829: Two Ledgers
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A quick warning, there are curser words that are unbeaten in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this american life, that org, from though you be easy. Chicago is this american life.

AmErica guys, I want to play something for you today. And before I do, I want to get in front of something. This dress is back. guantanamo. And I think guys of us here, guantanamo at this point and we think of is heavy and it's complicated and is a really still going on. And don't I really know everything I already need to know .

about granton's amon?

Maybe you ve heard coworker serra ic and dana eez over at syria. They have been wrung out season four of syria and saw all about antonomasia. And the premise of the show is enough time has passed that all these people who are there in its Hayden can finally talk publicly about what really happened, what was like to work there, what I was like to be imprison there.

And you hear all these ordinary people who are turn to this extraordinary situation where they, you know, guards and the interrogators, commanders and detainees. And this invented offshore prison with its own weird brand new rules. And you finally get a very percent of what I was like in there.

But there are two episodes that they made. There are about stuff that's just happened down there in the last couple years, and about stuff that is going to happen that's gonna be in the news. And honestly, but I heard these two episodes, thought, and I know this sound kind of ground, really, every american should hear these, that the kind of story that when you hear them is totally changes how you understand the news after that.

And there are also also just amazing stories. And so what we're going to do this weekend, next, we're going to do something we're never done. We're going to run these two episodes in syria, two full episodes on our show, until right now, today, here is the first of those two episodes, then achieves close the season of syria. SHE does this one. Majd han was .

sixteen when his family moved to baltimore or from pakistan. He went to own's mills high school, smoked weed, worked at his dad's gas station, and thought about becoming A D. J. Under the stage name bob di. He listened eminent and watching order and paid attention in misanthropical studies class where he learned about checks and baLances and due process. So when mudd han found himself locked away in a cold, dark cell at a black site in two thousand, three, he told the C, I, I, he wanted to see a lawyer.

C, I is just shocked as like, what? What do you thinking? Who you are, where you are is like you.

You tell me, right, the sun, the gloves came on long time ago. That's what they tell me. I think not now. I still believe in due process. I still believe in due process, right or wrong, whatever I did, I believe in due process.

What he did, instead of becoming A D. J. Martin joined alki, a reported directly to college chick mohamed, the admitted mastermind of nine eleven.

Naturally, the CIA had questions for him, but the way they ask those questions, they tortured him at black sites for years. And when they were done, they sent him to antonio in shackles. In the diver, margit did bad things.

He joined alkylation AR suicide vest, tried to kill the pakistani president. He came up with plots targeting the american government to block gas stations and poison the water supply near military installations, to sell poison medication in the united states. He delivered fifty thousand dollars to another terrorist money the united states says was used to fund the suicide bombing that killed eleven people and injured at least eighty one others.

And then we did bad things back to magic. We disappeared him for three years, blocked them away for twenty, tortured him. This story is about two ledges.

On one side, what model did to us? On the other, what we did to? How do you weigh those against each other? In the historical accounting to come, which is worse, modest case is the first time of one conomo those letters are compared and someone has to render a verdict.

Madd stories starts with his radicalization. Unlike so many former guantanamo detainees, there's clear public evidence that he was in oki da. He admits IT. So this is a rare chance to hear how someone made the leap from self described Normal american teenager to self described terrorist. It's actually quite simple to hear model telling.

The reason I join oko was a palestine issue.

IT begins with palestine had nothing .

against america. I didn't have IT then. I don't have IT now. Is your fucking stupid foreign policy that your leaders make, right? That I criticized.

Some people might remember president George bush explaining september eleventh, saying that i'll kita attacked us because they hate our freedoms, our liberty. Actually, what all kind of really hated was our support for israel, that we had troops in kuwait, in saudi arabia, that we've invaded iraq the first time in one thousand nine hundred ninety one, when I visited mounded last year in belize, where he now lives with his wife and two kids in a bright Green cottage not far from the sea.

IT was november twenty twenty three, just weeks since the october seventh, terrorist attacks on israel and the start of the relentless bombing of gaza. In return, he had been watching a lot of cable news coverage of the war and tiktok videos. Like so many people, muslims and non muslims alike, he was fired up about the atrocities there, the same kinds of atrocities that had burned him to join aleta two decades ago. What he was seeing was americans making the same mistakes all over, over again, supporting israel.

You guys are so powerful, so smart, and you guys saw domestic sometime. No fence me. I'm not an american, okay uh you know um by by citizenship, but you guys amazed me every single time.

What's the doma part? Not getting the basics. I am thinking that could beat another magic someone right now. No, imagine that back then. I didn't when we didn't have you too. We don't have instagram and i'm thinking, what are they thinking, these kids and the so stupid kids so there could be easily misled. And I think how many marga hn out there right now, there will become like me.

What LED murdered to extremism was a confluences of events growing up. He wasn't very religious. He, his parents, his seven siblings, they didn't pray regularly.

He says his mother was the entire religion. When he grew beard, SHE made him save IT off. But in his late teenage years, after his family moved baltimore, he struggled with his identity.

He wanted to fit into american high school life to be cool, but he wasn't true that being cool was very mad. He felt guilty that he didn't pray that he was a bad muslim. m.

He started learning more about islam from a group of propertized called the the blague demand, who visit him at work and at the mask. And then when he was twenty one, mode's mother died suddenly. He was the most important person in his life, the center of their family.

He says he was devastated. He started asking the big questions about life and death. He felt like he had signed up until that point had wasted his life.

He decided to devote himself to islam, no more parting, no more smoking weed. And IT was at this point that he started getting more political at the mosque. They talked about palestine. The world seemed black and White to him.

Some point in my life I had to choose path, do. You want na be citing with oppressed or oppression, I chose to be citing with the oppressed.

Nine months after his mother's death, he went to pakistan for a bunch of family weddings. His family wanted to arrange a marriage for him too. And secretly he also had a fantasy of joining the jiao, maybe training at the camps in afghanistan.

Growing up in pakistan, mudded heard a lot about the how honorable they were, how brave, like the navy sales in the united states. He says he didn't particularly care which jaji group I joined. They were a bunch of them.

I'll be honor you. I didn't go to pakistan to join our other. They came to me, are a billion people, billions of muslims? I happen to have cousin in and uncle. They, they argue the leaders.

IT was january two thousand, two, four months after nine eleven, bin london had denied responsibility for the attacks, though the american government had quickly concluded alki ta was behind them. I did didn't believe IT.

And and then part of this, like, come on, muslim could do that and i'm into conspiring theories as I know way I told my unit and my cousin do IT I knew the the juice were behind IT I saw on internet I said C I, you were behind IT they were laughing .

at me his uncle and cousin convinced him, no IT wasn't an inside job. The juice didn't do IT IT was alkali IT was us. But instead of being horrified by this information, much did join them.

I was already pissed off about palin thing somehow the what I understood that happened um now I gotta be careful about to say he could be misconstrued almost in my mind. And I I was in on, I was some a stomach community members that I was with that they did not appreciate IT, but almost had like they had IT coming.

like the united states had IT coming.

the united had IT coming. Because what they were doing, palestine and in the Masonic c countries.

And that's how you felt about IT.

and that's how I felt about that time. I didn't like IT, but IT just, I was so mad. What was happening? Palace and IT IT just hard to explain that i've never killed .

before.

I ve never seen suffering before, but somehow that I was having pasta affected me so much that somehow I was okay to say, well, they had had coming just like I was just also in fraction news yesterday and then and to everybody, in fact, news. Well, if the palestinian didn't like IT while they had IT coming, there are the one who selected human to be Operated in gaza. Same thing.

I wasn't that mindset um I must tell you, I know i'm bring honest with you, but I may come across careless but this is a brutal truth so please bear with me and trying to understand I am not trying to stand you guys. I know you guys is an american and patriotic american. I hope you are and you should be and you should get a little irritated by these statements and you should be. But I am just telling you, I can't sugar call my statement so I can please you.

Let me be clear. Model says he has long since rejected extremism. He left aleta while he was still locked up at guantanamo. He says he doesn't think nine eleven was righteous or good or justified, but he does understand the twisted logic behind alka ids's attacks, because at the age of twenty one, he believed in that logic himself. He has a unique perspective of a person who has lived fully most, invoke the culture of united states and the culture of alka. He can explain both worlds with fluency.

Once he was an alka, arguably the worst thing modded did is what modded did not do. He did not assassinate pakistani president of muara in the suicide attack, but he tried to. When he joined dell kyte a moda volunteered to be a suicide bomber.

I had shown my willingness to my cousin and told me of the day, by the way, if there's an option, let me know.

Did you say that with any kind of thought? Or did you just kind of like offer yourself up without really thinking through?

No, I mean, I was since ere I truly believed that the this is the way to go to happen beyond beyond how sure are you nights now?

It's very dark out. Yeah.

yeah. I was that sure. That's the way to go.

And you wanted that. why?

Who doesn't wanna to heaven?

I mean, you were tree like you had so much of your life ahead of you.

Yeah, the test is over. See the this life is test. The test is over.

Markets finally had arranged a marriage for him to robbia. They're still married today, he says their wedding was the happiest day with life. But while they're on their honeymoon, K.

S, M. Clay chick muhamad called budgets cousin. He had a job for muddy to do back in karachi. The job was a suicide mission. Mardi would wear an explosive vest to a mosque where the pakistani president was expected to attend friday prayers at a safe house craft. Martin tried on the vast .

kiss and told me how to wear IT and how to reach out to him, how close to get a to block him up and basic training like you know I were to said when he reaches um try to get as close as possible the idea was if if you can just hug him will be perfect and he told me like you just remember that the idea was to do less damage to the people if you can get close in shaking and just hugues in the president TM perfect he says he did ask.

K, S. M, what about all the civilians would be killed?

Yeah, I I did ask him. I did ask him is what about the civilians he justified? There was some hudis was done where the profit was at war.

And and, and in nights there was a unintentionally, some souvenir were killed, basically in american language, IT was clear damage. We don't want to a do IT unless we have no option. But somehow you win.

When you on this cycle that I was in, it's like being internal. You know you're just there's not much time you know thinking you staying out by the world is just think about this, right? If I could go back and change IT, I would I wish I I had I could go back and sit telling myself coming on carboy, you know, think what you're doing. There's the consequences of your actions. Didn't think about my family, and I know .

of that stuff on that friday morning. K, S, M, driving mode to the mosque in a red zzz. Oki, he said through all of friday prayers in the suicide vest, he told me he was calm, even fell asleep at one point because he was a little bored. He just wanted IT on with IT, but musharaff showed up.

After the failed suicide attack module continued plotting with K, S, M to blow gas stations to import explosives into the united states, they talked about mudded becoming a sleepy agent back home. He returned to bottom mm for a few months, where he was supposed to recruit others to join alkylate. But once he was home, his new path and his new identity, jai mated. Or not so clear when .

I was the stage fascinating and was like, okay, I was not just not that bad, was I can living in american life. And then I talked to my cousin and uncle, and then they said, look, your poor, your heart has been poison again with the world, you know, with the western, that the level of west come back to us. We will purify your heart.

I just identity crisis. I don't know whatever you want to call IT. I, I, I, I love living in amErica in a sense that my family and friends were there.

That's great. But part of me, so look, they are right too. I want to be part of which I think as well.

according to the united states government, and to modded himself, he never directly, physically, indeed anyone, the plot T N case m damped up were abandoned. He never works suicide vest again. The most clear of his crimes, with the gravest consequences, according to the U.

S. Government, was delivering the fifty thousand dollars to another terrorist group, which prosecutors say was used to fund the J. W.

Marry out hotel bombing in jakarta markets says he didn't know about the bomb plot or what the money would be used for. He was just told to deliver IT. But of course, the person who asked him to deliver IT was college shake muhamad, the architect of nine eleven.

By the time the bombing happened, mudd was already in american custody. Early one morning emerged two thousand, three. He'd been woken up by his brother.

He was staying at this apartment in karachi. They heard shouting and banging on the door. IT was pakistani intelligence.

Are you bob di? They shouted at him. He uses his DJ name on a hot male account.

They took him in the custody and interrogated him and beat him. There were FBI agents in some other uni dense fied americans there, too. And then after months of this, he was turned over to the CIA. This is where the story of what model did and and the story of what we did to module IT begins.

The details of mudd's time in the CIA black sites have been covered in the news and in the senate report on the CIA rendition, detention and interrogation program. This called torture report. The torture hindered was intense.

And burton, which is why I was surprised to learn that he came away from at all with a respect for the C. I. I, A kind of opponents respect, who was one of the first things he told me when I arrived in, believes we were sitting on a couch, a living room. His daughter just made up some tea. Two fans were blowing sticky kerber, an error around, and he just launched into IT, how you appreciate the candle of the CIA.

We had a refrangible versatile mean and there won't be us, with us. I mean, were so honest with us, to you tomorrow they're gona torch you me tomorrow and they were, don't torching me tomorrow after one way they're done okay, we're not onna torture you anymore. I mean, we very Frank. Were you straight forward? He said all the prisoners .

with him in camp seven that the secret prison at wantonness o, where he was eventually held, along with K, S, M. And other men who'd been tortured by the all the prisoners in camp seven, felt that way.

I mean, i've talked to case sam. I've talked to all the brothers in camp seven. We actually had a lot respect for CIA.

We understood why they're torching us. We understood they want intelligence is part of the business. IT comes with the job, and our job is to a whole intelligence as much as possible, as much as bearable. And we had a mutual respect for that.

It's not that budget was OK was being tortured. Of course, the C. I, A did horrifying things to him at the black sites.

He was held underwater, hand force fed, short, shackled. He was left naked in the cold, in the dark, with music blasting. He didn't see the sun for two years, except in the brief moments when he was transported between buildings.

He barely any human contact, just the guards, his interrogators and his tortures. One of the reasons why I did wanted me to understand his respect for the C. I.

A was so I would understand how he felt about his treatment at guantanamo to contrast IT, because for muted his time, kim seven was worse. He wasn't being interrogated anymore. sometimes. Fb, I would pay a visit asking some questions, but that's IT. So the cruelty at antonomasia, no purpose.

C I, A torture was like in a surgical, okay, for a few hours, few months, whatever they're trying to. There is a reason behind this is they're doing IT. I what you're doing IT, there was no justification where they didn't camp seven zero.

Yes, I was like just hanging a cat for ten days just for sake of IT. You know it's just the nature statistic nature that I could not understand. Km salon, i'd try not to think about IT honestly, I just IT was the lowest point in my life.

Compared to the cii, the guards and camps haven could be brutally child's sh model says they put metal and stones into his food. When he didn't return his train protest, they shaved his head as punishment and then took his trail together, just scoop the food and to his hands.

When the international committee of the red cross gave him a photo of his three year old daughter, the first time we learned had a daughter, a guard took the photo away from him. He says he want crazy, kicked at the door, tried to break the security camera, and then there were the noises, constant noises from the guards knocking on the cell at all hours of the day and night, opening and shutting the prison doors. The building itself mid noise.

There were high frequency winning sounds from the air conditioners in the security cameras. There were vibrations. Magic was an isolation. No one to talk to, no distractions, no way to sleep IT all seems intentional. When he talks about that time today, IT still makes them upset. But the guards that get modal them to the brink, to the point where he felt like he was losing his mind, just to mess with him.

I remember pulling my beer right, literally, just pulling and banging my head against the .

all later, literally.

litter. And I would do this. I show you, this is the artery. I, should I chew that order right here?

He was so distressed and so desperate for them to treat him Better that he chewed through the vain in the crook of his ARM. IT was the only way he could get them to pay attention to the pain he was in. They had to respond. His ARM was gushing blood had to take him to the medical clinic, which meant they had to write reports which the camp commanders would have to see.

You had to act like a manik to prove to them that .

is a problem, modi said. Other camps have in prisoners did the same kind of thing.

Magic was a quant hanimal for over a year before he met with his attorneys. He hadn't been charged with anything yet. IT was possible he'd held indefinitely or charged with crimes to a career, a life sentence.

He was barely keeping IT together in camp seven. He wanted out of guantanamo o of captivity, wanted to be with his family. He told his attorneys he would take a plea deal, admit to his crimes, CoOperate with the government as long as he got the opportunity to speak in public about the torture.

That's what I ask for, asked any. That was my number one goal. Allow me to speak. Let me tell the world. What did you to me?

He was passed. sure. He understood why the C I A had taught red him, but he also knew was .

against the rules. I was mad at that time. I was really mad as like, um you've got ta pay for this I will tell the whole .

world about IT so revenge. But also there was a practical reason he wanted to talk. He figured he could use that as leverage in his own legal case. He was a thought he'd had .

back in the black sites. Fun fact, the cie told me maybe we can let you go was like as like, why not? He said, look, uh, uh h we think, uh, you let you go, you going for english and then you onna tell the world that how american fucked me up and, uh and you're gonna end up in Opera show or something and that's the problem.

This is very honest people. They didn't hire IT. There was the problem was, is not understood. That was not what what I did is, is so much .

what they did to me. Magic, guess that if a jury heard what the C. I, A had done to him first hand, they would give him a later sense.

Deep down, I knew that that this was the silver bullet for me.

What would you mean that was the silver bullet for you?

I mean, IT was a ticket out of jailed card, basically. Sc, you can't put a person like fifty years in prison and plus torture, right? So IT, just from my perspective, vist said this was, this was the only shot I have.

He had lived in the united states long enough to abbas b. In american sense of justice for watching long order from his high school teachers. He calls IT a side effect of being american.

He was making a bet that the american public by wave, an american jury, would have the same sense of american justice that he had. The other prisoners in camps seven with him modded, says they did not understand this. It's were remarkable to her modded talk about these other prisoners and camp seven itself a place that was so secret the government didn't even acknowledge its existence until two thousand and eight.

No reporter has ever been there. And then there's magic, the only camps of in prisoner to ever leave quanta amo. So he's really the only person who can speak freely about what was happening inside those highly classified walls.

The other prisoners with him were considered to be the actual worst of the worst high level terrorist leaders, plotters and soldiers like K. S. M.

There is also abuzz beta, who allegedly ran his own extremist network associated without another guy called humble, who is accused of orchestrating the two thousand three marriage bombing in jahr. Ta, the plot mother delivered money for. And then there was modeled.

I was a Green horn.

The other detainees were older than madded. He was only twenty three when he was captured. Plus he points out he hadn't done any hard chord hudi training at the camp in afghanistan. He hadn't shot in nak forty seven or lived in a cave or swann in earth to be in modern.

I was the kid in the black, right? Everybody was concerned about me because they understood that this kid and I was not been to afghanistan. He doesn't know much of a slam.

He doesn't know they were worry about me. It's like we got to take care of this kid, you know? And then they did.

And the honest they got, they did. Otherwise, I don't think I would have made IT. IT was so terrible in granada.

A, I did wanted to help them. These man, he calls his prison brothers. And because he was a little bit american, he understood something they didn't. Just as modi believed torture could be legal currency in his own case, he figured that could be helpful in there is too.

So I decided to make a torture sheet. He undertook .

a reporting project to document the extent of everyone's torture on a spreading. He drew by hand .

and road down all the methods that I knew were used after talking to other detainees you know like water boating, hanging, uh, hunger um you know made to said matt to stand, just met the homeless on the left side and then I put all the detainee names on the rest of the page.

Not everyone wanted to talk about the torture. Some of the prisoners felt that I was Better left between them.

And god ony, I had to drg IT out of them. IT was not that easy even. Can some some of the brothers to tell me about that? I said, look, I just, i'm just this project. Let me do IT for me so OK okay, then this are telling me about that.

I I think the brother did understand, most of didn't live in the states, and they didn't understand how powerful lora could could be an asset in their legal case, right? And I said, look this you need to you gotta a put IT down. This could be a ticket out of here.

And there were a lot of brother were pretty name about this legal system, uh, because their own experience, they had a legal system in arab countries, which is dictor ship. So so IT doesn't matter. Every every day we get torture and egypt, libya.

Yeah, what's a big deal? No, this is, this is america. You actually do have rights here. Even that doesn't seem like right now. But there's a system out there.

Things have gotten a bit more relaxed in camps seven. By then, the prisoners could talk to each other through the bean holes, the male lake slots in their cell doors, which the guards left open for them. Magic would ask the other prisoners questions.

I get how many times water burning, how many days OK, three months. Okay, he interviewed .

them outside during that time.

But you know, he's working out and i'm working out and i'm going push up.

At first he took a legal pad with him into the record, but then he says the guards caught on, said nobody could take legal pads into the record anymore.

I said, okay, no problem. I am not going. I'll get time with the brother.

I'll, i'll interview him. So I would sometimes memorize IT. And then I go back to my cell. I ride down. So I took I took a long time to complete their sheet.

He worked on IT for months. Some of the stories he heard defied categorization.

So then I had to make categorize in a way that I just was, oh, that he falls in that the category. And right um do you remember .

an example of that?

Like on the city I had unique experience like that. He was hand for maybe eighteen hours or so ah they call IT two point restrictions like your hands are tied up in legs are tied up, right? So that's two point, a restraints and and and his experience was that just turned his one leg and two hands on top and then another leg to the wall. So he's like.

just like kind of seized .

out d of legs. Yes, yeah. So he he came, all right.

Leafs noon. So so that was unique, I just remember, was unique. I anyone put him in there as I cookout? I had a side note.

One of his interviews in particular, stuck with him. Most suffer all her sale. One of the nine eleven defendants accused of sending money to the nine eleven high.

I ask.

um what was .

very touch and he said before I answer that, he said out to you, the world was the best torture for me and I said, what does that mean? He said, look the best one when they put me in like a coffin and they filled with water, right? And you could just, literally, just or or put me in selling box with with the bugs and everything.

He said, I loved IT. I said, why? He said that was the only time I felt then I was not necked .

for him being a naked .

for no man or woman that was the most tortured by the .

end of the project, margit felt had done something great. He had a record of the torture. The united states government was so intent on keeping secret.

I thought that this, this could be, this could be the, you know, breakthrough that we were looking for in our lives, that that could be a some of the pain that the the camp were doing to us.

He kept spreading in his cell, hoping to share IT in court some dead. Mode's attorney spent years working on a plea deal. Finally, in twenty twelve, they reach an agreement.

Mudd would pleaded guilty to five charges, including murder, conspiracy and spying. And he would CoOperate with the prosecution, help them in their cases, against the other prisoners. In return, he would get a reduce sentence, a maximum of nineteen years. And crucially for mudded, he would finally get to speak to tell the story of his torture in court magia talk to the other camps have in prisoners about the plea deal. He told me some of them more against IT, but K, M, gave him his blessing.

But he said, yeah, i'm happy for you, but you don't. Look, I I feel sorry for you out. I've killed three thousand people. What the fuck are you? You know, you nobody in change of command.

I don't know how much to CoOperated, what information he gave the american government to fulfill under the bargain. He told me IT wasn't much, but a prosecutor in the case told me that he did confess applause the united states government didn't even know about yet. After a decade of CoOperation, IT was time for mudded to be sentenced in front of a judge. But before he did that, he in his defense team, had one more card to play. I guess you could call IT the torture card.

They would turn the years of captivity and abuse in the black sites to advantage, according to the rules of the military commissions, and to modest be agreement module, could call witnesses to support his case that he should get by then, many of the darkest details of the ci's torture program had been revealed, water boarding, the destruction of video tapes of the torture, even the death of a prisoner. The sault pit, a black site where model was one held. But what wars still a secret, are still a closely guarded secret to this day are the identities of the torture themselves.

Moger lawyers knew that the CIA did not want those names revealed ever, so they made that part of their strategy. He's attn y submitted a list of one hundred and fifteen people they wanted to call to the stand. Some of the names were far fetched. George bush was on IT. Along the conditions arise some more lower level, like camp seven commanders in fb I agents who spent time with moderate antonomasia.

But most importantly, the list included the people who were involved in the CIA rendition, detention and interrogation program, the torture program, the people who conceived of IT who ran IT, and the people who tortured model modded and his defense am wanted to put the entire government apparatus responsible for the torture program on the stand. Unsurprisingly, a legal battle ensued after years of motions and responses to motions and bickering and the nutrition of covered, the judge finally ruled, said mudd could ask for time off his sentence because of the torture, and he could call some of the C. I A witnesses IT was a major decision in mudd's favour.

The governments hands were tired. They were never going to be able to produce the CIA witnesses. The CIA would make sure of that.

So instead, the two sides agreed magic would drop the whole witness testimony thing if the government would chief eight years off of a sentence. Eight years IT was a lot, plus the judge gave mudded another year off to din the prosecution for a discovery violation. So that made nine years total.

I'm sharing of nine years. You can imagine how desperate were they. Could they know they were fucked what .

this meant if all one, according the plan, was that magic? We get out just four months after the sentences hearing, and he would finally get to read a statement in court about what the american government had done to him, which he and his attorneys would write carefully to make sure the government couldn't classify IT. The one thing you wouldn't get, you wouldn't get to talk about the torture other prisoners had undergone at C.

I. A. Black sites, everything he'd recorded in that spread sheet, because that might give the government a reason to classify his statement.

What magic could do was tell his own experience as completely as possible. That was the best way he could represent what they're all gone through. Nearly two decades after magic was captured at his brothers apartment in karachi, his day in court was finally scheduled.

According to the rules of the military commissions, a jury would be present for modest sentencing hearing. They would be told mudgee had plead guilty. They would be told about his crimes, the money for the hotel bombing, the assassination attempt of musharaff, his work for kada.

But, and I know how strange that sounds, they would not be told that modded and the government had already come to an agreement. Instead, they would be told to consider modest crimes alongside whatever modred had to say for himself, and come up with an appropriate sentence. Whatever the jury came back with, whether there was a short sentence or long IT wouldn't have a material effect on mod's case.

The sentence was set, but their decision would have symbolic meeting. This would be the first time a prisoner of the cia's black sites would speak about his treatment in public. There might never be another reckoning for the crimes of that era.

Not a legal way. At least the jury would weigh the two ledges what margin did against what we did to merger and decide for margin for the country where justice lies. It's what mother have been hoping for for so many years.

But now that I was finally happening, he worried that he was too late. IT was twenty, twenty one country had moved on. The existent al battle of the day was was covered, not alki a marg worried that the only reason the government was letting him talk was that nobody really cared anymore.

I think at this stage, I think cii the america's know that amErica lost interest, right? Honest, being really pragmatic about IT, they lost interest. They they know what happens that should happen and IT is almost like the uh, the creative tolerance for this that is almost, uh, how do you say desensitize to torture now and it's the fact and I think that's what C I use like fuck IT let him speak and I don't think they care anymore, honestly, was to be dealt while working. We already had to turn down the times.

So will they care?

Image is coming up. Imagine finally gets his day in court. That's in a minute from chicago o public radio when the programme continues. This american life from my a glass today's program two legers we're playing an episode from the new season of syria, which is all about antonomasia n chivas picks up the story of mushed hand wish left off on the day of a sense of hearing the .

courter mic one panama is a long window rectangle le with six rows of defense tables on the left merely by four rows of prosecution tables on the right. IT looks like any other stereo courtroom except in the back there's a gallery separated by a thick wall of glass in the forty second audio delight. That's where the press in the public set on this day, october twenty eighth, twenty twenty one. That's where mod's father and sister are seeded mudded had been allowed to see them earlier that morning for the first time in nineteen years. Did anything surprise you in that meeting about either one of them .

about how you felt or how they acted? The and what I did I get tall or like, or their shoulder, you know, just like this is like because I thought, you know, there were about my size.

This hearing would be the first time they learn the details of mud's imprisonment. There's no publicly available recording of this hearing, but I do with the transcripts, and I ve spoken with several people who were there that day. Model sits at the front, the courtroom at the defendants table with four of his tourneys court starts at nine o six A M.

The Laura spent most of the day selecting the jury, not a jury of moted peers, not even civilians in this military court. The jury consists of eight senior officers from across the armed forces, which, if you are once in okada, tough for him. The sensing proceedings don't really get going until after five, a prosecutor reads the stipulation of fact to the jury.

The document that describes in cold legalise all the crimes model has admitted to it's just passionate but detail, and it's damming the story of a Young man given asylum by the united states who turns his back on the country in his family to join the terrorists who attacked us with hopes of attacking us again. After the prosecutor finishes reading the stipulation of fact, they break for dinner and then finally IT around seven, forty pm, mudded in a black suit tie, his lawyers bought him steps up to the podium, thirty nine page statement in hand, and faces the military jury in their dress uniforms. He's nervous.

This is the moment he's been thinking about for eighteen years, but it's late. He's tired. Back is killing him, the judge says, mr. Han, you may proceed. Magic proceeds.

I begin the name of god. My name is margie hung. And for the last fifteen years I have been incarcerated at naval station guantanamo. A or get more mark read .

some of his statement for me.

I have a story that I have waited almost two decks to tell. So I want to start by thanking you for taking the time to listen to my statement today. I stand before you make a humble, humble and make asking for you to listen to my story with the sensitive and compassionate year.

Mod takes responsibility for his crimes and apologizes to his family. He explains to the jury how he ended up an alka, how after returning to baltimore in two thousand two, his family tried to keep him from going back to pakistan because they were afraid of what he gotten involved in there, how his father, he is travel documents, how he lied to his father to get them back.

He's here in court today. I can see him. I want to tell him, mother, i'm sorry. I'm very sorry and then .

marge accounts everything the C I, A did to him in detail for two hours, hoping that by saying what happened to him personally, he can overcome the apathy to torture the discussed for alita, because it's one thing to read about torture on the page and another to be faced with the person who endured IT twenty feet away, describing IT to he starts the day he was captured, picking up where the stipulation of fact drops off. He describes how the pakistani I. Authorities took him to a lockup, interrogated him, how there were americans there too, how the pakistan, he's beat him the first time he was ever beaten.

I was frequently hooded and strapped into metal boots. Now these metal boots were, I call them ski metal books about this high. They would make me stand on those metal boots, and they're punching me and beating me up.

I remember feeling that if I had fell over forward, there was no doubt my lewd. I was so afraid of what would happen next. I remember an older american, A U.

S. Interrogator, who would tell me they were not buying my story, called you'll pin on my shoes and telling me, is raining and and cold. This men were frequent, threatening me, saying, like some, we are going to take care of you.

We are going to send you to a place that you cannot imagine. We'll take you somewhere and make you talk. And of cold, he thread my family. He threatened to read my sister.

Mudd tells the jury about the day his pakistani guards said he was going home, but instead he was taken to an airport and handed over to the C. I. I. How the americans cut his close off him, gave him an animal, put him in a dip inductive goggles in your mouth to his head, and then they flume to another country.

He describes .

the black site. He calls the american torture place. The windows of the american torture place were covered in cloth, and there was technologic blasting an interrogator in a black mask, asked him questions about alka plot in the united states and that he's at an airport. And when he wasn't satisfied with modest answers, he counted down on his fingers from ten at zero. A guard grabs the chains around budget hands through the move, or wouldn't be in the ceiling, and hoisted, modded into the .

air without a movement. The guard had hoisted the chain attached to my hands and pull the chain tight. After a few more posts, I was hanging by my hands with my shacked fee barely touching the ground. The interrogators left the room as I scream in pain and try to support my weight after a while to get magic.

told the jury. They left him hanging like that for an hour or two and then dragged him into a tiled bathroom, to a bathtub filled with ice water.

The U. S. Into gator plays me feet first into the ice water, and then pushed my body flag to the bottom of the top.

I was still wearing a thin cloth hood while some U. S. I. Interrogators held my body under the water.

The lead interrogator pushed my head under the water and help me down as I struggle against drowning. As I guess, for air, the integrator would demand answer to the questions. They refused to submerge me. When I could get a year, I would beg them to stop and swear to them that I did not know anything.

The people I talk to who were in court that day said modded was stoic as he read a statement. Sometimes he acted out the scene he was describing. Like when he talked about being hung from a beam, he put his arms up into the air, and he pointed out the scars on his ankles when he told the jury I was feet swell so much, the ankle cuff s cut into his skin.

Different details from his statement lodged in different people's heads for the prosecutor kernel wall. Foster IT was hearing how budget was strong up by his arms for mudges attorney, major Michael linus. IT was the bugs.

but I could feel tiny bugs smaller than mosquitoes, biting me repeatedly until I bled with my hair shackled. I couldn't swap the bugs or scratch the soars they left.

There's one person from the black sites who modred refers to specifically in a statement, gives them nik name a man he calls the torture doctor in April two thousand four mounted tells the jury he was moved to a different black site, which he refers to as long term C. I, A. prison.

He realized nobody was coming to help him. He was on his own. He started a hunger strike to protest. So the torture doctor in the guards force fed him, sometimes with a iv, sometimes with the tube, up the nose and down the throat.

I remember the torture doctor right in front of me. He would take the tube and he would sharpen the two and put a heart sauce, and then he would not feed me.

And then when that didn't break his will, when he continued to hunger strike .

after the four sitting failed to get major corporate, they return to torture me. This party is extremely painful to talk about as the most of. And in front of my parents and my sister in the month of september two thousand four, still at longer M C, I E. Prison, I was raped by C, R, A torture a doctor .

while being .

restrained. They did IT in my cell. I was restrained very tightly and secured by least two guards. The C. R, E torture doctor was there to administrator the insertion, but IT was not a medical procedure.

I remember one time in myself, I ask, he told her doctor why he was doing this, and he whispered with viciousness and he said, quote, your fucking terrorist. End of coat. I swear to god, I remember exact worse. He gram me like this and he says, you are fucking tourist. This is the hardest part.

They used .

Green garden houses, regular size hoses connected to one side to my rectum. Another went to the closet, and that would turn on the water. And I could feel the gush of water going into my victim. I remember feeling immense pressure in my balls, a pen I, I had never felt.

The C, I, A, uh, mister ally called the rector rehydration. They didn't stop at water once the torture doctor in the guards bound mudded with ducked tape and shackles and put two bottles of insure into his racism. And then later that same day, they period mudge's entire lunch tray, hummers, pasta sauce, nuts and reasons, and inserted all of that into his rectum, too.

This was known as rectal feeding. The body cannot absorb nutrients this way. So more accurate word for IT is rape. At least five other C.

I, A prisoners were raped this way, too, according to the senate report on page thirty of his thirty nine page statement. Mudd stops reading and takes a sip of water. He tells the jury apologetically, that is nearly done, asked them to bear with him.

The judge says, would you like to take a break? Mister han and muddy says, judge, I would like to get IT over with. Thanks him for his concern.

He picks back up in may of two thousand six, when things that started to change in C. I, A. Custody, he's up a little.

He went on a hunger strike again, but this time the americans studied, punish him, didn't rape him. He told him he was depressed. They offered him prosaic.

Margie tells the jury how in september of two thousand six, he was transfer to go hana mo. How on the plane right there, he felt for the first time like he might actually survive. But then he was put in camp seven.

He describes his treatment there, the noises, the cruelty of the guards. Here he goes off screen, tells the jury that this is just a quote, summary of the summary of the summary of the summary. But he is six hundred pages of notes about his treatment at granta aml.

But he doesn't to borrow them. And then he wraps IT up. thanks. His attorneys take responsibility for his actions and his crimes, and apologies to everyone he's hurt, including his wife, robbia and his daughter never met. He apologizes to his father again and to his siblings, apologizes for abandoning them after their mother died.

I have, I have wanted to tell my story for a very long time. I am so very appreciated for your attention. Thank you for letting me share IT with you today.

At this point, mode's been reading for two hours nonstop. He says, god bless and walks back to his seat. By all accounts of the people i've talked to the jury, listen a mudded statement like statues unmoving.

The next day, kernel Foster, the prosecutor, gives a closing statement for the government. He tries to refocus the trial around the crimes of mugger han, rather than the crimes of the united states government. He talks about the victims of the jaguar ta bombing, who've been offstage for most of the hearing and read their names out loud.

Kino Foster plays down the torture, saying, quote, I would conclude that mister hahn received extremely rough treatment by the individuals that detained him, and IT is right for you to consider that conduct. However, despite what mister han experienced, he is still alive. And with us here today, a luxury that the dead in the eleven victims of the J.

W. Marie out hotel bombing do not have. The jury can choose the sentence anywhere from twenty five to forty years.

Coronal Foster asked them to sentence him in the upper range of the spectrum. Major Michael linus, one of mudd's offense attorneys, gives a butter. He asked the jury to give modded twenty five years. And then the judge sends them off to deliberate. They're gone for three hours.

When they come back, the judge asked, smudged to stand in the form, reads a sentence, quote mode, show, caught han, this military commission sentences you to be confined for twenty six years, zero months, zero days. Again, magic doesn't enough to serve all this time. This sentence is already said, but twenty six years, it's only one year more than the minimum. It's proof that modi was right to bet that a jury of americans would give him a lighter sentence once they heard about the torture.

The judge, thanks the jury, reminds them not to talk about their deliberations. And then, just as he's about to excuse them, the former indicates is something else to say. He has a letter for the defense team. He hand a letter to the bail liff who walks over and gives the to modest attorney major inness, who leaves that there on the desk, ttl zingy folded in half while the judge wraps up the session.

We wanted to be right away, right? And everybody's acting like it's not a big deal notional.

The judge finally says, mr. Han, I wish you all the best in the future. This court is adjourned.

And the most the, this was a judge left building like a pack of dogs attacked. That letter is like, let's let me read IT. Let's my letters like, let me, let me hold IT .

the letter is written in tidy handwriting online paper IT reads, quote, the panel members listed below recommend clemency. In the case of merger chocolat han, it's a letter to the so called convening authority that the person who's the final arbiters of murdered case, it's a military justice thing, i'm not to explain. It's a letter asking the convening authority to go easy on budget.

IT says mugged should get linsey because he was denied due process because he was a Young man when he committed his crimes in is no longer a threat for future extremism and because he was so badly abused by the united states. Quote, this abuse was of no practical value in terms of intelligence or any other tenderly benefit to U. S.

interests. Instead, IT is a stain on the moral fibre of america. Is signed by seven of the eight jury members, all officers of the united states military, all serving during the global war on terrorism.

And you, having compared the two ledges, rendered their verdict on this era of american history. What Martin did was bad, but what we did to him was punishment enough. I think for lots of people in the military, this conclusion will not come as a surprise.

This idea of torturing prisoners isn't some abstract moral debate for them. It's personal, practical. If they get captured by the enemy, they don't want to be tortured.

They don't want other americans to be tortured. They want that kind of thing to be out of bounds. They need the U.

S. To hold the line. The clemency letter is framed on my my wall in my office. That's major lines, one of modest defense attorneys .

um and the original documents is is in my closet and I still .

don't know what to do with that.

I don't know who you national archives want original document because .

it's current in the in mine it's to me it's the public .

is a public document IT should be put somewhere where everybody can see IT.

It's the kind of historical document that could should end up in a textbook. But I probably won. IT will probably stay in major lines. This closet, I reach out to the C, I, A for comment on this story, for comment on mud treatment. In response, A C, I, A spokesperson sent me a statement, quote, the C, I, A detention and interrogation program ended in two thousand nine.

The C, I, A has committed and remains committed to never again Operating such a program of enhanced interrogation techniques, and quote so many of the players in this story, in all these gone panama stories, just want to put that place behind them. The american government certainly wants us to forget about get now the black sides, the torture. In march two, he finally got out of prison in february twenty twenty three, eleven months after a sentence officially ended, his attorneys medicine belize helped him set up his new house.

Two months later, rubber and manal joined him. He hoped me all hang rainbow coloured lights around her room. He spotted her as he put a letter on a chair on her bed to reach the ceiling in some photos he in robbia took shortly after they were reunited.

They are both beaming ing like newly once. Mudd spent the first twenty years of adult life in prison. Now suddenly, the age of forty four, he's a husband in a father.

He has a twenty year old daughter and a new baby. He's gotta learn to raise a kid, find a job, convince the bank to give him a bank account. He doesn't want to be talking about any of this stuff, doesn't want to relive IT. He couldn't sleep the week I was emblems interviewing him. You just want to move on.

I don't fuck about history like I don't wanted to be in part of history with all your expect. I just wanted be forgotten. You know, who cares who's marty thought? If I very down, very someone with some place, I would make sure nobody knows where I go when I die. I just, I going to measure only two people come, my two movements that my daughter, my wife, I am happy, you know, that's that's what I prefer.

Magic told me, sensing hearing clemency letter, they were validating in the moment, but writ large, the american public. He doesn't think anyone noticed, and he's probably right. But you know, who did notice the accused masterminds of nine eleven are their lawyers. Anyway, if magic got a more lenient sentence because he was tortured, could they. Next time.

Thatt next time on cereal and on our show as well, we will be running one more episode from the granton's o series next week.

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This and four of syria was produced by Jessica White berg with syrta ic, and then achivi is edited by Julie snr, produced by syria in new york times.

You rest of the season and I hardly recommend IT all about antonio whatever you get your podcast additional reporting on this story by correa, career fact checking by then fAiling and music supervision, sound design and mixing by feb wang, original school by sofia daily alassane editing help from cargan a and myself other people who help put together aria include gilsons westling, amans to my gandhi and day tribu mac Miller and new york times deal managing editor sam shang home my cometary sofa ridal in materia worked together to put this episode of syria on our program special to talia biot Alice on deck minute center for the victims of torture lasson aland melt and tug Wilson website, this american life, that org, you can stream our archive eight hundred episodes, absolutely free. This american life is to live at the public meanie stations by P. R.

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