Nabil Hadjarab

French resident Nabil Hadjarab has been held prisoner in Guantánamo Bay since February 2002. He has not been charged with any crime and has had no trial. The United States has cleared him for release since 2007, finding Nabil is not a danger to anyone, yet he remains a prisoner.

Nabil was born in Algeria on 21 July 1979 but moved to France when he was just a baby. His father, Said, who had served in the French army, settled in Lyon, where he ran a small café. Nabil has seven half-brothers and sisters from his father’s first marriage, who are all French citizens, but Nabil himself was not so fortunate.

The only child from his father’s short-lived second marriage in Algeria, Nabil was taken in by a neighbour, Madame Gheboub, after the marriage came to an end. Mme. Gheroub soon became Said Hadjarab’s third wife, but when she travelled to France to join her husband, the situation soon deteriorated. Said Hadjarab had a problem with alcohol and was apparently violent.

At two and a half, Nabil was admitted to the hospital with bruising and a hernia, for which he needed surgery. The doctor reported that: “The child is sad, withdrawn and doesn’t speak at all. He is significantly behind in his development.”

French social services reports at the time described Nabil as a “very anxious” child, who “seemed to be suffering from a significant lack of affection.” He “was sad and refused any kind of mothering.” A psychiatrist felt Nabil was “a battered child who has built up his defences.”

Nabil was eventually placed in the care of a foster family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He reportedly enjoyed his life with his foster family, and attended the local primary school. When Nabil was nine, however, his father reappeared, and took him back to Algeria.

When he turned 18 in 2000, Mr. Hadjarab returned to France to be reunited with his siblings and his foster family. He sought legal advice in an attempt to obtain French residency. After gathering the relevant documentation, he was advised by his immigration lawyers that review of his application would take up to six months. Mr. Hadjarab worried deeply that he could be found to be undocumented, deported and barred from returning. So, on the advice of friends, Mr. Hadjarab made the fateful decision to leave France and go to England, where he was told it was easier to live undocumented and find work.

Mr. Hadjarab lived in the UK for a few months, working at various temporary jobs. However, as he did not have a national insurance number, no one would hire him full-time. Living in constant fear of deportation, he heard he could live in Afghanistan without papers. It would also be a chance to live in a Muslim country and learn more about Islam. So, at the end of March 2001, Mr. Hadjarab left and went to Kabul, via Pakistan.

Mr. Hadjarab was given the name of another Algerian living in Kabul, who kindly took him in and gave him a place to stay. Mr. Hadjarab was expected to contribute now and then to living expenses and help with household chores. Three other Algerians lived there as well. Mr. Hadjarab spent his time studying the Koran and getting to know the city. Most happily for him, he fulfilled a life-long dream of buying a horse, using the money he had been able to save up in the UK. Mr. Hadjarab never attended a training camp or had anything to do with terrorism.

When war broke out, reports began to circulate that the Northern Alliance was rounding up and killing Arabs. In fear, Mr. Hadjarab fled with his housemates to Jalalabad, then when that too seemed unsafe, to the mountains outside the city. The US was bombing all the main roads leading toward safety in Pakistan, so Mr. Hadjarab stayed in the mountains for a few weeks, hoping the danger would ease. Alas, it did not, but feeling he could wait no longer, Mr. Hadjarab attempted to reach to the border. He would not make it. Instead, he was wounded by a bomb and ended up in a hospital in Jalalabad, taken there by another refugee who carried Mr. Hadjarab to safety. Mr. Hadjarab never learned the man’s name and never got the chance to say thank you.

From his hospital bed, Mr. Hadjarab was sold to US forces for a bounty. Mass amounts (relative to yearly incomes in Afghanistan) were being offered for suspected suspected terrorists. Someone at the hospital took advantage. After his sale, Mr. Hadjarab was shipped to the United States prison at Kandahar airport. He explained time and again that he was innocent. He strenuously denied accusations, based on the interrogations of other prisoners, of attending a training camp supposedly linked to al Qaeda. In fact, several US interrogators at the time told Mr. Hadjarab that his was a case of mistaken identity. Unfortunately, the US high command had handed down strict rules for people like Mr. Hadjarab: every Arab who ended up in US custody was to be sent to Guantánamo, regardless of the quality of the evidence against him. Shackled, bound and hooded, Mr. Hadjarab was flown to Guantánamo in March 2002.

In the spring of 2007, after five years’ imprisonment without charge or trial, Nabil was finally vindicated when a military tribunal found that Nabil posed no threat, had no intelligence value or significance in terms of law enforcement, and approved his release from Guantánamo Bay.

Two years later, Nabil remains in Guantánamo.

Life was virtually unlivable for Nabil in Algeria, and he prefers to go to a country where he would have family ties, such as France. He considers himself more French than Algerian, and seeks merely to rebuild his life and, with the help of his family, move on from this ordeal.

For Nabil, resettlement in France offers the only happy ending there can be for life already marked by a disproportionate amount of sadness.