Serial S04 - Ep. 8: Two Ledgers
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Camp seven? I've never add anything.

Knew about camp seven. I know nothing about IT. I mean, you hear rumors.

but I mean, I I believe you genuinely thought like this is that i'm dying. I like this. I'm going, whatever I learned from the detainees I passed at all to the leadership, everything, everyone, my world.

It's a lawlessness, and they can do whatever they want down there. And they did IT.

From serial productions in the new york times. This is season four of cereal guantanamo, one prison camp told week by week. I'm dana chivers.

Budget han was sixteen when his family moved to baltimore from pakistan. He went to own's mills high school, smoked weed, work to his dad gas station, and thought about becoming A D under the stage name bob dac. He listened eminent and watching order and paid attention in misano d study's 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? Sun, the glass came off 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 alka, reported directly to college chick muhamad, the admitted mastermind of nine eleven.

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

He joined alkylate war suicide vest, tried to kill the pakistani president. He came up with plots targeting the american government to low gstaad 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 the 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 module, how do you aiight those against each other? In the historical accounting to come, which is worse, modest case is the first time of economy, those ledges are compared, and someone has to render a verdict.

Mudd's stories starts with his radicalization. Unlike so many former one panama detainees, there's clear public evidence that he was in ocado. 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. Mother tells.

the reason I join oko was a palestine issue.

IT begins with palestine.

I 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, saying that okita 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, and believes 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 keyboard ws 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. I'm not american. Okay um you know um by by citizenship, but you guys amazed me every single time.

What's the dumas part not getting the basics and i'm thinking that could beat another magic somewhere right now. No, imagine that back then. I didn't we didn't have you too.

We don't have instagram. And i'm thinking, what are they thinking, these kids and their such stupid kids. So there could be easily misled. And nothing, how many mudges hang out there right now. There will become like me.

What LED murdered to extremism was a confluence 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 anti religion when he grew beard, SHE made him save IT off, but in his late teenage years, after his family moved to 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 mugged. He felt guilty that he didn't pray that he was a bad muslim.

He started learning more about islam from a group of process tizer called the to bleezing demand, who visit him at work and at the mosque. And then when he was twenty one, mud's mother died suddenly. He was the most important person in his life, the centre 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 mask. They talked about palestine. The world seemed black and White to him.

Some point in my wife, I had to choose path. Um do you wanna be citing with a pressed or oppressor? I chose to be citing with 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 jard, maybe training at the campus in afghanistan, growing up in pakistan, mudded heard a lot about the muji dean, how honnor able they were, how brave, like the navy sales in the united states. He says he didn't particularly care which jai group he joined. There were a bunch of them.

I'll be answer you. I didn't go to pakistan to join our guide. They came to me, are a billion people, billions of muslims? I happen to have cousin in and uncle they they are by 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. I was behind them. Mother didn't believe IT.

And then part of that, come on, what could do? IT, and i'm to concentrate theories as I know what I told my angle. My couple I do, I knew jews were behind IT.

I saw on internet, I said C, I, U. 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 alka. IT was us. But instead of being horrified by this information much to join them.

I was already pissed off about pal somehow the what I understood that happened um you know I got ta be careful about to say you could be misconstrue almost in my mind and if I was alone 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 a coming.

the united had IT coming. Because what they were doing, palestine and and the estonia countries.

and that how you felt about IT.

and that's how I felt about IT. That time I didn't like IT, but IT just, I was so mad what was happening. And IT, it's just hard to explain that i've never killed before. I ve never seen suffering before, but somehow that what was having pasta affected me so much that somehow I was okay to say, well, they had had coming, just like I was just was in fraction news yesterday and then, and everybody, in fact, news. Well, if the palestinian didn't like IT while they had IT coming, there are the one who selected him much to be Operated in gaza.

Tempting I was in that mindset um I must tell you I know i'm bring honest with you, but I make a come across careless but this is a brutal truth so please bear with me and trying to understand I am not trying to find you guys. I know you guys is an american and patriotic american. I hope you are and you should be and you should get 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. Modred says he has long since rejected extremism. He left aleta while he was still locked up at one tony amo. He says he doesn't think nine eleven was righteous or good or justified, but he does understand the twisted logic behind the lk aid's attacks because the age of twenty one, he believed in that logic himself. He has a unique perspective of a person who has lived fully immersed in both the culture of the united states and the culture of alita. 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 assassinated pakistani president of muara in the suicide attack, but he tried to. When he joined del 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 IT through?

No, I mean, I was since ere I truly believed that the this is the way to go to happen beyon beyond how should I use nights now it's very dug out.

Yeah.

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

And you wanted that. why?

Who doesn't want .

to have I mean, you were tying like you had so much of your live ahead of you.

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

Marget's fairly had arranged a marriage for him to rubber. They're still married today, he says their wedding was the happiest day of his life. But while they're on their honeymoon, K S, M. Gleed chick mohamed called mudges cousin. He had a job for money to do back in karachi. The job was a suicide mission margit would wear in explosive vest to a mosque where the pakistani president musharaff expected to attend friday prayers at a safe house and crude model tried on the vast kim .

told me how to wear IT and how to reach out to him, how close to get to block him up and basic training like you know I wear 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 to say and just hug me in the president button, perfect he .

says he did ask, K, S. M, what about all the civilians would be killed?

Yeah, 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 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 you 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, I could go back and said, telling myself ves 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 .

that stuff on that friday morning. K, S, M, driver module to the mosque in red zzz ki, 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 muted becoming a sleeping agent back home. He returned to bottom more 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, ihai muted or not so clear.

when I was a stage fascinating. And I was like, okay, is not that bad, like living in american life. And then I talked to my cousin and uncle, and then they said, look, your boy, your heart has been poison again with the world, you know, with the western, that the love of west.

So come back to us. We will purfled your heart. I just identity crisis. I don't know whatever we 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 state's government, and damaging himself, he never directly, physically, indeed anyone. The plot T N case m drummed, ed up were abandoned. He never wars suicide vest again.

The most clear of his crimes, the gravest consequence, 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. Mariot 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 his apartment in karaj. I, they heard shouting and banging on the door. IT was pakistani, an intelligence? Are you, bob? daily? They shouted at him.

He uses his DJ name on a hot male count. They took him in the custody and interrogated him and beat him. There were FBI agents and some other uni dense fied americans.

There are two. And then after months of this, he was turned over to the CIA. This is where the story of what modi did and and the story of what we did to magic begins. That's after the break.

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The details of mudd's time in the C I, A black sites have been covered in the news and in the senate report on the C I A S. Rendition, detention and interrogation program. This called torture report, the torture hindered was intense and brutal, 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, his living room, his daughter just meet as some t tea. Two fans were blowing sticky caribbean error around, and he just launched into IT. How do you appreciated the candle of the CIA?

We had a refrangible versac. I mean, and there won't be as to the, I mean, they were so honestly that I do IT, i'm gonna assure you tomorrow they're gonna watch me tomorrow and they were torturing me tomorrow after when, where they're done okay, we're not going to torture anymore. I mean, were very Frank. Well, you know, straight forward.

he said all the prisoners with him in camp seven that the secret prisoner, one tonio, where he was eventually held, along with K, S. M. And other men who'd been tortured by the CIA, all the prisoners in camp seven felt that way.

I mean, i've talked to k. sam. I've talked to all the brothers in camp seven.

We actually had a lot of spect for C. I. A.

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 possible. And we had a mutual respect for that.

It's not that muddy 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 had barely any human contact, just his guards, his interrogators in his tortures. One of the reasons why I did want to meet 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 mudded, his time, and kim seven was worse, he wasn't being interrogated anymore. Sometimes, F, B, I would pay a visit asking some questions, but that's IT. So the cruelty of antonomasia no purpose.

C, I, A torture was like in a surgical OK for a few hours, few months, whatever they are trying to. There is a reason behind this is they are doing IT.

I get IT what you're doing IT.

There was no justification where they didn't camp seven zero. It's 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 dish. Modest 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 in those hands. When the international committee of the red cross gave him a photo of his three year old daughter the first time I learned had a daughter, a guard took the photo away from him. He says he want crazy.

Kick at the door, try 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 and the security cameras. There were vibrations. Magic was an isolation, no one to talk to, no distractions, no way to sleep. And all seemed intentional. When he talks about that time today, IT still makes them upset with the guards that get modal ven 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.

literally.

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

He was so distressed and so desperate for them to treat him Better that he chewed through the vein 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 gusting blood had to take him to the medical clinic, which meant they had direct reports, which the camp commanders would have to see.

You had to act like a maniac to prove them there is a problem.

magid said. Other camps have in prisoners did the same kind of thing.

Magic was at went honyman for over a year before he met with his attorneys. He hadn't been charged with anything yet. IT was possible he will be held indefinitely or charged with crimes to could Carry 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. That was my number one goal. Allow me to speak. Let me tell the world what did that to me.

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

the rules I was at that time I was really mad as like, uh, you've got ta pay for this and 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 C R E told me might be, can let you go was like as, like, why not? They said, look, uh, uh, uh, we think, uh, you let you go, you from english, then you gonna tell the world that how american fucked me up and, uh, and you're gonna end up in an Opera show or something.

And that's the problem. This so very onest people I want to, they didn't hide. That was the problem was, is not I did. That was not what what I did is, is so much what .

they deter me. Mag, guess that if a jury heard what the CIA had done to him first hand, they would give him a later sense.

Deep down, I knew that that this was a silva bullet for me.

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

I mean, IT was a ticket out of jail 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 absorb 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 mother. 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 margin, the only camps of in prisoner to ever leave quanta among. 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, potters and soldiers like K. S. M. There is also abuse beta, who allegedly ran his own extremist network associated with alki da, another guy called humble, who is accused of orchestrating the two thousand three marriage bombing in jakarta. The plot mother delivered money for, and then there was modeled.

I was a Green.

The other detainees were older than madded. He was only twenty three when he was captured. Plus, he points out he hadn't done in a hard korda hoddy training at the camp's in afghanistan. He hadn't shot in nak forty seven or lived in a cave or sworn a oth to be in modern.

I was like the kid in the black, right? Everybody was concerned about me because they understood that this kid, IT, has not been to afghanistan. He doesn't know much. A bysshe. M, he doesn't know.

They were worry about me the like, we got ta take care of this kid, you know? And then they did I an honest, they got, they did a, otherwise, I don't think I would have made IT. IT was so terrible in grant animal.

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 modern, believed torture could be legal currency. In his own case, he figured that could be helpful, and 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 ET. He drew by .

hand and road down all the methods that I knew were used after talking to other detainees. You 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 once I had to drg IT out of them. IT was not that easy, even some, some of the brothers, to tell me about that. I said, look, I am 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 the most of didn't live in the states, and they didn't understand how powerful the total could could be an asset in their legal case, right? And I said, look, this you need to, like, you gotta put IT down. This could be a ticket out here.

And there was lot of brother 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 doesn't matter. Every every day we get torture. Egypt, libya.

Yeah, what's the 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, and 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. Module would ask the other prisoner's question.

said, i've got how many times water burning, how many days? Okay.

number three months. okay. He interviewed .

them outside. During that time, he's working to 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, OK, no problem. I am not going. And I will get time with the brother and i'll interview him so I would sometimes memorize IT.

And then I go back to my cell. I write IT down. So he took, he took a long time to complete that sheet.

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

So then I had to make I had to categorize in a way that I just was, is uh, that he falls in that a category, right? Um do you .

remember an example .

of that like on the shi had unique experience like that he was hand for maybe eighteen hours or so ah they call IT the two point restrictions like your hands are tied up in legs are tied up, right so there's two point restart um 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 is like like .

kind of seized out legs .

yeah so he he came over right afternoon. So so that was unique, I just remember, was unique. I didn't anyone put them in there as I OK. I made a side note.

One of his interviews in particular, stuck with him, mustafa al hal, we, one of the nine eleven defendants accused of sending money to the nine eleven. Hy.

I ask, um, what was the worst torture 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 can just let us or or to put me in the box with the, with the bugs, in everything.

He said, I loved IT. I said, why? He said, there was the only time I felt then I was not necked. For him being a naked, for a man of woman that was the most tortured by the .

end of the project, marga felt I had done something great. If you 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, or some of the pain that the camp were doing to us.

You kept the spread getting is sell, hoping to share IT in court, some dead.

Moda deterrent y 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 muddy, he would finally get to speak to tell the story of his torture in court.

mod. Talk to the other camps of 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 he tell me, look, I feel sorry for you. 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 incorporated what information he gave the american government to fulfill his under the bargain. He told me IT wasn't much, but a prosecutor in the case told me that he did confess a lots the united states government didn't even know about yet. After a decade of CoOperation, IT was time for mother to be sentenced in front of a judge.

But before he did that, he and 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 much just advantage, according to the rules of the military commissions, and to modestly agreement model could call witnesses to support his case that he should get union say.

By then, many of the darkest details of the CIA torture program had been revealed, water boarding, the destruction of video tapes of the torture, even the death of a prisoner, the salt pit, a black light 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 tortures themselves. Moger layers knew that the CIA did not want those names revealed ever, so they made that part of their strategy.

His attack 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 companies arise some more lower level, like camp seven commanders and F, B, I agents who spent time with. 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 team wanted to put the entire government apparatus s responsible for the torture program on the stand.

Unsurprisingly, a legal battle ensued after years of motions and responses to motions and biggert in the entries of covered, the judge finally ruled, said midget 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 mud's favour. The government's ands were tired.

They were never going to be able to produce A, C, I, A 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 hieu eight years of his sentence.

Eight years IT was a lot. Plus the judge gave mudded another year off to dying 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 mother would get out just four months after the sentence 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, 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 sea black sites, everything he'd recorded in that spread sheet, because that might give the government 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 brother's apartment in karachi, his day in court was finally scheduled. According to the rules of the military commissions, a jury would be present for model 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 on musharaff, his work for okada. But, and I know how strange that sounds, they would not be told that modded and the government had already come to agreement. Instead, they would be told to consider modest crimes alongside whatever modi 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 to set, but their decision would have symbolistic, meaning this would be the first time a prisoner of the C. I. S.

Black sites would speak about his treatment in public. There might never be another reckoning for the crimes of that era, not on illegal way. At least the jury would weigh the two ledges what madd did against what we did, mugged, and decide for madd, for the country where justice lies.

It's what muddy had 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 alka model worried that the only reason the government was letting him talk was that nobody really cared anymore.

I think at this stage, I think, see, I and the americans know that amErica lost interest. Honest, being really pragmatic about IT, they lost interest. They know what that happens, that should happen and IT is almost like the uh, the creative tolerance for this that is almost, uh, how he said, desensitized to torture now and it's the fact and I think that's what C I is like fucking let him to speak and I don't think they care anymore, honestly. Was to be dealt while rewarding. We already had to turn down the time.

So will they care after the break?

It's Molly from new ork times cooking, and i'm in the kitchen with some of our team nicko returns. And what are you making for thanksgiving this year? I'm making the chee hassle back potato beaching layers of finally cut potatoes very easy, but it's a real show stopper.

What i'm actually doing, a mushroom welling ten puff payer ry, wrapped around this delicious, safe motion feeling, are you as standing, if not more so than a turkey? No matter what kind of think's giving your cooking, you can find the recipes you need IT N Y T cooking document slash and skiving. The courter mic one panama is a long window rectangle with six rows of defense tables on the left, merely by four roads of prosecution tables on the right.

IT looks like any other sterile courtroom, except in the back. There's a gallery separated by a thick wall of glass in a 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. Modded had been allowed to see them earlier that morning for the first time in ninety years. Did anything surprise you in that meeting about either one of them or about how you filter how they acted?

They're short as, like, and I did I get tall or like, or they are shorter. You know, just like this is like, because I T know there were about my size.

this hearing would be the first time they learn the details of modest imprisonment. There's no publicly available recording of this hearing, but I do the transrapid, and i've spoken with several people who were there that day. Model sits at the frontier 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 mounted 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 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 modded has admitted to it's just passionate but detail and it's damming the story of a Young man given a yy lum 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, marked in a black suit, thai, his lawyers, bottom at the next 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 much to proceeds.

I begin the name of god. My name is magic huang. And for the last fifteen years I have been incarcerated at naval station. Wanna be or get more magi d .

read some of his statement for me.

I have a story that I have waited almost two days is to tell. So I want to start by thanking you out 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 explained to the jury how he ended up an alka, how, after returning to baltimore or 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, ba, i'm sorry. I'm very sorry.

And then margin 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 disgust for alki a because it's one thing to read about torture on a page and another to be faced with a 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 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 boats. Now these metal boats were, I call them, ski metal boats. 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're paying on my shoes and telling me, is running and the end of court, this men were frequent, threatened me, saying, like some, we're going to take care of you. We are going to send you to a place that you cannot imagine. We will take you somewhere and make you talk.

End of coat. He turned in my family. He turned 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 the dip induct teep goggles in your mouth to his head, and then they film m 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 techno music blasting.

An interrogator in a black mask asked him questions about alka plot in the united states and the heat or 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, muddy hands through the move or wouldn't beam in the ceiling, and hoisted.

modded into the air with a movement. The guard had isted the chain attached to my hands and pull the chain tight. After a few more posts, I was hanging by my hands with my shackle fear barely touching the ground. The interrogators left the room as I scream in pain and try to support my weight. After a while, the international .

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. Lead interrogator push my head under the water and held me down as I struggle against drowning. And I guess for air, the integers, or would demand answer to the questions they refused dly 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 talked to who were in court that day said mudd 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. 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 a skin. Different details from his statement lodged in different people's heads for the prosecutor kernel walt Foster IT was hearing how budget was strong up by his arms for mud attn y major Michael lindz 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 source they left.

There's one person from the black sites who model refers to specifically in a statement, gives him nickname a man he calls the torture doctor. In April two thousand, four mod. Tels 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 as well, when he continued to hunger .

strike after the first meeting failed to get me to corporate, they returned to torture me. This party is extremely painful to talk about at the most 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 I U. Torture doctor while being restrained.

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

I remember one time in myself, I ask his torture doctor why he was doing this, and he whispered with viciousness and he said, quote, your fucking terrorism, 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 hoses, regular size hoses, connected to one side to my rectum. Another went to the forest.

And that would turn on the water. And I could feel the gush of water going into my victim. I remember feeling a as pressure in my balls, a pen. I I had never felt the C.

I, A, uh, mister ally called this red 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 victim. And then later that same day, they period mudges 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 nutrient 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 he's nearly done.

Ask them to bear with him. The judge says, would you like to take a break? Mister han and budget says, judge, I would like to get this over with.

Thanks him for concern. He picks back up in may of two thousand six, when things that started to change in CIA custody ease up a little. He went on a hunger strike again, but this time the americans didn punish h him, didn't rape him.

He told him he was depressed. They offered him prozac. Marja tells the jury how in september of two thousand six, he was transfer to go tonio.

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 antonio, but he doesn't to borrow them. And then he wrapped IT up, thanks his atterley take responsibility for his actions and his crimes, and apologizes to everyone he's hurt, including his wife, rubber and his daughter man's never met. He apologizes to his father again and to his siblings. Apologies, 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 change with you today.

At this point, marti's been reading for two hours nonstop. He says god bliss and walks back to his seat. By all accounts of the people i've talked to the jury, listen to mudge's 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 mudd han rather than the crimes of the united states government. He talks about the victims of the jaguar ta bombing, who've been upstaged 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 free to consider that conduct. However, despite what mister khan 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. Chrono Foster asked them to sentence him in the upper range of the spectrum.

Major Michael linus, one of maddy's defensive attorneys, gives a rebuttal. 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 asks mud to stand, and the form and reads a sentence quote mode show cott han, this military commission sentences you to be confined for twenty six years, zero months, zero days. Again, marja doesn't ough to serve all this time. This sentence is, is already said, but twenty six years, it's only one year more than the minimum. It's proof that magic was right to bet that a jury of americans would give him a lighter sentence once they heard about the torture.

The judge thinks 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 moda attorney, major linus, who leaves IT there on the desk. Ttl zingy folded in half while the judge wrapped .

up the session. We wanted to be right of way, right? And everybody's acting like it's not a big deal. No.

the judge finally says, mister hahn, I wish you all the best in the future. This court is adjourned.

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

the letter is written in tidy handwritings online paper IT reads, quote, the panel members listed below recommend clemency. In the case of magic chocolate han, it's a letter to the so called convening authority that the person who's the final arbiters of mod's 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 modi should get linens y because he was denied due process because he was a Young man when he committed his crimes and 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 tender able benefit to U. S.

interests. Instead, IT is a stain on the moral fibre of america. IT signed by seven of the eight jury members, all officers of the united states military, all serving during the global war on terrorism, and who, having compared the two leaders, rendered their verdict on this era of american history.

What model 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 torture.

They want that kind of thing to be out of bounds. They need the U. S. To hold the line. The clemency letter is rained on my wall in my office. That major lines, one of mod defense turney um and the original documents is a is in my closet and I still don't know what to do with IT. I don't .

know who you know national archives uh want want this original document because .

is currently just in to me it's .

the public it's it's 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't IT will probably stay in major linux is closet. I reached 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 ci's detention and interrogation program ended in two thousand nine.

The CIA 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 guantanamo stories, just want to put that place behind them. The american government certainly wants us to forget about gimme the black sides, the torture imagined, too. He finally got out of prison in february twenty twenty three, eleven months after a sentence officially ended, his attorney's median believes helped him set up his new house.

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

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

He has a twenty year old daughter and a new baby. He's gotto learn to raise a kid, find a job, commence 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 in belize interviewing him. You just want to move on.

I don't. You fuck about his history. T like, I don't wanted to be in part of history with all your spect.

I just wanted be forgotten. You know, who cares who's Martin thought? If I burned down by somebody with some place, I would make sure nobody knows where I when I die.

I just going to make sure only two people come, my two love ones. That's IT. My daughter, my wife. I'm happy. No, 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.

Cereal is produced by jesica, iceberg, sarkee and me. Our editor is Julie snyder. Additional reporting by core career that checking by ben fAiling music supervision, sound design and mixing by feb, wine original score by Sophia daily elsdon editing help from eye glass and genera are contributing.

Editors are Carol rosenberg and rosina ali. Additional production from emg rilla and might cometary our standards editor is Susan westling. Legal review from alan, ian summer and maya gandi.

The arpha show comes from public delkin, and max guter, supervising producer for serial productions, is under turbo. Our executive assistant is mac Miller. Sam donny is deputy managing editor of the new york times. Special thanks to tell a biog alison bcm en at the center for victims of torture, alvin mAlice, tug Wilson and Stevens anarchs.