Serial S04 - Ep. 4: The Honeymooners
50:50 Share

This podcast is supported by the capital one quick super card, earn unlimited one point five percent cash back on every purchase everywhere, plus there is no limit the amount of cash back you can earn and rewards don't expire for the life of the account. It's that simple. The capital one quick over card, what's in your wallet terms apply, see capital one not come for details.

Previously on cereal .

and accusing you are very serious things. Soon as I got to the door, these two FBI guys were there. Can we ask a couple of questions?

They were accusing him of making entire american statements and and the other and being a depine sympathiser. You think you're all is gonna help you. You think your koran is correct. You know, it's a bag. Senior airman ocma holiday holiday.

What does an eric translator at one tonic? X trying .

to pass classified military secrets? Oh, the deal. So far, three former workers have been arrested in a probe of a lege. Ask me an oh there.

From sero productions in the new york times. This is serial season for guantanamo. One prison camp told week by week. I'm sarkantyus. This is part two of oxford al holiday story.

A neutral way to put IT is that the government's investigation into a possible spiring at one tanami came up empty. Bless, neutral, but still factual ocma holy's criminal case was a fiasco, a shameful and I admit, perversely entertaining example of what happens when suspicion swallows evidence. But awkward.

Ase did not end after his sentencing. He agreed as part of his video to participate in a debriefing. Once I heard what went on in that, Debra, I can now confidently report back.

It's possibly even more bizarre than the case itself. For a long time, the debris was the one aspect of of my case that eluded me. Unlike the court proceedings, there's no public documentation of what happened in the debris, is no transcript of who said what nothing.

I didn't even know what a debris was really. It's not something i'd come across in a criminal case before. So when I went to interview on me, this was one of my all caps requests the debrief, please explain. And what is the debrief if I don't .

really know what IT is? Well, this is I think we ask for community and we got community.

So anything you say and that briefing.

they so anything that I could, I could, you know, admit to anything, and I would not be prosecuted for anything. And that's why they wanted me to be at ease and talk about this experience. And basically, you know what we thought supposed to go for probably four to six week's maximum started dragging on. So we, for what? For the debriefing of .

talking every day. Are you kidding me? Wait, who is this four to work in my head? The mysterious deeper is lasted three or four days, maybe five.

At the outside, there's a lot to cover, but this, this was a whole production OK. We told me every morning after breakfast, he reported to an apartment on travel air fore space. And all day, monday through friday, he talked a full time job talking.

talking, yeah, time job, yeah. But they would let me go on friday to go pray. Friday was a shorter day.

When I asked what the apartment was like, oh, man said, IT was Normal, which I interpreted as gentleman speak for generic, fake apartment furnishings. He also said IT was wired every which way for and and video, which fed to various locations where people listen and watched in real time. He knew one listening post was in an apartment just below them. Wasn't sure where else, though he learned much later, there was also one of the pentagon.

So there was a whole approach. Ce, that was set up. And in one of the rooms they set up .

the polygraph. On day one, OK, md, met mike and jeff, two fresh interrogators who had had no previous involved with his case. Mike was from the air force office of special investigations.

The O S. I. Jeff was from the FBI. We got the .

main things out of the way immediately. Like in the first few days you start talking about, you know there's be an origin, you know gona tell us, tell us everything, no problem. But whatever you say, like even if you missed andle or give anything information, no problem.

So they're just like safe space. We just want to know the truth. You know, I get in trouble. We just need to know the truth. And the point of IT is to know where their own investigation went wrong or what what are they trying to learn? Or I .

guess at at that time, I didn't really know. I don't know exactly what was the objective, but I think IT was to learn from lessons learned and what went wrong with the case because IT started so high and IT ended so low. Argument was working .

off the same premises as I was that the government knew theyd made a hash of his case and now wanted to understand where they had gone wrong. You don't often hear the military admit its mistakes, but you figure they must know and care when theyve screw up. So if oakland spy case was a standing for the way we handled our suspicions about many of the prisoners at antonia, and I believe IT was, then this debrief was a rare window into how we dealt with our mistakes. That's why I was so curious about the debrief.

I wanted to know, once they were all out of the court room, once they'd settled into comfortable chairs and losing their ties for an off the record lawyer free discussion in which everyone could be straight with each other, would the government finally see itself and acmd clearly what lesson would IT learn? But even a conversation like that, I still could not envision how I could sustain for weeks on end. They just going over every aspect of of your case, or or did IT branch out until I tell me everything that happened from the moment got, what were they .

wanting to think about my life? Like everything? Not only one tone. yeah. So from, like from the day that I remember, you know, all kinds of memories I have from syria, what they did you there, who know brothers, sisters, but the whole, like, where I worked with friends. How did I come to the states? People I met, you know, michigan and california, and then grant animal, and then online, and then my wife, and then so I.

so when you, we are blowing my light of my mind, I don't understand that. So are they do you think from the questions you're describing to me, that sounds like their their suspecting you still might be a buy or someone who could become a spire or be disloyalty in united states. Is that the sense you got to know? Like, why do they want to know every contact you ve ever had, every person you ve ever met.

everything you've ever done? Well, maybe that that I don't think that was the intention, but we ended up talking about like every aspect of my life like. Like even you know sexual orientations, even know any abuse, you know that I see your experience or literally like everything.

Okay, to stay the obvious here, I had fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of this debris, apparently. So IT argument, the polygraph equipment should have tip us off. This debrief would roll out like a three act play, showing how the procedural devolved into the personal. And then as you're sancy the nonsense co that's after the break.

This is a mini meditation guided by bombers repeat after me. I have zero blisters on my toes. Lister, and that's because I wear bomb the softish socks, underwear and t shirts that give back one purchased equals one no needed.

Now go to a bomb stock com slack N Y, T, and use code N Y T for twenty percent off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S starcom flash N Y T and use code N Y T A. Hey, it's john chase and mara from wirecutters, the product recommendation service from the new york times.

Murray IT is gift giving time. What's an easy get for someone like under fifty bots in our gifts under fifty list? I really love this water color set from japan. These beautiful, beautiful colors is something that kids can do, adults can do. I ve, for all the wire cutter gift ideas and recommendations, head to N Y times dot com slash holiday guide.

Alright, so from the questions ogniard said they were asking, either the government still thought, okay, d might be a spy, or else maybe this was just to cover your eyes Operation, like they had to come up with some negative information to justify the government's exertions over the past year and a half. Augment said he wasn't sure, but he did start to get a sense of what they were looking for. He told me the detainee letters were a big subject with jean mike.

He remember this one day they went out to lunch, they're sitting at a restaurant, and jeff and mike looked at him and said, okay, we're out of the room now, off the base. No mix, no cameras. Just tell us, did you miss translate? You know, by taking shortcuts, greetings, instead of a whole paragraph of prayers.

This is come up during oxmain sentencing hearing at the eleven hour, prosecutors had called to the stand a fellow antonio linguist, whom OK, md, had trained to say that, okay, had told him to be, quote, merciful to the brothers. In his translations, the example he gave was the word infidel. The ingua said that oxman instructed him use a soft word, unbeliever. Over a lunch, ocma told jeff and mike, okay, yeah, I did sometimes do that.

yeah. I choose maybe a softer word. I use, uh, you know, a different word that would convey the meeting the meaning without using these harsh words.

He said he wasn't doing IT to serve titius sly help the detainees, though he was doing IT, he said, because from the context of the letter, a word like infidel wasn't correct. He was going for accuracy. He said, efficiency.

They were happy that I was saying these things. They were like, all this is great information. So they were happy that I was like opening up and saying all these things about the way we translated way I translated the letters. And they were excited .

because that seemed like you were finally confessing to something that you had done wrong or was IT more like, oh, now we're excited because now we understand what you were actually doing.

No, I think they were happy that I can trust yeah. So they were happy like you. So this is the thing that we want to to say on camera.

So now you go back, so we're onna go back and we're gonna ask you the same questions and you going to ask the same way. But it's gonna on camera. And we did that.

And this is great. So we went and we did the polygraph. I think after that.

this sounded unnerving to me. But for OK, md was a lot less painful than what he had just been through. He wasn't in jail.

He was still getting a paycheck from the air force because he hadn't yet formally separated from the service. He was in the process of moving off base to his own apartment jeffie Michael friendly. He didn't mind answering their questions.

And then this debrief took a detour that will just keep this phrase in mind. Your tax dollars at work. Remember her okd was supposed to get married before this whole thing started. Now he's a few weeks into the debrief and a year and a half late for his own wedding.

Fiona arrives.

his fye ce say, rona and her father fly in from dubai. I for a visit oxman d run a quickly married in the sono county course across the street from where oxman had spent his first terrible night in jail after his arrest.

Then, you know, I wanted to take out like lake tahoe. And they they came along to lake tahoe.

That is, his interrogators came along to latex. O yeah.

And you know many of not just two OK md said taking .

runa and her dad to taaoa was his idea, his reserved in everything. But then Michael jeff re like, want you let us take care of IT your room at the embassy sweets, they're on us and you know, to ahoo so nicely a year, what do we just come along? So off they all went to lake tai ho on an all expenses paid by the government excursion.

We spent three days in join them snow, because there is no snow into byroad. amazing. So we enjoyed the time in a way.

And then and then even after to ahoo, they continue to spend quality time with Michael. Jeff .

invited them to my apartment. Ranna cooked some food for them, you know, so getting to know them on a personal level.

again, doesn't this sound add? nope. ACM told me, me, strAngely enough, I wasn't bothered by IT, okay, but I still thought I was weird.

And I thought I was weird. Ocma didn't think was weird, did wrong to think he was weird. SHE did without them, would be bitter.

So you, you feel, you feel something wrong with them. They are from the government. They were nice guys, but I, I preferred to stay with aid without them. But what we wanna do, and we cannot do anything, was that kind of a honeymoon in a way? Uh, yes, it's kind to, but not not the honey on with the with my dad and different my, yes, not like a honeymoon, but this was a nice trip.

Ronna knew they were being observed, SHE said, but the men were polite, helpful, even when ron and her dad arrived at the same time to go airport. IT was Michael jeff, who met them, who assured them through customs and immigration, almost as if Michael jeff were their hosts, rather than oxman, who weighted in the car. IT was odd, but not bad.

Runner remembers cooking in elaborate dinner for them at the apartment, trying her best to show them that SHE in ocmi or Normal people. SHE remembers jeff telling her the food made him feel like he was in heaven. And they didn't show me that they are like investigators like that.

They they show me like they are here to help us 啊 yeah。 Argument said he knew he was being made to feel comfortable so that he would trust micon jeff and therefore would spill to micon jeff. But argument is practical.

He agreed to this debrief. His attitude was, i'm being handled. I'm letting myself be handled, which so far I can handle .

everyday. I will show up, they go up to the door and they shake hands and sometimes, you know, we get on the cheeks and, you know, became this very, very friendly. And I think they were asked to do this and they they did IT because it's part of the culture is just fine. I like that. But as the discussions took longer and we passed the six weeks Marks and were not finish, you know, december now were in january.

Ron and her father had left. The worlds strangest non honeymoon was over this time. okay. D says the debriefing began to sour in large part because of the polygraphs. He found them terrifying.

He said the rough rythm of the debris was they? D discuss one topic for a day or two or three, and then an air force polygraph would hold him up to the machine and question him about that topic. And if he passed, everyone was happy and we'd move on to the next topic. But sometimes he didn't pass.

they would still accuse me of hiding things and like especially when I do the polygraph and they like it's inconclusive like well, because you're putting so much pressure on me like it's it's like, you know asking you have you ever done nothing wrong in your life? Well, how many things you can't say no.

did you take?

I don't know. Probably six, seven, eight, I don't know. They were a lot.

Augment doesn't recall the actual questions during the polygraphs. So much as the feeling of knowing he wasn't performing well and not knowing how to fix IT, he was also aware that people all over the place were listening to every word he said, which stressed him out even more.

He said the polygraph and Michael jeff wanted him to admit he'd been translated letters or pass things to detainees, and he didn't think he'd done any of that, not like they were saying anyway. But his answers weren't enough. IT wasn't enough, for instance, for ocma to admit he used soft words in his translations.

They wanted me to say, okay, so we we all just translated letters, and they wanted me to implicate other people. I've heard so many times you've got a community demand come on, just don't worry about IT not going to prosecute for IT because I have community but others don't so maybe they will go after I, me or somewhere, you know so this is where I got really heated you know, like he gets intense, really intense.

They kept mentioning stuff that scared the shit out of him. He said that maybe some of the criminal charges against them that had been dismissed, could we surface someday, or that he could be surveyed indefinitely? He'd leave these sessions red faced, unable to sleep, because he had made them upset by the end of a january, two and a half months after I started, othmi couldn't take IT anymore.

IT was painful than IT became pay for, right? So I complain to my lawyers. Unlike, you know, these people are putting a lot of pressure on me.

Already mentally drained has been over a year. And I hand doing this. And I want to stop one of the the O. S. I agents. He got like really frustrated with something and he went and he punched the the the presentation board that we have, right? The one .

board White board.

Ah so I was, you know, as I was complaining to my lawyers, like, you know he's first waiting, you know sometimes voices raised, you know he went and he punched like the wall. I didn't mean the world, right? He the thing my lawyers, and they went, and they went a really nasty complaint letter.

I gotto hold this letter signed by air force major jammy key, one of all, made three attackers. He wrote, basically enough. We know what you're up to. You're treating otment like a guantanamo detainee in an interrogation or poor building and the bullying.

The whole reason we negotiated the terms of this debris was quote out of a concern that the interrogators would use the technique of pretending the subject and then alternately using friendly overtures and harsh treatment as a means of extorting quote and quote CoOperation from him. The sort of techniques Normally reserved for enemy prisoners. IT appears that this was, in fact, done. This was not the mature discussion we bargain for unquote wabbit up. Othman said Michael jeff confronted him about the .

skating letter. What is what why you're complaining and that do do do you saying about us like, yeah I mean, this is I want this to finish. I mean.

let's your friends you in .

a way why you're complaining. And we've got this casing letter .

nine days later, on february six, two thousand and five. The deeper is finally ended. Augment was free to go. okay.

D says no one from the government ever told him he was cleared of suspicion that he had nothing to worry about. So for quite a while afterwards, ocma did worry. His military career was over.

He applied for jobs, and he says he got very close a few times. But then suddenly the offers would vanish. Ron az.

VISA. Applications seem to have stalled. People who felt were friends keep their distance. He was pretty sure is being monitored.

After about seven months, he gave up, left the country, moved to the U. E. In twenty and fifteen. He finally came back to michigan in time to repair his relationship with his father, whom he's disoit all those years earlier, by leaving home to join the military.

Sitting in oakmar office in a suburb b detroit, he runs a nonprofit that helps refugees and other display aced people around the world. He told me he was still an inmate in touch with jeff from the FBI. There were facebook friends, which I took to me in france in quotation Marks.

I asked argument if he thought jeff would talk to me. An argument sort of idle texted jeff, and jeff texted back and suddenly. They were on the phone.

oh my god, how are you? How are you? I am good. How's like my days? Oh my god, I this .

is not how a quote on, quote, friend sounds when you call him. This is how someone sounds when theyve been waiting years to hear your voice, jeff shouted .

to his wife fLorry, oh my, it's not gone.

And this is definitely not how someone sounds if they think they're talking to a spy. So who did jeff think he was talking to? That's after the break.

This is a psc or a public soc announcement. Experts have declared bomba socks as the best way to warm up chilly feet. These pairs are super cute, soft and design for maximum cosy plus for every pair purchase, another pair will be donated, so someone in need of essential clothing can stay warm this winter.

Go to bombers dot com slash N Y T and use code N Y T for twenty percent of your first purchase. That's B O M B A S dotcom such nt use code N Y T. I check out .

when I asked jeff rine .

ic what I thought of as not exactly a thrown away question, but certainly IT, let's get started question, how do you end up on off my case? He told me this story after nine eleven. Then FBI director Robert muller was reoriented the bur u to help fight terrorism. And as part of that, jeff, i'd been called into his bosses office in sardinia to discuss his own work, mostly investigating violent crimes against children and how he coordinated local law enforcement.

And during that conversation, he noted in me that I was having emotional difficulty.

And he out of nowhere, he asked me, you know, are you okay? And you know, my thirty years, and if I was the first time anybody asked me that, and I since i've ever been asked the question before, I wasn't sure I really wasn't prepared for, I guess, is the best way to say IT and and when he said that, he kind of opened up the door, and I told him that I wasn't sure how I was and that I was very concerned. I hurt my family. And so we started .

to jeff s got a strong chin and a robust mustache that he wears, long, not a folios ity sound, but head that. And in fact, jeff s had experience in your mity among the murderer and serial killers. He managed to get confessions from with a man who killed four women near you, seventy national park in one thousand ninety nine.

Jeff ford also sells some horrific sexual abuse cases. He was known at the F. B.

I for being a master interviewer. He did IT. He said by empathising, not only with victims of gasoline crimes, but also with perpetrators. I'd like to think of myself as the barber waters of the FBI. He told me before we did this interview, jeff wanted me to read the book he wrote about his career called in the name of the children in IT.

He writes about how he allowed himself selves to be vulnerable in his work, which brought him professional success but personal anguish, how he caught back from break downs and suicide attempts, how he'd felt alienated from his beloved wife and sons, how they suffered because of him when his boss had asked him, are you OK? Jeff said he was fifty two, getting ready to retire. Jeff told me his boss promised him I will send you for whatever therapy you need. And jeff promised is, boss, I won't get any more confessions, meaning I won't further tax my own psyche. Before he retired, though, jeff boss pulled him back in for one more job, an unusual favor.

Several months later, he came up to me and asked me, or IT pretty much told me, he wanted me to do an interview at travel air fore space with an airmen, and that IT regarded some duty. C had a guantanamo and I was to try and determine from the individual exactly what he had been involved in and .

that IT that's all .

they told you pretty much yeah they I I never got like a full briefing of the anis um and and that's okay because my philosopher is that I should be able to talk to anybody and figure anything out.

So what exactly was the government's school here? I confess to jeff what now felt like a doby notion that, you know, at first I assumed you guys, we're trying to figure out where the government's criminal case against A M zag ged, of course, as how did we get this so wrong? No, no. What this was jeff said, was a damage assessment, pure and simple.

making sure that if there is any further threat, anything else that could be determined from talking to off mate, that would make things safer. That was their goal.

What had ocma done with whom had he done, IT had sensitive or classified information leaked to beyond the government's control and possibly into enemy hands. Notable fact about jeff, he was not a national security guy. He'd worked two investigations like that early in his career.

But that's IT but jeff would would be working with mike from the osi, the office of special investigations, which is like the air forces detective agency just said he thought mike did have some counter terr experience. He couldn't remember for sure I ve been able to talk to mike. He hasn't responded to us in any case before the debris began. Jeffrey explained to the osi folks how he typically works.

and I explained to them that my way of doing interviews is to learn about people, to understand who they are, where they come from, and to see an emotional window sort of speak, or or an emotional door. I believe that with the exception of psychopath, everybody has an emotional door. And they told me they didn't agree with the philosophy, but that i'd be going in anyway.

And they did not agree with that. philosopher.

No, they did not agree with what I said was the way I did my interviews and the person who was talking to me, he said to me, hey, you know arps don't have feelings and they don't know how to fear and blow ba blood um you know I don't I don't feel that that person had any um I I didn't accept what he told me from what jeff had cleaned about OK md.

from the air force contingent. He said he expected him to be this, quote, hardened islamic terrorist landing guy who help the terrorists do their thing but when you finally met him in that worried of apartment, he said, okay, seemed more like a little boy.

He was scared. He was very scared. And but I, I, I looked at at, made in, I believed that that was a person that mick I could talk to. Ocma didn't .

appear to be an inscrutable, able, emotionless psycho. The air force is wisdom about arab's understanding, jeff said. He said back that first day, while mike took the lead, this was an air force case, and mike knew more about IT than he did.

But by day two, jeff began asking about oxmain background, his family. He could tell syria, amen, a lot to acmd. I could see something in him, he said.

So I went after IT ahmad told them about a terrible car accident in which his cousin had been killed back in damascus. How did IT made him feel to see his cousin's body prepared for burial? Jeff and mike felt like they were getting somewhere.

And IT was good. We could see that alternate was was hurting.

Hurting, apparently was a good thing. We throw me a little. I have trying to catch up to what jeff was telling me about his method.

And then the next morning, when we came in and when we got ready to start up off, fmd emotionally told us that he was thinking about taking .

his own life. Oh my god, that was on day, day three.

yes.

Oh no, I am not proud of .

its Sarah and as i'm sitting here telling you this IT hurts and because i've had two other people take their lives because of my interviews and so um mike was surprised I was shot and the air force guys realized that OK md had a motion and so after that revelation.

did he I sorry, jeff, just to say so did did he say why? I mean, why augment was talking suicide?

Our goal in the interview was to determine why, what what happened inside of him, to cause him to want to think about doing something so against his beliefs and religion. And that's how I pray into people. That's how I learn about them. And I know that the efforts treated me quite differently after that. And I know there's a lot of people that look on that is a sense of, oh, wow, that's really good, but I don't feel very good about IT.

but you guys do. So like how did you handle that when .

we took a break after he said that to us, we both expressed our concern to each other about augment, and we both agreed that we were going to try and rebil ate him back to the point where he wanted to live.

I feel feel like jeff was talking about one thing, the effectiveness of his approach guards at all, while I was stuck on what sounded to me like a crisis. If your interview subject talks about suicide crisis? no.

But from the sounds of IT, no one called pause game. Instead, jeff was saying that he and might put their therapist hats on top of their interrogator hats and forged ahead. IT sounded not only nutty to me, but dangerous.

Jeff had to be misremembering when I asked, okay, about this later, he says IT did happen. He did feel hopeless. The case has life off track.

Now, this question remembers saying something like, I want this whole thing to end of sick of this life. But he says he never would have done IT. The only part he disputed was that he remembers that happening a little later on. In any case, augment told me jeff called him twice to check on him that night, which he appreciated and also found annoying. Then came to visit from acme Fiona verona and her father.

the air force bright OK mads phya and .

her father around why?

Well.

two reasons, jeff explained. Sometimes a change, a scenery, or change, a company can shake, information, lose. Maybe you'd pick up on something that missed before second therapy.

Jeff said they were hoping the visit would make OK md. Feel Better. So jeff on mike smooth the arrival at santa cisco airport for run and .

her father and then they I think I don't even remember where they were staying, whatever. But one of the activities was, uh, for mike and I to take OK mid his phone and her father up to sea like to ahoo.

Well, not just Michael.

Jeff and I invited my wife Lorry with me so SHE came with us. But the thing I mean that was a won IT was a wonderful time.

lazy. So you ocd has fiance, say, her dad and then you and your wife and mike from the air force. And that's like, you're six.

That's your group of sex for dinner. Yes, yes, great. IT is everyone just like pretending everything's Normal, like I don't well, how are you in the right thing?

What we we interacted like people going out for dinner together. And for mike, I though I will say we were trying to assess, uh, the father in law, we were trying to assess if there was anything that would take place outside what we consider to be Normal relationship.

And the bottom line is, I gotto tell you what I was most afraid of, what I was most concerned of, and when I feel bad about today, is that there were such a generalized prejudice against people from the middle st. And arabs that ATM fia was wearing. You know, the burden on that stuff.

No, i'm not waiting a burke. I'm, i'm, i'm waiting to just page up. A burka covers your whole body and face, but her job is a headscarf continue.

And i'm thinking, oh my god, sometimes gona shoot all of us because so they're going to think we're all from the middle. You're going to kill us. But luckily everybody you know looked in lead, whatever.

But nothing bad happened. And I was a wonderful evening. We went out. We had a wonderful dinner.

They learn nothing from the family visit. Well, they learn runner was a good cook. Jeff still talks about that meal. SHE made them. But that a minimal national security interest, and especially after oca break down, the air force brass was expecting big things at a document. Jeff said jeff, and might have a problem though their sessions with OK mid pretty slugged in the confession department.

Can I costly asking each other, what do we miss IT? Because we're not hearing what we think we should be hearing. And that was, uh, we didn't hear anything about him treason and or espion. Er you know what was he doing to have guide to himself in this situation and so we started expLoring with document you know what what did he do and he wasn't hit on anything.

No indication argument was a spy or knew any spies. So they started working. OK made up more and more to the polygraph machine, which jeff said can be a useful tool. But in oakmar case, the polygraphs are doing more harm than good. IT seemed to jeff as if the less they got out of ocma, the more leary the military gave to the fer. And this polygraph seemed to have a bean USB onic wanting a certain result from ocma berating him, which not only meant the reading was going to a be crap anyway, but also they could see ocma faltering every time he came back from lunch have said he been a .

state which I can I both understood IT and mike was really good at finding some ways to um get OK mid to feel Better so but as soon they started feeling Better, they react them in for a polygraph again and what ended up happening, sera, is that in a period of about two weeks off mid was paragraphed like seven times jeff said .

all the polygraphs infuriated him and mike too they were having big fights about IT behind the scenes with the air force but just says they could not persuade the air force to quit with the freezing polygraphs in jed's memory, the debrief died of natural death, just kind of wound to a close. He remembers an emotional goodyer from ocma. What he did not remember was the sharp letter from otment attorney accusing them of manipulation and intimidation. When I read IT to him, he was taken a back.

Mean, jesus, we spent a whole day moving him.

He got heard about that.

We were just interviewing the attack. Y, doesn't mention what we spent a whole day moving him. That was exhAusting.

We took care of him wherever we went. We took him up to toe. I mean, we warned up toe, beating him up and questioning him.

Yeah, I mean, to be I understand you're like you're annoyed by this, but I just I just don't want you to get exaggerated. No one is alleging that anyone laid a hand on action, right? They are just saying you guys are being aggressive .

and you're and like we got to you're describing behavior towards him that was, uh, not only aggressive but intimidating and battling. And I can tell you that never happened with us and I never saw on the part of mike I assets me.

Jeff was taking this personally would seem a little absurd to me. He was oculus interrogator, at least from oculus perspective. From jeff's perspective, they were interviewing OK. Md, not interrogating. And furthermore, he in mike, where the reasonable heads prevAiling, they were sticking up for augment.

They were the ones telling the air force there was nothing to see here, pushing back against the hard line is getting for never ending polygraphs plus like document and document like them back for crying out out. They were still in contact all these years. After a few minutes of cranking himself up, jeff cracked ed himself back down.

The lawyers must have meant the police refers were using harsh techniques, he said, not him. And mike, that makes more sense. If OK madd said mike had a White board, IT must have been because mike was frustrated about the polygraphs, not because he was angry. Augment, jeff knows they parted on good terms.

When he left us, he was ready to pick up. He went back to the U. A.

E. He did what he had to do. He's right back here. He's got a good job. I mean, in a way, I look at mike eyes is preparing him for life after this event.

I asked five experiences, military attorneys, does this all sound as bananas to you, as IT does to me? The talking for nearly three months, all the polygraphs, the hanging out, the ta hoo. And mostly they said, yeah, rather bananas, especially the taaoa part.

They said things like highly irregular and i've never heard of won this long and i've never heard of anything like this and I can't even one of the attorneys had a federal terrorism case that involved a pretty long debrief. All the attorney agreed actually that yeah debriefs in terrorism cases, that's not uncommon. This is my best guess.

The air force approached alchemic brief as if they were trying to ring information out of a terrorist or a guy who might know terrorists, and roped in an FBI agent. No, not for his counterterror expertise, since he had none, but for his barber walldorf ability to get people to confess. The rub, though, was that OK md. Had nothing to tell, so that in the end they were breaking down. And in jefferson, building back up a Young airman for no reason at all.

I had one last thing to clear up with jeff. What did you think OK md had actually done?

Clearly, jeff had been pissed about the polygraphs thought the whole thing dragged on too long all those weeks sitting in the same room, talking about the same thing, scraping after non existing information I figured jeff thought the whole case against darkness with bogus on the other hand, he kept t saying things like his actions or the situation ocma had got himself into. What was he talking about? What did you think the situation was?

In my opinion, the concern that was generated about OK mid was actually a byproduct of what I believed was illicit behavior by James. Yeah, we learned things about him.

Jeff talked a lot about captain James e, the army chaplain, who is part of that circle of friends who hung out together and prayed together at antonio. He and augment had worked together on the prison blocks. Captain e.

Had also been accused of spying, though his charges have been dropped. But jeff was somehow certain that James ee was up to something. He, throughout allegations about James e that I on't repeat because I don't believe there are facts to support them.

But jeff was an investigator who often dealt with predit personalities. And so that was the lens he applied to augment story. He said he took advantage of OK ma's navy.

He put his faith in a person who was using him because I know IT wasn't just document that was involved in this group. And the one thing they all had in common .

was e jeff acknowledged he had never spoken to you didn't know the inner out of use case, but he insisted from what he could tell, e was to blame for what happened to OK mid, which confused me in a couple of waste. First, because I don't know of any evidence, either public or secret, showing that James e had done anything supersize at antonona o and second, jeff seem to be saying OK mad and others had done something wrong. But can I ask you, like, I think I am a little still confused to baseline confused what was your understanding of what he did do? Like what he actually did do?

When I believed he had done was compromised the mission of the united states in the air force by assisting the guantanamo detainees and communications to help their cause.

That's not my understand at all.

That's all I know.

But but but that's not true. Like that's not what he played guilty to.

What do you plead guilty to? I don't even know.

I realize jeff job wasn't to retry OK mates criminal case. That wasn't his mission, but still, how could he properly evaluate what ocma was telling him in that debrief if he didn't have any context for what to come before?

If you didn't know anything about guantanamo, even I gave him a quick run down of oakmar case, all the puff up charges of espino and adding the enemy, how they looked and look for evidence of spying and never found any, how the case bowed down to a plea to missing and ling classified documents because of two photos in the handful of unauthorized papers argument said he took as momentous. Jeff had a story in his head, though, a psychological explanation for why, oh, maga in trouble. He told me augment admitted passing messages among detainees.

The example he remembered was that augment had informed a father and son housed in different parts of the prison that the other one was there at guantanamo and was okay. He also said he thought augment had may be called the detainee's relatives in the middle. Ast.

it's one of the things that I think we got. It's my personal opinion. So mike might disagree with me, other people might disagree with me, but I do specifically remember off my telling us that when he was going into guantanamo and he heard his cries for family, IT affected him and after what you're telling me sounded like he did have the ability to alert families that loved ones were alive.

Jeff believes OK men's motive for this was compassion, not collusion. Okd was trying to bring comfort to detainee's families, but that in doing so, otment had unknowingly helped others with their anti american.

I'm not saying IT was right and I don't agree with you, but I also believe, as i've said, I think I man is somewhat naive. I think he's a good person, and hear someone crying is going to try and help him, and I think .

that's what he did. IT sounds in to me like jeff, and maybe mike, too, had been working off a false premise the entire time the augment had participated in something very bad, iran. All this by oxman, who was somewhat mystified by jeff tike.

Okna said he did once tell a father that his son was in another. He said the father and son had been in neighbor cells and the son was moved in the dead and gone. But argument said that that wasn't a big deal.

Detainees were constantly being moved and have their own ways of communicating word of who was where attended to get around without anyone's help. Probably the only reason he had mentioned IT to Michael Jeffery said, was because these guys were syrian. And that stuck out to ocma to see syrians locked up in one tonio.

And yeah, auma did find the whole place sad and sometimes disturbing, he said, but none a way that moved him to action. His motivation at wanta amo, he said, was to finish his deployment, get married and go with his life. The idea that he'd have passed messages either verbally or say, inside library books or letters, much less called anyone's relatives back in middle east, he said, preposterous.

Of course, augment c could have told jeff things he didn't tell me and didn't tell his attorneys and didn't tell the judge. I doubt IT, but as possible to be ferry to jeff, I was grilling him on the details of oculus case nearly two decades later. Maybe he was conflicting, different threats of conversation, hindsight, nodding them into a tapestry that satisfied his twin convictions, the documents are good guy.

And that documents unwittingly threatened the security of the united states. Here's what I do know. This belief that ocmi d did something disloyal or even ideological, persists among the government officials involved in comments case the prosecutor, brian wheeler, the air force investigator I spoke to on background. Jeff, too, though his analysis is most generous, they all still believe in one where another ocma did something to aid the enemy at guantanamo, probably with chaplin. E, in other words, the military and the government learn nothing from this case, nothing about espace or terrorism, and nothing about themselves.

Argument doesn't have .

sweeping systemic criticisms about what happened to him. He believes his case was overblown, unfair, shot through with prejudice, but he also believes both he and the government were trapped inside the loop.

IT was more theoretical at the end than anything else. Know this well, trying to find connection between me and something, you know, like i've i've seen. And one of the documents, like a huge short of my name, and like many other names connected to this guy, knows this guy. And this guy is from damascus, and this guy goes to this mask, and that guy from there who's a bad guy knows this guy, who knows this guy, and who knows, go to the same mosques. You know.

like a link. Yes.

we've got this weird link. Just like, what the heck this comes from, you know, how did you even make this? What IT doesn't even make sense to any sain person. You know it's not about like all their idiots. So there's indict vous. I think I think there is a new category of of what you can put all of this and is a new category of fear compiled with saving the face and phobia know it's just a combination of whole bunch of augmon says he .

saw that same combination of things Operating inside ground to animal. The prisoners would complain to him.

They tell you, i'm telling my integers or all of the story, the same story every time, every meeting. And he just doesn't believe IT why? Because they have read something else or they have heard something else or they wanna see if they can break that person.

Um I don't think that they learned their way even until today, even though the people are there now i'm not true if they were found guilty or not. You know a lot of these people were just sent back to their country without being charged with anything and they lost the stand or twenty years of their lives. Being a grant animal with the stigma is gonna stick to them and they didn't have a chance to fight for IT to fight for the right.

OK my told me he thought about that when he was in jail awaiting his trial, that the detainees had IT much worse than he did because at least I had a legal system. He said I could fight for my rights. So if you don't have a legal system handy, how are you supposed to fight your way out of antonio? That's next time.

Serials produced by Jessica whisper g. Dana chivas and me our editor is just snyder additional reporting by cora career and a mirka fai fact checking by ben fAiling and Jessica siriano music supervision, sound design and mixing by feb wang original score by Sophia daily alassane editing help from Allen vice janua and ira glass are contributing. Editors are Carol rosen, berg and rosina ally.

Additional production from Daniel gee met kingo and emerging o our status editors are Susan westling and I hacon legal review from alem in summer the art for our show comes from public a delco and max guter, supervising producer for serial productions, is in day tubes. Our executive assistant is mac Miller. Sam donlon is dependent managing editor of the new york times thanks to jane pifer Kelly do and asian moni chemise I Victoria kim ash ka ami, Jennifer harsha, luu hail and best atti.