Interview with Rabia Yaqoob

Since March 2003 Majid Khan was among those being held by the US in secret detention after it was suggested that he was an Al Qaeda operative. In late 2006 Majid was one of 14 ‘High-Value Detainees’ moved from secret detention to Guantanamo Bay to face processing through the Military Commissions established by President Bush.

While on a research mission to Pakistan in late 2006, Asim Qureshi (Cageprisoners) and Zachary Katznelson (Reprieve) met with the wife of Majid Khan, Rabia Yaqoob, to learn how her husband had ended up in Guantanamo Bay. The following interview is that of a wife and a mother who on just getting to know her husband, had him snatched away before she really knew what it meant to be married.  

Cageprisoners: Can you please introduce yourself to our readers and where you come from?

Rabia Yaqoob: My name is Rabia Yaqoob, I live in a village in the district of Hyderabad [located in the Province of Sindh] from where I came and from where I originate. I was born, have been educated and brought up there.

CP: How did you meet Majid Khan?

RY: How did we meet…we had a sudden and completely arranged marriage. He is my Aunt’s nephew, and through her it was arranged. Before all of this we had never met, we had never even seen one another. It was his wish that he should be married to an Alima, and that is how our marriage took place.

CP: Where are Majid’s family from? 

RY: Majid’s family are originally from Karachi in Pakistan. I think that for some years they had lived in Saudi Arabia and then they lived for a few years in Pakistan after which point the whole family shifted to the US. And they have been there somewhere between 10 to 12 years.

CP: How many brothers and sisters does he have?

RY: He has 3 brothers and four sisters. They are nearly all in America. One brother in Karachi, married with two daughters, the rest are in America. His mother passed away around five years ago, but his father is alive and in the US. Majid is the youngest of all the brothers and he has two younger sisters.

CP: What did Majid study, where did he study from? Could you please tell us about his educational background?

RY: To be honest I really don’t know all these details, we had hardly enough time to spend with one another in order to speak about the past and all these details. In only a few months there was only so much I could learn about him. I knew that he graduated from the US in his degree after which he done a number of short courses there. I know that he had a job in a very big company and it was an excellent job, even though he was the youngest there.  

CP: Have you met any of Majid’s family, the ones from the US? Do they ever come here?

RY: I don’t really know them that well as they do not come here much. They came here early this year around January time for a wedding. They are all really nice people I just don’t know too much about them. They had come for Majid’s sister’s wedding. This was the first time I had met with most of them, and it was the first time they had met my daughter Minal. They were impressed and happy that Minal was being well looked after.

CP: Were any of the family members present for your wedding?

RY: Only three of the family members were here, my father-in-law, Majid’s elder sister, and one older brother.

CP: What is Majid like as a person?

RY: He is a very nice man; he is the type of person who makes friends with everyone he meets and likes to make jokes with them regardless of how recently he met them. He would constantly worry and care about everyone. He was extremely jolly. He used to spend a lot of time with the family and was such a lively person.

CP: He was a religious man?

RY: I don’t think that he was actually that particularly religious. He was very particular about making sure that he prayed on time five times a day. He was very particular about his prayer. He was also quite particular about keeping modesty when meeting with women who he was not related to. I didn’t really get the chance to see how religious he was beyond that. Whenever anyone needed help, he would be very quick to rush to their aid and do absolutely everything he could to help them out. He never wanted to harm anyone.

CP: Where did he go travelling, did he travel a lot?

RY: He used to like to travel. After our wedding we went on our honeymoon to Swaat [northern area of Pakistan particularly known for its beautiful scenery] for about a week as he needed to get back to the US. So we really only had 10 days. Those seven days though, they were the best days of my life. After that he knew that I used to like to go the seaside, so we would go whenever we could. For five months he was in America, and then he was back with me for eight months.

CP: What date did you get married?

RY: 26th February 2002 we got married. He got kidnapped on 5th March 2003.

CP: What was he doing while he was out there in the US for five months and how often were you in contact?

RY: He was working with his father at the gas stations during those five months and was not working with the company. We had contact with one another on a daily basis, through the internet and phone. We had a routine of talking through one of these means both morning and night time. We were in touch so much that at times, we could spend the entire night talking to one another online. Physically we were apart but we were in touch as much as we would have been if we were together. I was so used to his call coming at any time to tell me to come online, that a single beep from my phone would be enough to wake me from my sleep so I could speak to him. This was mainly due to the 10 hour time difference between the two countries as he was in Baltimore.

CP: When Majid came back to Pakistan for the eight month period, what was his daily routine?

RY: Nearly all the time he was at home with me. Once in a while he would leave to go meet up with his cousins and spend time with them, but for the most part he was at home.

CP: Did he ever leave for any extended periods of time, even for one or two days?

RY: No, he never left for any period of time. If ever he went anywhere, I would go with him. So sometimes we would go to stay at my parent’s place and other times with family friends. But I was nearly always with him.

CP: He never left Pakistan?

RY: No, he never left for the country during that period for any purpose.

CP: Was he not working at all?

RY: During that time period he was not working at all. His plans however were to permanently move back to Pakistan. In between what happened was that I was applying for a visa to the US, but they rejected me, so instead he began to make plans to move back to Pakistan so that he could be with me. 3 years before that I was only 18, so I was only a child myself and didn’t understand much of what was going on at all. I would hardly think in any detail. Now I am 22 and am able to understand these things much better, I am a lot more responsible now.

CP: Could you please elaborate on the circumstances of the arrest?

RY: I was at my parent’s place due to my health not being well and so I went to stay with them so I could get some rest and to meet with them. I was there for 20 to 25 days. Then on 26th February it was going to be our one year anniversary, so Majid came to Hyderabad to see me. He only came for a day though, but we kept in contact until the day that he was kidnapped.

That day they had taken the whole family. They took Majid, his brother, his brother’s wife, their daughter, they took them all. No one told me about this as my health was already poor and they did not want to excessively worry me, they just told me that Majid had gone somewhere and that he was just a little tied up. It was not until a week later that I found out the truth. They were worried that my condition would worsen if they told me. A week after the arrest they released my sister-in-law and a month later Majid’s brother.

CP: How old was the daughter of your brother-in-law?

RY: She was only one month old, and they arrested her as well!

CP: Who came to the house, was it the Pakistanis or the Americans?

RY: They were both there, both the Pakistani and the Americans. I don’t know the exact details, but from what I have been told, there were in total 14 to 15 cars that came to make the arrests after blocking off the whole area. The blindfolded everyone, placed masks on them and took them away.

CP: Do you know how the Americans and Pakistanis were dressed when they came, what they looked like, were they soldiers?

RY: I’m afraid I don’t know these details. I came to know so late and I never thought to ask these details.

CP: Do you know where they were taken right away from the house?

RY: I’m sure they were being kept somewhere in Karachi, but I have no idea where they were being kept. For everyone living in Karachi was a very new thing and since they were hooded my in-laws didn’t know.

CP: When did Majid go to Karachi to stay with his brother and sister-in-law?

RY: 26th February he went back to stay with them after the wedding anniversary. Before then he was living there as well. He was there for 10 to 15 days before that. I had phone contact with Majid during that period every single day. He wasn’t travelling at all during that time, he was just in Karachi.

CP: Everything that happened, how did it affect you when you first heard about it?

RY: I didn’t have any reaction as such, I just went completely quiet. I don’t know what to say really…it really hurt a lot. It was a very difficult time, I still wasn’t well and I didn’t know what was going on or how to react. For everyone else it was also hard. I was expecting with Minal which made it even more difficult, I just could not adjust to the idea that my husband had been picked up.

CP: Once Minal was born did it become easier or more difficult to deal with things?

RY: Mashallah (It is from God) that when Minal was born I knew things would be so much better. I thank God for that. However it hurt to know that Minal’s father was not with me; that made it a little more difficult. It is so difficult especially when you have done so much planning for when the child to be born not to be able to share those moments with your husband. I thank God that he has sent me this little gift that I can play with and she constantly makes me happy. 

CP: What affect has this had on Minal, how is her life knowing that her father is alive, but not knowing where he is?

RY: God has really helped me so much with this situation. For from every single person that we know she has received so much love. She doesn’t really know exactly what a father is, she looks at my own father and considers him a father in the place of my husband. However, it is more my feelings of hurt that she does not know who her father is. What kind of life do I have?

At the age of one, we would show Minal pictures and explain to her that this is who your father is. Just to give her an idea that this is who he is. She has since then started speaking to the picture saying things like the picture will get angry if she does something wrong, she tries to put the picture to sleep, to feed it, she cleans it, and even just today she was wiping the nose of her father using a tissue. She asks the picture so many questions. Whenever she is eating, she will always offer the picture food first. Every night she has a daily routine of praying for her father before she goes to sleep. She specifically asks God to bring home her father and also to bring home all the uncles that have been taken away from their families.

CP: When was the first time someone came to speak to you about Majid or tell you about his situation?

RY: No one came to me, the men came from the agencies to meet Majid’s uncles and they were warned that they should not cause any fuss over his kidnapping, otherwise something bad would happen, so everyone got scared. When my brother-in-law was released, then they similarly warned him from raising any issue which once again renewed the fear of raising awareness about the illegal detention. We were all warned away from doing anything. My father-in-law had wanted to take a lawyer immediately and go to court, but due to the fear it didn’t happen.

CP: How soon after the kidnapping did they call?

RY: This happened within the next two or three days to Majid’s uncle. It all happened very fast.

CP: The agency that came is ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)?

RY: They don’t specify, they simply say that they are from intelligence. Once or twice they have contacted me, but never since then. In a single sitting, they sat down with my brother and asked him many questions about Majid, what he was like, they said that don’t worry, he is going to come back. They were all Pakistani people. I didn’t really know what was going on so didn’t ask too many questions.

Rabia Yaqoob, thank you for taking the time to speak with us.