US President Barack Obama has been served with a bitter reminder by the first Pakistani prisoner who was set free from a controversial US detention centre in Cuba.
A former inmate of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre reminded President Obama of his repeated promises to shut the notorious facility — where dozens of detainees continue to languish without trial.
Muhammad Sagheer says the US president had pledged during his election campaign in 2008, and after his victory in 2009, that he would shut down the controversial detention centre but he is yet to honour his commitments.
Sagheer – originally from the Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) – was held in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province in late 2001 along with hundreds of Taliban militants following the ouster of the Taliban regime.
He was dumped in a container with other Taliban fighters and was transferred to an Afghan prison in northern Afghanistan where he was tortured by Uzbek warlord Gen Abdul Rashid Dostam’s militia, before he was sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
He spent one year in Guantanamo and was the first Pakistani to be freed.
“I still remember the mental agony I had to undergo at Guantanamo but was expecting it would be closed. (President) Obama has broken his promise,” Sagheer told The Express Tribune in an interview in Islamabad.
President Obama had ordered the CIA in January 2009 to close down the facility within a year. “We will be setting up a process” to figure out the logistics of closing down Guantanamo, Obama had told reporters gathered in the Oval Office of the White House on January 1, 2009, according to American media reports.
ABS news reported in July: “It might be President Obama’s biggest broken promise: closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay”.
Sagheer, who remains wired with the rest of the world through radio transmissions in the remote mountainous Patan village, said Obama now had only few months ahead of his second election bid to fulfil his promise with the Americans and the rest of the world.
“How will the Americans trust him (Obama) when he approaches them again during his presidential election to make more promises,” Sagheer asked rhetorically.
The former detainee had sued the US government for damages worth over $10 million for what he called miseries and inhumane treatment he had faced at Guantanamo but regretted that the US never responded to the notices his lawyer had sent to the US administration.
“My family was not given any information by the American authorities for months when I was detained. They spent everything they had to find me and ultimately abandoned the search.”
Sagheer said he was set free in October 2002 without any charges and authorities at Guantanamo had promised him compensation — another promise that never saw the light of day.
He also lashed out at the Pakistani government for not providing any compensation to the families of the freed prisoners from the US-administered detention facility.
He recalled that former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s government had announced a reintegration programme for the freed Guantanamo prisoners but the plan was never implemented.
The Miami Herald has reported that as of September 2012, 167 detainees from 27 countries including Pakistan remain at Guantanamo.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2012.
COMMENTS (10)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
So, tell me again how Muhammad Sagheer came to be held? Something about being a Taliban militant? A.K.A. unlawful combatant. By Geneva Convention, not entitled to extra legal privileges, Mr. Sagheer is lucky to be alive. He and his brother Taliban are now waging "lawfare" on the United States, and the very best solution to that is to ignore him.
If Taliban don't show mercy on their enemies why would they expect any from others?
This guy illegally crossed the Afghan border to kill Americans and their allied Afghans and now have audacity to ask for mercy from them?? He should be thankful that he got away by only a few days of torture and not with a bullet in head.
inhumane ,please cnn and fox news come and ask about their miseries...i wish pakistani govt was any help to him..america you are killer of so many people call it vietnam , call it afghanistan or pakistan or japan uve killed millions ,you are creating more hatred in many societies for your atrocities, you are biggest terror in the world
“How will the Americans trust him (Obama) when he approaches them again during his presidential election to make more promises,” Sagheer asked rhetorically.
What about the promises Osama made to you ? He is the one who is ultimately responsible for the inconveniences you have had to endure during your incarceration.
Good message for Americans to take their President to task what he means of promise?
Who said that the world has civilized ?
Still might is right,
Barbarianism still prevails though in its modern form
Carnage and bloodshed is still in vogue,
Power brokers are still crushing weakers in order to get their resources
Religious attacks are still in operation in the name of freedom of speech
Obama is the worst president in the history of the USA. He has beaten G.W.Bush by far. His recent speech at the UN was a pack of lies and hypocrisy at its best. Under Obama, the US has not only freedom of speech, but also the following: freedom to detain, freedom to torture, freedom to bomb, drone attacks n Pakistan, freedom to break promises (read above), freedom to lie and spread disinformation, freedom to sponsor blashphemy, freedom to call the reaction to above as mindless, freedom to not punish the culprits behind blahphemous movies, freedom to to anything, no matter how crazy it may be freedom to deliver "mindless" speeches at the UN and other intenational forum. Pakistan and the rest of the world, is better off without the freedom to have these "freedoms". Regards.
This is a sign of injustice and inhumanity that USA is carrying out through the world, sometimes by putting people in detention center worse than the valley of Versailles, sometimes by droning innocent people.