http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0206/p01s05-woaf.htmlFormer Guantánamo prisoner asks U.S. to review its founding ideals
Adel Hassan Hamad, who is suing the US government, claims that American values of freedom and democracy have been shaken.
KHARTOUM - Former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad, who is suing the US government, claims that American values of freedom and democracy have been shaken.
It took US Army interrogators at Guantánamo Bay five years to reach the conclusion that Adel Hassan Hamad was exactly who he claimed to be: a hospital administrator in Pakistan. On December 11, 2007, they put him back on a military cargo plane, hooded and handcuffed, and sent him back to his home to Sudan. snip
"Most of the soldiers there, I doubted they could be from a great nation," Adam says. But sometimes he would meet an educated soldier, who would "deal with us quietly, kindly," until that soldier would be ordered to "change his style of treatment."
And there was the interrogator who, one day, started bringing Adam books from his own collection, books on European history and Western civilization, saying, "I can see you have the mind of a scholar."
Such glimpses of kindness were a source of hope for Adam, but these were overshadowed by the senselessness of his captivity. Adam later found out that US Army judges had decided to release him on Oct. 21, 2005, a decision that would not be carried out until Dec. 11, 2007. snip
Adam and Hamad both say that they hold no grudge against the American people, but want to be sure that Guantánamo and other military detention centers are shut down.
"We know that American society is a good society," Hamad says. "Our religion teaches us to treat those well who treat us badly."
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