Interview with Khalid Al Odah

It's been three years since Khalid al Odah has spoken to his eldest son, Fawzi. In the autumn of 2001, amidst the bombing of Afghanistan, Fawzi was sold to American soldiers by local tribesmen, and is currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. A former US trained colonel in the Kuwaiti Air Force, Khalid al Odah is the main spokesperson for the Kuwaiti Detainees Family Committee, a delegation of twelve families who, earlier this year, petitioned the Supreme Court, which subsequently ruled in their favour. Recently, Khalid and his family launched his campaign in the UK, with a demonstration in Central London. Khalid took time out of his busy schedule to speak to Cageprisoners.com

CAGEPRISONERS.COM: Tell us about your visit to London, what were your objectives in visiting?

KO: In London there are a lot of people who will listen to us and support the cause of Human Rights and who have expressed an interest in the Guantanamo issue. So we went to London to launch our first demonstration and our Yellow Ribbon Campaign to the West and hope that people in Britain will understand our cause. We felt that the response was fairly good. We met a lot with the media and other activists in London, and made new bonds with others in London. We feel that people in Britain are raising the flag of opposition to the US Administration on its policy on Guantanmo Bay and other cases. They are also active in opposing the UK government in its support for the US in their policy on the War against Terrorism which is creating many innocent victims and devastating many families like mine.

CP: Were you able to meet with any of the former detainees? What were they able to tell you about Fawzi and the other Kuwaitis?

KO:Unfortunately, we did not meet with any of the former detainees in the UK, but a month after their release, we got a response through Cageprisoners.com from some of the detainees telling us about the condition of some of the Kuwaiti detainees. Unfortunately Fawzi was not among them, but we were very glad to learn about three of them.

CP: Tell us about the new website Kuwaitifreedom.org - the "yellow ribbon story" in particular and why you have chosen to use this story?

KO: We revitalized our Web site a few months ago to coincide with our renewed efforts to reach the American news media and to hasten the legal proceedings and the release of our loved ones. As part of that effort, we launched the Yellow Ribbon campaign. The Yellow Ribbon campaign is a tool which we could use so that the West, especially Americans, can better understand what we are going through. Americans understand what the Yellow Ribbon signifies so we try to reach them in the language that they understand. They first used this Yellow Ribbon as a symbol when they had hostages in Iran 25 years ago, so we want to draw a parallel with that and gain some support from them. We feel the way to tackle the American administration is through the American public. The Yellow Ribbon story is a very old story; one of the soldiers in the last century was detained in war by the enemy and his wife tied a yellow ribbon on the tree by the house, as a sign that she was waiting for him and remembering him, and trying to get him back. So, when there were any POWs or any prisoners detained the Yellow Ribbon symbol was always used. It’s not that we believe that if we put a Yellow Ribbon our boys will come back, but it is just a recognised symbol we use so that the West will understand us.

CP: The Supreme Court Ruling - to what extent was it a turning point for you? What has been the impact of this ruling upon your struggle? What now in the legal process?

KO: The Supreme Court ruling was a turning point, a landmark. We thought that when this ruling occurred, it would be the beginning of the end of our ordeal. But now we realise the end is only after a very long struggle with the legal system in the US, especially with this very hard-line administration with their policies on the Guantanamo detainees. With regards to the legal process, it is still going on. We are struggling through the federal courts, trying to convince them to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. It now seems as if it’s going to be a very long struggle.

CP: How did you react to the ruling in October that your son and 2 of the other Kuwaitis, would be able to meet with their lawyers in private, unmonitored? Has he had access to an attorney since then?

KO: No, not yet, in fact a meeting should take place within the next few weeks. There will be a meeting with our lawyers, at the beginning of January - a team of lawyers going to visit them. We were very concerned that when they meet with our boys there, they might not trust them. We learned that the administration in Guantamano have been imitating some lawyers and meeting with the Kuwaiti detainees, and telling them they were our attorneys, in order to extract more information from them. They did the same posing as Red Cross representatives. So now the prisoners mistrust everyone. So we prepared letters of introduction, from us to our boys there, telling them that the people who will hand them these hand written letters - they know our hand writing - that these people are your lawyers and you have to talk to them and trust them. We also made a video tape presenting the lawyers to them, with all the family members in it sitting and talking to the attorneys.

CP: Can you elaborate on the court papers which came to light earlier this month, which apparently confirm that the Kuwaiti 12 were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

KO: There is a lot of evidence with our lawyers and statements taken from a lot of American officials saying that the Kuwaitis have nothing to do with terrorism, and have no ties with al Qaeda at all. This was the talk for the last two and a half years, the same thing. We have all the evidence that these Kuwaitis were charity workers, they have a long history of humanitarian work and we can prove that. We just want to prove it to them, that’s why our lawyers handed over these documents to the courts to prove that our loved ones are not involved in any violence or any cause other than the charitable ones they discussed.

CP: What was your reaction to the Judge's landmark recent ruling in the case of Salim Ahmad Hamdan, that he is entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions? What do you feel are its implications for the other detainees?

KO: I think this is great ruling, I think the judicial system is working especially since the Supreme Court ruling was declared in June. When Judge Robertson ruled on Hamdan being considered under the Geneva conventions, I really felt that this is first nail in the American Commissions’ coffin but I think that we need a lot of nails. This is the first one, and we need to continue in our struggle and put more nails into the military commission system which was created by this administration and which is strongly criticized by a lot of human rights lawyers and organisations. The law system in the US is the common law system, which means that when they rule on one case, it will be applied to the other four detainees who have been put forward for the military commission. This will be very helpful for all the lawyers who are defending the detainees at Guantanamo.

CP: How did you respond to incredulous claims which the US Administration have made against your son (by Brigadier General Martin J. Lucenti in August 2004 i.e. that he admitted to being member of Taliban and al Qaeda)?

KO: It's very strange. When you have 12 Kuwaitis detained for nearly three years, and we are told, ‘yes they are innocent, we want to just clarify their names and they are not involved in anything’. Then all of a sudden this affidavit came from Lucenti, saying that all of the Kuwaiti 12 are guilty and dangerous, especially these three among who is Fawzi. We think that Lucenti has been instructed by the administration to do this. There was a case in front of the court, trying to get the lawyers to meet with our boys without any monitoring and then because of this, the American Government asked Lucenti to write this, to support the view that they must be monitored. It wasn’t an accusation, it was just an affidavit. The strange thing was that they [the administration] leaked it to the media in order to get the support of the American public. Later, we heard that when three of the five British detainees were released, they had been accused of being personal body guards to Osama bin Laden and then suddenly they were released and this allegation was proved wrong. These detainees admitted they were, forced to do so, under torture and long isolation, and they had confessed to what the Americans said. So what Lucenti was saying was trying to help the American attorneys to build a case against our lawyer to monitor our meetings

CP: Could you tell us what brought Fawzi to the Afghan-Pakistani region in August 2001?

KO: Fawzi was of one of 12 Kuwaitis detained in Guantanamo Bay. He didn’t know the other 12 at that time, but he had a long history of charity work there since 1996 when he created a Ramadhan project. Each Ramadhan he would collect donations from relatives and in the neighbourhood, in order to build a classroom or build a well in poor countries. He continued to do so until he graduated from university. He was employed in 1999 as a Quran teacher, and they are entitled to summer vacations, so in the year 2000, in his summer vacation he decided to use some of his time to help poor people, especially children in Pakistan. He chose to teach the children in the villages. He went August 2000 came back at the end of September 2000 and he was very excited and wanted to do this every year. He came back in August 2001 and was there [in Pakistan] in September when September 11th happened. Immediately, the government focused on Afghanistan, and a lot of refugees from Afghanistan left for Pakistan. He was at the Pakistani border trying to help. He rang me and told me that he’s okay, and staying for a bit longer. That was the last we heard until the “Newsweek” team appeared, they sent a team to Pakistan, and published an article called “Guantanamo Justice” [http://www.cageprisoners.com/pr\_articles.php?aid=41]. They wrote about how 5 Kuwaitis – Fawzi among them, were detained. They crossed the border into Afghanistan, then they got caught as the Pakistani borders closed. They tried to cross the borders with two Pakistani guides, and landed in one of the villages across the border. Then, the head of the tribe in this village sold them to the Pakistani officials who sold them to the Americans. It was a tragedy. They were very weak and hungry, the guide said to them, ‘I would never take any Kuwaitis across mountains as these Kuwaitis were very frightened and very weak, I have to, sometimes, with my colleague, carry them on my back.’ The Pakistanis put them in a jail in Khohat and then they were transferred to Kandahar. We received the first letter in February 2002 from the Red Cross in Kandahar, he wrote the letter a month before on 8th January, a very short letter, saying ‘Dad, Mum, don’t worry about me. I am in the custody of the Americans who will interrogate me and find me innocent, I will be back home in no time.’ That’s what we also thought about the Americans, we were shocked when our Government told us that Fawzi and one other Kuwaiti had been shifted to Guantanamo. That was on the 13th February 2002.

CP: Can you describe how you and your wife felt when you received the news?

KO: At the beginning, when the air strikes on Afghanistan began and we lost contact with Fawzi, we thought he was dead. So when we discovered that he was alive, we were very happy and we were more than happy that he was in the custody of the American forces. We thought at that time that these are the people of justice and dignity and they will soon discover that he is innocent and they will send him home.

CP: What was the response of the Kuwaiti government and what assistance have they offered since?

KO: The Kuwaiti Government is doing its best by supporting us morally and financially. They have been standing with us from the beginning. Their office doors are always open for us and we have had a lot of meetings with them especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and even the Prime Minister himself. They are trying their best to press the US government to get our boys back. We think the Kuwaiti Government is the best Government dealing with this issue for its citizens concerning the area surrounding Kuwait, in the region. Our government officials are very fair, but still we need them to press more and more to get our boys back. The result is that one detainee is going to be coming home, we hope that he will be back for the end of this year, Nasir al Mutayri, and we hope when we meet him we will understand what has been going on there.

CP: How much communication have you had with your son since he has been in Guantanamo?

KO: Very little. We have received 9 letters since he has been detained. The last letter he wrote was on 30th November 2002, we have not received any letters for the past two years. But there is another channel of communication which is the visit of the Kuwaiti delegation, they went twice, once in August 2002 and then in January 2004. They met with all the detainees and spoke with them. We met with the delegation before they went and when they returned from Guantanamo. We learnt about all the conditions of our detainees, about their health, how they are doing. They said that Fawzi is in good sprits, his imaan (faith) is very strong and always smiling with them and talking with them, he was very patient and always telling them that he is going to come back, he doesn’t know when, but he is certain he is coming back some day.

CP: Can you tell us a little about the Kuwaiti Detainees Family Committee that you have established, and its work?

KO: We established our committee in January 2002 immediately after we learnt that we had five Kuwaitis being detained by the American forces. Then we learnt a few months after that there are 12 Kuwaitis. All the family members of those detainees joined us. Our strategy is to try, in a civilized way, to get our boys back. We used four channels: firstly, through our Government to enhance and push them to communicate with the US Government. Secondly, the legal channel which we established in March 2002, and we are continuing with that. Thirdly, the media, we think that we should let others hear our voice and explain to the world that they should not be detained and that they are there without charge. The fourth is to communicate with the Human Rights organisations and any organisations who can help us and try to work with them. We are still working through these four channels.

CP: Could you give us an insight into the ordeal your family and the other Kuwaiti families have endured for the past two and a half years? What has been the effect of the absence of their sons and husbands?

KO: Fawzi is my eldest son. I never he recalled that he ever upset me. Fawzi is so gentle and so good to me and especially to his mother. He is a very fine boy, well educated, very generous and very humble. To lose him like this and to have him being detained in this way, it has affected my family very much, especially his mother and myself. His mother is really trying her best to cope with that. When I come from work I find her sitting in the corner of the bedroom and weeping. I don’t know what to do, I try to comfort her and try to get her out of this. Sometimes when I am sleeping at night and I wake, I sometimes find her in Fawzi’s bedroom, she always said “we shouldn’t abandon this room, keep it warm until he comes back”. My sons miss him very much, Fawzi was so good to his brothers and sisters, even to the neighbours. We even have an Indian servant who cooks for us in the house, and he always asks about Fawzi because Fawzi was so good to him. Everyone is thinking about him. Our home is empty without him. But we are not the only ones – all the families are suffering greatly.

For the other families – for Fuad al Rabia, he is 46 now. He has a wife and 4 children and two of them are teenagers. His wife cannot handle them, she has a lot of difficulty with them. Fuad has a brother Munzir who was working with us in the Kuwaiti Families Committee, he died earlier this year, then his father passed away. You can imagine the grief of the mother of Fuad. She lost her husband, one son, and the other son in Guantanamo. She was lying in hospital for a month and now she is back. Still, we are very concerned that we might lose her.

CP: How are these families coping financially?

KO: For some of these families their breadwinners are inside Guantanamo, 6 of the 12 are married with children. In the Kuwaiti law, when you are out for more that 15 days after your vacation has finished then, you lose your position at work. But the Government is standing with us; they give these families social payments - not to the same level as they received before, it is almost half of that. But it has been okay. We have been all supporting one another and helping.

CP: Do you have any sort of fund people can donate to?

KO: The problem is the Americans have imposed the need for a special license before any donation can go through. The license is something so complicated now, observed by the Americans, they won’t let it go through. This is something very bad. We managed to collect together some private donations to help the families.

CP: Have you or any of your family had any significant dreams about Fawzi since his arrest? Could you share this with our readers?

KO: All the family have them. I remember the last dream my wife had. After three years of getting no letters ,my wife was praying to Allah, that she should receive a letter, even one sentence,and she dreamt of this letter, and written the same – one sentence and Fawzi was holding the letter for her, and telling her ‘read this letter, I am ok, don’t worry about me’. The dreams are not just in our family. During Ramadhan, when I was going to the mosque, I met one of my friends who said ‘I had a dream last night with Fawzi in it, he was going to the mosque and I shook hands with him and said ‘where were you, you have been away for a very long time’. He said ‘I came back I am ok’.’ He said his face was very bright and he was smiling. It is not just us dreaming about Fawzi. Others are too.

CP: Can you tell us some of the qualities Fawzi possessed that made him unique and special to you?

KO: Fawzi always had time for his mother, and he always used to take some of the burden of my work. He always used to take his mother shopping, and he took them for picnics sometimes. He was so close to them. When he was employed he had a good salary. He stayed in the house, ate the same food, and he didn’t have any expenses, and would spend little. But by the end of the month, he would always borrow money from me, because he had given his money away to the poor people inside Kuwait and abroad. In his account, he only had a few dinars. So Fawzi was always thinking about the others, never thought about himself. How to help the poor and relive them. He was very loved by his friends and neighbours. He is the first of my children who memorized the whole Quran by heart and now because of him my eldest daughter is now memorizing the whole Quran and in my house. Three of my other children have also memorized the Quran.

CP: You yourself made quite a significant contribution to the 1991 Gulf War, putting your own life at risk whilst aiding the US - How has your son's detention altered your feelings towards the American government?

KO: I still believe the American ordinary people are very good people. I lived in the US in the early ‘70s I spent four years there. The nation of the United States is founded on good principles; They are for democracy, respect the rule of law, it is easy to have an American friend. During the Gulf War, I was one of the leaders of the Kuwaiti resistance to liberate Kuwait and I was in direct contact with General Horner, who was the head of the air campaign in this war. We were their eyes and we lent them a lot of support to them through satellite phone. We had been very close to them and faced dangers at that time from Iraqi forces. I remember when the American tanks marched in to Kuwait and the Iraqis left, I was standing on the highway and Fawzi was standing with me, he was 13 years old. Fawzi couldn’t help himself, he let go of my hand and went down the highway and he was dancing and shaking hands with the American troops and waving the American flag and Kuwaiti flag and was very happy that these troops liberating our country. Now when I see what is happening to my son there, what really gets me is that the American friends I have and other ordinary Americans are standing with us, they are understanding what’s happening there, that I why I still believe the American people are good people. It is just the administration, what they are doing is demolishing the ties between the nations and if they continue on this policy it will be very hard to build bridges between nations.

CP: CIA-director George Tenet admitted that at least 9 of the 12, including your son, are completely genuine and innocent of any crime. There was even strong speculation that these 9 would be released as far back as 2002 - what do you believe is the reason for their continued detention, in spite of this acknowledgement of their innocence?

KO: I've come to realise that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is founded on political reasons. I think Guantanmo Bay is the tip of the iceberg, there are a lot of things hidden. This tip of the iceberg shows there is a detention facility, which the media and world community can focus own, so that it will distract attention from the other facilities that exist that are violating human rights. The Human Rights First report mentioned more than 24 secret detention facilities across the world that came out post 9/11 and these people detained there have no names, no records, the ‘ghost detainees.’ Guantanamo Bay is helping to distract from the others. Also Guantanmo Bay is a tool for the elections, to support the administration that the Guantanamo detainees are ‘bad people, caught on the battlefield, kept in cages, they won’t harm you anymore’. Who are these unfortunate people? They are the victims of American policy.

CP: Is there any message you wish to give to our readers?

KO: We really thank all the supporters who supported us for three years now. We must continue to struggle and fight the policies of the US Government or get a binding legal motion against them. Please continue to support us, please continue to understand our cause and thank you very much for your attention, your time and your help.

CP: What do you think of our website?

KO: Brilliant! I think your website is the best website highlighting the Guantanamo issue and the unfair detention by the authorities in general. We believe this site has been very helpful for us as family members. This site has shone a light on these issues and a lot of people have come to understand this cause very, very well through your site.

CP: Khalid Al Odah, thank you for speaking to us.