"I am Human" IslamOnline. net & Newspapers
Jawad is among some 275 men and boys held at Guantanamo bay detention. (Reuters)
CAIRO — Mohammed Jawad has felt an overwhelming sense of bitterness and anger after being forced by his prison guards in Guantanamo to attend the first session of his military trial at the notorious US detention camp, The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, March 13.
"I've been brought here illegally," Jawad told the military judge. "I am innocent. It's an injustice to me."
Jawad was only 16 when he was arrested in 2002 by Afghan policemen, who handed him over to US forces. Shortly afterwards, he was sent the notorious US Bagram base in Afghanistan then to Guantanamo prison in Cuba.
He was accused of attempted murder and intent to inflict bodily harm for allegedly throwing a grenade that injured two US soldiers and their translator.
Guantanamo Bay in Focus (Special Page)
He categorically denied this, saying he was arrested unfairly because he was in the vicinity of the incident at the time.
Refusing to leave his cell to attend his military trial in protest at his imprisonment, Jawad was forced by his prison guards to attend the hearing, appearing before judges with his hands cuffed and legs shackled.
The prisoner rejected a court-appointed military or civilian lawyer to defend him because he maintained his innocence.
He looked the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, in the eye and fumed: "I want justice and fairness."
"I have not violated any law," he said in his Pashto language through a translator.
Some 275 men and boys are held at Guantanamo, which the US established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 to imprison terror suspects from Afghanistan and other countries.
By declaring them "enemy combatants", the US denies detainees legal rights.
The widely criticized military commissions were established by the United States to try non-US prisoners. They are the first US war crimes tribunals since World War II.
Several rights groups have called on the international community to challenge the USA to drop these military commissions and conduct trials in front of civilian courts.
American analysts and former CIA agents said the planned military trials of six alleged 9/11 conspirators, including alleged mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, would show America's dirty laundry of torture tactics and human rights violations and refuel a debate about the legality of the Guantanamo tribunals.
"I'm Human"
Jawad mocked the US parroting about freedoms and justice it brought to Afghanistan after toppling Taliban.
"The American government said the Taliban has been very cruel in Afghanistan, that they killed people without any trial and imprisoned people without trial," Jawad told the judge.
"When I was in detention at Bagram, Americans killed three people. They beat people and arrested us without trial. We're not given any rights."
Slumping onto the defense table, Jawad said that he had been tortured while in Bagram and Guantanamo.
"Since I was arrested I've been treated unfairly. I have been tortured," he said. "I am a human being."
Holding his head in his hands through much of the two-hour hearing, Jawad suffers from a permanent headache from the fluorescent lights his guards often kept on at his cell.
Throughout the session, Jawad was also behaving bizarrely.
He removed his translation earphones and laid his head on the table in front of the judge and moaned.
"Don't bother me anymore," he told the judge.
Army Col. James Michael Sawyers, the military lawyer appointed by the court to represent Jawad, said it was apparent that years behind bars in Guantanamo have left the young prisoner with deep psychological scars and mental problems.
"What we had very clearly today I believe is a direct result of taking a 16- or 17-year-old boy and putting him in confinement for five years without contact with the outside world," Sawyers said.
Guantanamo has become synonymous with torture and maltreatment in recent years.
Some prisoners have taken their lives to end their distress, while many have gone on extensive hunger strikes.
Others have gone insane like American Jose Padilla, who saw his interrogators as a father-figure, and Australian David Hicks, who suffers from ag oraphobia.
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