Mohammed el Gharani

Mohammed el Gharani was the youngest prisoner in Guantánamo Bay, arrested when he was just 14.  In January 2009, a federal judge ruled that he was not and never has been an enemy combatant, and ordered him released.  He was released and transferred to his country of citizenship, Chad, on 11 June 2009 and spent a week in police custody before being released to his family.

Seized in Pakistan when he was just 14, Mohammed has grown up in US custody. He was accused of being an 11-year old member of an Al-Qaeda cell in London- a city he has never visited. After more than seven long years protesting his innocence, he was finally cleared for release in January 2009.

Mohammed was born in Saudi Arabia in 1987. He grew up in Medina, where he loved playing football and worked after school selling religious items to pilgrims to earn money for his family. Though he was born in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed is a national of Chad. Both his parents are from Chad, and in Saudi Arabia, citizenship follows that of one’s parents; place of birth is irrelevant.

Mohammed dreamed of becoming a doctor, but there is extreme discrimination in Saudi Arabia against Chadians and Mohammed was not allowed to obtain the same education as Saudi children. A friend suggested that he should travel to Pakistan to study computers instead. His options cut off at home, Mohammed decided to take this advice. He obtained a passport and visa, and left for Pakistan.

It was to be an ill-fated decision. Weeks after his arrival, while Mohammed was praying in a mosque, police surrounded the building and arrested everyone inside. He was interrogated about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and despite his insistence that he was a computer studies student who knew nothing about the groups, he was subjected to vicious beatings. When not being interrogated, he was hung by his wrists for hours at a time, so high that only the tips of his toes touched the ground.

He was turned over to the Americans twenty days later. If he was hoping for better treatment he was to be sorely disappointed. He was flown to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, where he was kept naked for days and subjected to racial abuse. One of the first words that Mohammed learnt in English was “nigger.” After two months of detention in Afghanistan, Mohammed was transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

There the abuse continued. The US military has subjected Mohammed to sleep deprivation, repeatedly moving him from cell to cell to prevent him from resting, freezing conditions, strobe lights and blasting music. Soldiers slammed Mohammed’s head to the floor, knocking out two teeth. An interrogator stubbed out his cigarette on Mohammed’s arm.

Unsurprisingly, Mohammed’s health has suffered as a result of his detention. His eyesight is failing due to the harsh lighting and he has twice been bitten by poisonous spiders, sustaining a weeping pus wound and bouts of serious sickness. During the course of his long incarceration, he slipped into depression.

Mohammed’s interrogators told him he would be imprisoned “forever.” For a young man who has spent a third of his life in Guantánamo Bay, this threat must have seemed all too real. He attempted suicide on several occasions, including slashing his wrists, trying to hang himself and running head-first into the wall as hard as he could.

Reprieve is delighted that Mohamed is finally free in Chad with his family and will continue to support him and help him to try and rebuild his life after everything he has been through.