US Guantanamo Bay
Metadata
- US Guantanamo Bay
- January 14, 2022
- Content Type Package
- Language English
- Transcript/Script FOR USAGM SHARE ((PLAYBOOK SLUG: US - Guantanamo Bay (TV) HEADLINE: Former Guantanamo Detainee: “I’m Still in Guantanamo 2.0” TEASER: PUBLISHED AT: Thursday, 01/13/2022 at BYLINE: Carla Babb CONTRIBUTOR: DATELINE: Pentagon VIDEOGRAPHER: VIDEO EDITOR: SCRIPT EDITORS: AP, BR VIDEO SOURCE (S): Reuters, Skype, file PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV __ RADIO __ TRT: 3:53 VID APPROVED BY: Sue Jepsen TYPE: EDITOR NOTES: Production: Serbian Service is requesting edited script ASAP and TV piece by 3pm if possible// )) ((ANCHOR INTRO)) [[It has been 20 years since the first prisoners in the war on terror arrived at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At least 800 people have been detained there over the last two decades, the vast majority of whom were never charged with a crime. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb speaks with Mansoor Adayfi, a former detainee who has devoted his life to closing the prison.]] ((Mansoor Adayfi, Former Guantanamo Detainee)) [ 00:23:21 - 00:23:31 ] ((MANDATORY SKYPE COURTESY)) “Today I just have a message to Mr. Biden: please close Guantanamo. You know, that place is a stain in American history, American values, American policy.” ((NARRATOR)) ((2 pictures of Adayfi in Yemen I will send)) ((COURTESY Mansoor Adayfi)) Yemeni national Mansoor Adayfi says he went to Afghanistan when he was 18 to research Islamic paramilitary groups for one of the Islamic institutes in Yemen. He never returned. ((please cover first sentence until 9/11 with footage of the world trade center attack-use what’s in Reuters here: https://www.reutersconnect.com/detail?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2022%3Anewsml_WDFTNL7IF%3A3 )) ((Mansoor Adayfi, Former Guantanamo Detainee )) [ 00:03:57 - 00:04:17 ] ((MANDATORY SKYPE COURTESY)) “When I arrived in Afghanistan, after a couple of months 9/11 happened.” ((Possible nat pop of President Bush saying I can hear you, the world hear’s you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon CHEERS)) Then I was kidnapped by one of the warlords, sold from one to another and then sold to the Americans to be al-Qaida.” ((NARRATOR)) ((US forces in Afghanistan, no faces please, just cars or tactical vehicles)) He says the Americans were looking for a middle-aged Egyptian al-Qaida leader and 9/11 insider. ((Mansoor photo at 18)) ((Courtesy Mansoor Adayfi)) Adayfi said that after repeated torture and interrogation, he falsely admitted to being that man. ((GITMO footage from Reuters: https://www.reutersconnect.com/detail?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2022%3Anewsml_WDFTNL7IF%3A3)) He turned 19 while imprisoned in a black site and was one of the first prisoners shipped to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, opened by then-President George W. Bush in 2002 to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants. ((President George W. Bush)) “It has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly, questioned by experts and when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts.” ((can start bite under Reuters footage from VOA PKG of detainee arriving to break up back to back bites, then go to him when he says jumpsuit)) ((Mansoor Adayfi, Former Guantanamo Detaine)) [ 00:19:23 - 00:19:35 ] ((MANDATORY SKYPE COURTESY)) “We arrived in shackles, hooded, in an orange jumpsuit and they marketed us to the world as the worst of the worst terrorists. So basically, when you arrived, they cut your clothes, threw you on the floor, hosing you and brushing you with brooms.” ((NARRATOR)) ((photos of Mansoor at Gitmo-I will send)) ((Courtesy Mansoor Adayfi)) And, in addition to the humiliation, Adayfi said the torture did not stop. ((Mansoor Adayfi, Former Guantanamo Detainee )) [ 00:24:37 - 49 ] ((MANDATORY SKYPE COURTESY)) “When the interrogator used to torture me, strip me naked and beat me, I told him, you are a terrorist. I said you are the terrorist. You are who act like a terrorist now.” ((NARRATOR)) (Reuters footage of Gitmo, possibly more pics of Mansoor in Gitmo)) The U.S. later dropped its accusation that he was the Egyptian al-Qaida leader. But that accusation cost him 14 years, his entire 20s lost inside Guantanamo’s barbed-wire fences. ((nat of door closing at Gitmo from Reuters)) ((NARRATOR)) ((Reuters footage)) Today 39 detainees remain at Guantanamo, only a dozen of whom have been charged or convicted of war crimes. But those dozen men are considered very dangerous — so much so that neither President Obama nor Biden have been able to shut down the prison altogether despite promises to do so. ((John Kirby, Pentagon Press Secretary)) (( Jan 10 briefing 12:41-49)) “The administration remains dedicated to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, there's nothing, nothing has changed about that.” ((Four shot of New America panel, then shots or video of KSM, then Reuters Gitmo video)) But advocates told a New America panel they want to see action matching those promises. They say the administration must try those like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and stop holding the others indefinitely. ((Andy Worthington, Author of The Guantanamo Files)) ((22:49-23:02) “For the victims of 9/11, It's been 20 years. Do you think that it's fair to them that they go through 30 years that they go through 40 years, that eventually these guys die of old age in Guantanamo, and there was never anything resembling justice?” ((Thomas Wilner, Lawyer, Shearman & Sterling)) ((44:37-43)) “The war is over. There's no longer the legal justification to hold them in the first place.” ((NARRATOR)) ((photos of Adayfi in white at Gitmo, then photos in Serbia I will send)) ((Courtesy Mansoor Adayfi)) Yemen does not have a functioning government, so Adayfi was not sent home. He now lives in Serbia under tight security restrictions, a place he did not want to go, and where he says he still feels trapped. ((Mansoor Adayfi, Former Guantanamo Detainee )) [ 00:14:27 - 00:14:37 ] ((MANDARY SKYPE COURTESY)) “When you have no legislators, no network, you cannot communicate with your family, the stigma of Guantanamo, people afraid to talk to you, and you cannot get married, you cannot, so basically, yeah, it's like Guantanamo 2.0.” ((NARRATOR)) ((Mansoor with book and then photo of his shackled feet)) ((Courtesy Mansoor Adayfi)) Writing, he says, has helped him cope with the trauma, and he hopes his new book--started while shackled to the classroom floor at Guantanamo--will help people understand why he feels the prison must close its doors. ((Carla Babb, VOA News, the Pentagon))
- NewsML Media Topics Arts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
- Network VOA
- Embargo Date January 13, 2022 19:59 EST
- Brand / Language Service US Agency for Global Media