752: An Invitation to Tea
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Okay, so man sits in front of a camera in his own home, trying to somehow summarize who he is, all that had happened to him over 14 years. Hi, everyone. My name is Mohammad Dosela, I'm from Mauritania. Sorry, right? Do people even know where Mauritania is? It drives another take. I am from Mauritania, in case you don't know what Mauritania is, which is very likely it's in West Africa. He continues at length, it doesn't work. This is too long, too preachy, not a take. Hi, everyone, please be with you. My name is Mohammad Dosela. I was kidnapped in 2001 and spent more than 14 years mostly in Guantanamo Bay. During this 14 years in Guantanamo, the United States government came to believe that he recruited into al-Qaeda, men who later became hijackers in the 9/11 attacks, but I never charged him with that or anything else. Mohammad Dosela, he was tortured on one occasion beaten quite badly, he was kept awake by loud music, made to stand for hours at the time, left shackled in the cold room. The torture stopped after a few months, but they kept him for another 13 years. A judge ruled that the government could prove that he had been in touch with people in al-Qaeda, and sometimes helped them out, but failed to show more than that, and didn't have enough evidence to hold him, so finally it was released. And if you've only heard of one Guantanamo detainee, this man, Mohammad Dosela, might be that guy. He wrote a book originally called Guantanamo Diary, published while he was still locked up, became a cause for human rights groups and celebrities, there's a movie about him with Jodi Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch and Tahir Raheem. These days, he is living in Mauritania, maybe the most famous person in the country, people stop around the street and at the beach, married an American human rights lawyer, had a son, writing another book, just published a novel. And the purpose of this video he was shooting was very particular, who wanted to issue an invitation to everyone who knew him at Guantanamo Bay, guards and interrogators, everybody. And for a long time, I invite all of you to my house so we could drink tea and talk about the place. Thank you very much and God bless you. This invitation to tea, it's also at the very end of his book. And for a long time, nobody took them up on it. But then, by chance, one of the guards from Guantanamo noticed on Facebook that Mohammad Dosela was out and messaged him. God's name is Scott, though Mohammad knew him as master Jedi, guards didn't use the real names, they wore masks, apparently there was a whole Star Wars thing going on, it was master Yoda, master Luke, anyway, Scott, Jedi, was really young at the time. That's into Guantanamo when it was assigned right away to Muhammadu, their most high-profile detainee. I remember going into that building scared to death because I was expecting someone about eight feet tall, 200 pounds so that I didn't know what I was getting into. You know, as a young kid, but I opened up that screen and I see this skinny little tan man laying on a bed who looked like he didn't have a clue what was going on. This audio that you're hearing was collected as part of this really remarkable documentary
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