecutors had offered Ahmed a deal

1:00:18

of 50 years in prison if he

1:00:20

pleaded guilty to espionage. Now

1:00:23

they were agreeing to zero. No

1:00:25

more time at all. Ahmed

1:00:27

admitted to mishandling classified documents,

1:00:29

violating a general order, making

1:00:31

false statements. All to do

1:00:34

with those two pictures and the Airbridge papers.

1:00:37

He was sentenced to time served and a

1:00:39

bad behavior discharge from the Air Force. After

1:00:47

the evidence in Ahmed's case was aired out,

1:00:49

the world learned Ahmed wasn't an

1:00:51

Islamic extremist or spy. He was

1:00:54

just a young airman with sticky fingers who'd

1:00:56

learned the harshest shoplifting lesson of all time.

1:00:59

Or that's what the world should have learned. Instead,

1:01:02

and this too is true for the detainees,

1:01:05

even after the investigation was finished,

1:01:08

the suspicion wasn't. Even

1:01:10

after sentencing, Ahmed's case

1:01:12

wasn't over. As

1:01:15

part of his plea, he agreed to be debriefed

1:01:17

by the government. I assumed

1:01:19

this debrief was a lessons learned sort of thing.

1:01:22

The government trying to understand how its big

1:01:24

splashy case ended up more than a year

1:01:26

and god knows how many dollars later as

1:01:29

dude gets caught with two boring photos

1:01:31

and stale Airbridge instructions. I'm

1:01:34

minimizing, I know. But surely somewhere

1:01:36

someone with stars on his or her

1:01:38

lapels was asking, what went wrong

1:01:41

here? The

1:01:43

debrief was not that. Ahmed's

1:01:46

case was about to get a lot weirder.

1:01:49

That's next time. Cereals

1:02:05

produced by Jessica Weisberg, Dana Chivas

1:02:07

and me. Our editor is Julie

1:02:10

Snyder. Additional reporting by

1:02:12

Cora Currier and Amir Kefaji. Fact

1:02:14

checking by Ben Phelan and Jessica

1:02:17

Suriano. Music supervision, sound design and

1:02:19

mixing by Phoebe Wang. Original score

1:02:21

by Sophia Dely Alessandri. Editing

1:02:24

help from Alvin Mellith, Jen Guerra

1:02:26

and Ira Glass. Our contributing editors

1:02:28

are Carol Rosenberg and Rosina Ali.

1:02:31

Additional production from Daniel Guimet and

1:02:33

Emma Grillo. Our standards editor is

1:02:35

Susan Westling. Legal review from Ellemin

1:02:37

Sumar. The art for our

1:02:40

show comes from Pablo Del Khan and

1:02:42

Max Guter. Supervising producer for serial productions

1:02:44

is Enday Chubu. Our executive assistant is

1:02:46

Max Miller. Sam Dolnick is deputy

1:02:49

managing editor of the New York Times. Special

1:02:51

thanks to Janelle Peifer, Ray

1:02:53

Rivera, Mahima Chablani, Jordan Cohen,

1:02:55

Jeffrey Miranda, John Michael Murphy,

1:02:57

Zoe Murphy, Pierre Antoine Louis,

1:03:00

Peter Rents and Colleen Wormsley.