Serial S04 - Ep. 3: Ahmad the Iguana Feeder
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How much of that is true? None of this is true previously on cereal. We are humAnitarians here. That was my belief.

That is how we talked about IT. That is what we believe.

Every good shape looking good.

I mean, just everyone who's getting drunk and getting laid.

I tried to explain everything I can and try to swee them. Not the people are looking for this whole thing, man. It's like I still have resentment about this guy. I still think that he's complicit somewhere and will never know how.

From serial productions in the new york times, this is serial season for guantanamo. One prison camp told week by week i'm saracenic.

After september eleventh, a call casady down through the ranks of the military. If you speak another language besides english, raise your hand. Paho urdu, arabic speakers, we need you. So IT travails. Air force space in northern california, a slight Young supply clerk named OK md.

L holby raised his hand. I felt important. Well, everybody wants my my skills.

Like, yeah, I hear. So I went on. I they tested. Of course I passed.

Of course he passed. He's originally from syria. A couple of months later, senior airman alho bi landed in guantanamo o november of two thousand and two lesson. A year after the campet opened, he'd be working as a translator, but the military calls a link ust argument, said he got no advances training for this job. Instead, as soon as I got off the plane, the new arrivals gathered in a huge empty hanger for a briefing.

You get to a quick briefing of, you know, your ear, don't feed the animals, don't you know, do this and that don't touch the one as it's going to be hard. You know, just the basic information they .

literally are telling you about the iguanas and the animals. The first thing you get off the pint, yes.

of course that's yeah that's like the very first thing. And at every briefing you hear about the iguana, at every single briefing that you get, they talk about iguanas. I don't know why, because they said, this is in dangerous species, don't, don't feed them, don't touch them, and you know, they go on with other things. This was and .

still is an important rule at guantanamo. Feed the iguanas. But then when ocular was showing the photos later of his time in the air force, and IT went tonio military.

this is everyone. Of course, i'm feeling the .

egana to do.

I know that's what they said. They said, don't feed IT. But he was very, very cute coming, looking for food to. I left something outside and added, like SHE, SHE needs more, more 了 吗？ 了 吗？

If the government tells me not to feed the iguana, I will never feed the agane, but acmd feed the agane. I took this as an opening to analyze his relationship to authority. You're not a stick or for the rule, for the sake of the rule. It's more like if IT feels rational to you, you'll follow the rule. But IT feels totally irrational in your building, wants to harm yeah is that true?

That's absolutely true. It's absolutely on point. Like I okay, I mean, rules are rules and I respect the rules, but there's an alternate to the rules. You know there's the military .

likes to here.

what do they say? No fact. Altera, right? So alternate facts and are alternately ah.

At guantanamo o OK medal, holby followed some alt rules, that is, he broke some rules, rules he considered minor. His miscalculation was assuming that were he to get butted for breaking minor rules, the consequences he'd face would also be minor, that the punishment would match the crime.

What he didn't bank on was that american investigators and prosecutors, in a fever of hypervigiLance, were also Operating under a system of all rules and all facts, which, once arrayed against him, nearly destroyed his life. At age twenty four, autumn was facing the full force of the government, accused not just of being a criminal, but of being an enemy. And then about a year later, the government let him go.

What happened to OK man is safe to say is also what happened to many detainees at guantanamo. Someone with authorities suspected they were dangerous and then looked for information to support that suspicion. But for the most part, the information our government gathered about detainees is invisible to the public. Markey often secret, uncontested, so that all these years later, we regular people don't really know what to think, whether or not IT was right to hold them or right to let them go, or left guessing OK.

My case, though, made IT back home to the mainland to a court martial in Sunny california and wala a fat record of trial witness statements and search warns and hearing transcripts that tell us exactly what went down, the who, the why, the what, in the name of all that is sacred garage. Details of the case against acmd or holiday document's never told this story before, not in twenty years, not in full. It's going to unfold over two episodes, part one after the break.

Hey, it's john chase and more. We have a from wirecutters, the product recommendation service from the new york k times. Murray IT is gift giving time.

What's an easy get for someone like under fifty box 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, give ideas and recommendations. Head to N Y times dot com slash holiday guide. Ugma join the air force in the year two thousand.

He had just graduated high school, was working two jobs, restaurant, post office, living with his old school dad in deer borne, michigan, and experiencing the generational chief of a twenty year old who once out from under. So he figures, let me check out the military, an option his father did not condone. But argument muscles forward, finds one of those storefront recruiting strips, air force recruit signs them up.

They send him here and there for training. And finally off to travel air force space to work the night shift as an airplane. Part sky, not a flashy job, but argument thrived in the air force.

He earned an early promotion to senior airmen at the base commissary. He bought an aspirational lootenant in signa and planted IT on his desk. This was his twenty year plan. He be stationed all over the world.

maybe retired as, like, can look on a corner or maybe a coronal. And i'll be like the first, you know, person who from syria made IT this far right, had all these ideas.

He was in IT to win IT. Still, ocma knew he was an audit at travis, a muslim syrian arabic speaking airman. He figured he was anomalously for at least one hundred mile radius, which people were mostly cool about, he said until september eleventh.

And then his differences began to prick. A few people make comments, but his name, our holiday, I sounds like airman alkyls to me, or questioned his loyalties for the most part. OK.

Md, let this stuff slide. His english wasn't as strong then. He wasn't confident he could martial the arguments in the vocabulary to change anyone's mind, and then came to call for eric speakers. Othman, in his arabic, were needed at guantanamo, so they sent him to. And suddenly he seen all these troops like him, muslim arabic speaking people who were also serving, and not just, therefore, ce navvy, army, marines, national guard.

And that was, like amazing you know like that is the best thing I ever seen. Like I see form you know people from my know from my culture, right? Like you even though from different countries, like not even a series is no.

Well, there was one guy that he wasn't from damascus like og mad, so he didn't really count. Anyway, okaz getting to know this gaggle of ingush, about thirty people. Russian speakers are due.

Speakers passed two speakers, talker speakers, minister, muslim. Some are Christian, some are religious, some not OK. Mac, arabic spoken and written is excEllent.

Many of the arabic linguis antonio couldn't say the same. He's placed in the doc ex office document exploitation between letter. Basically, his job is to translate letters detainees right to their families, and also letters the families right to the detainees. After they get translated, the letters go to the intel folks who decide what to sensor.

So as soon as we arrive, we saw that. There's boxes of backlog boxes and the outgoing .

here in coming.

we don't know this huge boxes.

The dock ex backlog round fifteen hundred letters, by one estimate, was a big deal. The campus holding six hundred class men at the time. Another dog, acs translator, told me the international committee of the red cross was complaining that some families hadn't heard from their detained relative for more than a year, but these letters, a lot of them more complicated.

Impressive to read maybe, but I need to translate. The detainees were right of dreams. Discuss stories from the koran, which might require a high level of chronic knowledge on the part of the translator, so you don't say translator reference to a seventh century modern name, jeffrey, who flies with the Angels as jeff re. The pilot, and thereby send the whole intel group into IT is because they think they might have a lead on the twenty of which happened. Besides being develop, some of the detainees were arid date augment remembers their written was dance .

and formal quotes from mid evil time right is unknown, never ending if they have nothing to do. And you've got a month to write the slaughter. So they they take their very long time. So so you've got like a half page introduction and like few sentences of news, which has no news.

And then another half page of conclusion, one well crafted letter like that, if you translated IT word for word, IT could take you hours. They're working long shifts in this trailer, and they're writing this stuff out by hand. So they started looking for shortcuts. Maybe instead of literal translations of all those poetic c introductory prayers.

for example, why don't we just say greeting? Oh, okay. So we did that. We started saying greetings. And you just keep like five .

lines argument is a computer guy. He's been working toward degree in computer science. He scandalised ed, that they're doing this work with panin.

Paper is so slow he's got a personal laptop. So they asked the boss, can we bring in our own computers to use for these translations? The boss, okay.

IT, they're waiting on office computers. But in the meantime, chm, knock yourselves out. Okd brings in his laptop. Couple of other people do too. They begin to conquer the backlog.

Maybe some of what i'm telling you hear sounds fitting and small, but the details of accumed story, exactly how he did his job, exactly what he did in his spare time, these all start to matter now, because many months later, OK mates gona see a lot of these same details reflected back. Fun house style on a criminal charge sheet. His whole self is translated.

By the end of that first year, the prison complex was growing. More detainees had arrived in the island. The guards, the medical staff, the muslim chaplain, everyone needed more help communicating.

So ocma started working inside the prison blocks. I assumed the translator at one tonio were treated with reference, or at least respect. They were skilled and rare, like neurosurgeons or magicians. But in fact, ocmi and many of the other linguists occupied a liminal and sometimes lonely realme guantanamo. There were a link between us and them, needed by all, but fully trusted by none, that between us and a place like one hano would end up making ocma in his cohorts vulnerable.

So you can, in, in what did you call IT, to a rock on a hard place, the rock with .

the detainees who buy large hated the interpreters. They draw w water on them, or pee, or whatever else call .

them infidels. There was also a very funny way they used to call, you know? So when we would come in from the gates of the cell blocks, say, what's that?

Are these? So what means? Here they arrive like the low, the low class, low level people, right? They the bumps come, the bumps exactly. So he comes the bumps exactly. We would laugh because that's how they think of us.

The bombs were working for the american oppressors, which, of course, the ocma didn't feel that way. He assumed the prisoners had done something to warn their capture and detention. OK md. Ari had a sense of who some of them were from, reading their letters, at least where their lives were like. But now he was talking to them, face to face, hearing their stories.

There wasn't an outlier that like, oh, this guy is really, really bad. So you can not start having these thoughts. Like, what the heck did he do to arrive here? Is that true that this guy is guilty or not?

OK md, new Better than to openly ask that question. All the interpreters new, Better. A friend of okrent, the guy we're calling NASA, who helped the special projects team with the mockin' tion of mohammed sali. Now search the person who made me understand how carefully linguists like him and oxford felt they had a tread, the very same skills that earned them this important assignment made them equal opportunity. Targets not are translated during interrogations, which sometimes got ugly .

as i'm translating. They would stop answering or or if there if there are one of those stubborn people that don't answer anything, they just have their head on the ground. And they're hearing me say all these nasty, insulting things about his family and what we're gonna to, his wife and his sister and his daughter and all of these things.

He he just puts his head up and he looks at me. He is like, you're one of them. You would spit on the face and I would just completely keep going on translating luck as if nothing happened, right? But leaving that you like, you know, am I one of them? I mean, is he said, I don't know.

Nosers muslim, he spent his teenager years in the middle east surrounded by news of war he gets why a kid from yemen or kua might be tempted by the adventure in herrara's, running off to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to protect muslim land from a foreign vader. That image of jaa, a positive image, was drummed into him, too, when he lived in the middle ast, both at home and in the media.

But he's also american, like augment d he was living in the U. S. On nine eleven.

He believes in this mission, and he's good at this job. Truly bilingual in english and arabic, he is a favorite of the intergalactic, his fellow americans. Shouting when they shout, matching their .

pitch hours, just like you think you're all is gona help you you think your coron is correct. You know, it's a bunch of garbage IT is a baba and i'm listening to this and i'm translating IT. I am translated i'm not like changing any of the words, but i'm like you not only disrespect this object that's in front of us, you disrespecting me, i'm on your side.

I'm on your team here, or do I need to pick a team here? Do am I on his team? There was some kind of personality like, you know, identity crisis, even within me. And like, where do I belong here?

I asked, na touchy feel a question. Did you ever say anything to the interrogators after about how I made you feel? Ni said, now.

I I didn't want to feel like i'm a sympathiser with the detainees because that would open up another kind of suspicion, right?

I'd always associated to sympathiser with nations or macias. M, but after nine eleven, this word made a comeback. Terrorist sympathiser, alki a sympathiser.

Politicians are saying IT coming up in congressional hearings. Muslims all over amErica were feeling surveyed, and they were surveyed. IT was the dawn of the patriot and no fly lists.

The FBI was asking thousands of muslims to come in for voluntary interviews. People's phone records were gathered, their mosques infiltrated. So yeah, sympathiser was in the air. All the linguis I spoke to were hearing IT, especially from the guard force.

If the detainees hating the linguis was the rock, the guards heading the linguis, that was the hard place, with the exception of a unit from porter eo that everyone said was nice and reasonable. The guards army, military police looked at, scanned the interpreters, especially the non White, non Christian ones. OK man said they didn't even bother .

to hide their disdain in the black. Sometimes you yeah, so sometimes you know we'll be working and you know is a distributing books or you know try to do our work like, yeah, you you get out, get out here. You you sympathisers, you get out here. You, you know yeah, I was describe there in your face.

stepping inside that relationship between the guards and the detainees was the most heroic ing aspect of the job for a lot of the interpreters. Action included now that who's working in the prison blocks, mostly because of what's known as earring.

earring, actually was disturbing. They say IT was, and i've never seen a reason for IT earth stands .

for immediate reaction force a team of guards who d be called in. When a detainee was determined to be obstinate, combative, their job was to forcibly removed the detainee from his cell, a process known a new cally as a focal extraction. You basically, it's an earthy.

The earths were frequent. They were violent and sometimes bloody, ten, maybe fifteen times. OK, md, said he was called into interpret when an earthy was about to happen. He tried to get the detainee to comply with whatever the girls were asking, plead with the person sometimes, or maybe quietly asked the guard's team leader whether all this was really necessary. But he says IT rarely worked.

Other linguis I talk to, including ed Brooks and army surgeon at the time, got the impression that ocmi had an especially hard time witnessing the earths which to end anyway made sense. OK man lived in syria until he was sixteen courses gon to identify more with the detainees than someone like ed, who learned arabic in the army and described himself at the time as the quote, most annoying type of born again Christian. And quote, ed two was disturbed by their earths. He describe them like this.

like five views. And hockey gear would come to the cell, spray him with O, C, which is your pepper spray, and then storm in there and hogtie them after his hands and feet together behind back, put him on a stretcher, take him out to the art space based of water to get the peppers free out. Um and then like take all these items and eventually one of the kernels I remember who decided to start like having them.

they would the beard.

like they would see them .

completely like hair and beard.

Yeah I saw the chef, I brows over time.

Ed said the official explanation for the shaving was a medical one so that the pepper spread didn't claim to the person's hair and caused further.

But but everyone knew wasn't now that I was to shame them, because appear as no, that is symbol. The shapings ridiculous in the girls to laugh about like he was. IT was a relief valve for animosity. IT was bullying, a simple fucking and bullying, like they had the chance and have the chance in the excuse to do something.

And they did IT ed's discomfort with the earths, neither here nor there. But ocmis discomfort would come back to buy them.

To relieve the pressure of their work at one honey o, troops commonly turn to the twin diversions of booze and sex. But oculus and observant muslim m. IT doesn't drink or go to clubs, wasn't looking for love, least not in cuba. He'd recently become engaged to a syrian .

woman living in the U. A. E. So I found refuge and going to the prayer area just gone and spending time there because there were some books, there was some corns, and IT was peaceful, nice.

Soon enough, the muslims s who gathered for friday prayer became a small circle of friends, including army captain James e, the muslim chaplain whose arabic wasn't great. So ocma started working directly with you, running the detainee library, evaluating and delivering books and magazines to detainees. Naster was also part of their group.

So was a navy petty officer, a palestinian guy who worked in the doc ex office and who asked that we not use his name. And so was their commander, air force captained terc hash m. ocma.

Captain hashim hung out a lot, which was no worthy. And elsa guy in an officer palling around they they got school, is certified together. And for a while, okna said, the various linguist clicks the party s the video gamers, the religious types all seem to get along.

But then acme said, the mood began to shift. A bunch of people, access included, were originally told they're be going to guantanamo for a ninety day deployment. But early two thousand three, we're evading iraq. The military needs everyone to stay put on duty.

And air force commander is quoted in guantanamo's weekly newsletter announcing that airmen like ocma, quote, frozen in place indefinitely unquote their tours are extended until, who knows when now that roommate you can't stand, you might be stuck with that person for six or eight or ten months. People are getting cranky with each other, and some of the other linguists start resenting alchemical in particular. He's always hanging around with officers.

Captain hashim chaplin. E what's that all about? Why is you get to drive around with them? okay. D said that was a big thing. Cars were luxury on the island.

You know, I go to captain ashmed, go to prayer area, go to the beach so we can go, you know, for breakfast instead of waiting for the bus. Um so you started seeing some people with, you know, kind of jealousy that why am I so close to captain action, for example, why is the circle is so tight?

People grumble that oxman was getting preferential treatment that are hours but are assignments. Captain hashim chose him to go on what's called in airbridge mission, a military flight, to pick up a bunch more detainees from bottom air for space in afghanistan and bring them back to guan tony amo. And the average mission like that was a covered assignment as exciting details.

Secret OK man had only been at when tonio a couple months, and I didn't even have security clearance, but hash him chose him anyway, which caused an intense amount of growing. The atmosphere got so acrimonious. A military inspector general came down from my me to look into the complaints.

According to a story later published in the seattle times. The favouritism was unsubstantial by months seven or eight, othman said. The alliances and tagged isms had subdivided Christians versus muslims, less religious muslims versus more religious muslims tension.

right? So we're no longer now wanting to hang with each other so became separate groups. We are not talking like properly um just talking work and even the work is you know you do IT, why didn't you do IT but it's not my job. You know the smallest thing now becomes an issue um to a point that some people moved out from dorms and changed so they no longer want to live with each other. Like I moved from a from a room to the kitchen.

His roommate was a loud mouth instigating russian. So acmd put a bed in the corner of the dining area, dragged over some lockers for privacy. He tried to keep the petty rival reason perspective, keep his eyes on the prize. A V suffer as soon to be wife, his summer wedding in masculine.

Again, I didn't care like i'm i'm leaving. I'm going to get married. I don't care about all of this is going to be a history very soon. And then you get the camera.

A disposable camera that augment had gotten from his secret santo augment had misplaced the camera. The navy pet officer said, action was looking all over for A N.

I remember one time had to be asking, said he was asking me again and again, said, hey, remember, I had the disposal, Cameron, on the disk here. I use IT yesterday. I'm like, I don't know if what did you work? He said, I bought a tear on the desk. So somehow that camra use, somebody took IT. How we did look for that camera everywhere I could never find IT, and now we know where to win .

the camera thing was the beginning of everything, like the beginning of the end of my career, I believe.

So a couple of louy snaps shots. We're about to do him in that after the break.

Argument finally got permission to leave guantanamo. In june of two thousand three, he started what's called out processing, packed up some stuff into a box, clothes, some snarky gear, a blanket. And on june twenty fourth, two thousand three, he took the box to the guantanamo post office and mailed IT back to his address at travis air for space in california.

Also on G E twenty forth, he signed a form that included a security debriefing, acknowledged I affirmed the form read that I have returned all J T, F, gets mo defense information in my custody. About a month later, ocd flies out. He'd been anxious about making IT off the island in time to catch his flight to syria, but in legally, a seat suddenly freeze up on an outbound flight to the military airbase in Jackson, vill, florida, as soon as he arrives at the Jackson the terminal. Some men approach um investigators .

to talk to you was your dog like ah and they just push me, so just like took my hand, you know like push me and they was like one guy who the bathroom door and they .

locked the door so they you into the bathroom .

and lock the door and what's going on said, you know, which can do a quick search, you know and you know started going through my pockets and i'm confused like what what are you doing? What's going on?

I've thought maybe you've confused me with someone else, or maybe there was a small group in a translation. He remembers selling them. My commander, captain harm, is here somewhere in the airport.

We were on the same flight. You would grab him. Maybe he can clear this. Now they wants to talk to ocma alone. They handcuff him and escorted him into the main terminal.

Were hoping the hundreds of people aren't seeing him at the center of this onto rage. The man in the air force investigator and FBI guy and air first counter intelligence sky drive OK md. To a nearby office, sit him down, ask him if they can search his bags.

He says, okay. They ask him questions. They ask him, did you take any photos inside camp delta? Unauthorized photos?

Did you take pictures on my? Well.

well, he did take a couple pictures. He says he can't remember exactly what he was thinking, but he had this disposable camera in in his pocket. He's standing outside his office trailer, which is just left some fencing to his right, a guard tower, straight head, and he snaps a photo, maybe half accidentally.

He says he thinks he was trying to figure out how the camera worked. Then he stabs the second one. Same view, but deliberate, compose more carefully.

The guard tower isn't mad. But still he knew he wasn't supposed to take pictures inside the prison camp. Everyone know no photo signs were posted .

everywhere. I'm like, osha, this this is, I need to stop. I'm gonna take any more pictures because, you know, they they always talk about, don't take pictures.

He took a bunch more pictures with that camera of his friends. Fishing the beach is at a all allowed. Then the camera disappeared, annotate, sweated, IT, a little asked around, but he never turned up, so he let IT go. But here was an investigator asking him directly, did you take unauthorized photos?

I immediately went back to that moment, like the camera went missing. So no one knows if I took any pictures. So no, I didn't take any pictures, right? And he said, well, now we have the the pictures like, okay, so you have a great, you have my camera so yes, I took pictures so I immediately acknowledged that if you have my camera and okay, so I need the the other photos because i'd like to to see them I didn't to see them um yeah you are .

sort of missing the point of the .

question I know I see .

says he was actually relieved. He figured now he knew the size and shape of the trouble he was in. Personnel l had snapped on authorize photos before, according to a prison commander at the time, the consequences for IT are usually pretty soft.

Okay, good. You got me. Let's talk about the camera.

And that's completely, you know, for me, I thought, this is what they all want to know. Okay, so you took pictures was wrong. Okay, let's get on. Let me go. I need to go catch a flight.

I've got a connecting flight today back to my base in california. And then in two days i'm flying to syria to get married. My mom is made me in london on the way.

Everyone's waiting for me to masculine. So can we move IT along? No, because suspicion's OK ment didn't even know where cooking had begun to boil over. The camera is not all they want to talk about, and he is not the only person they want to talk to.

Back at the airport that same day, july twenty thirty, two thousand, three investigators had also stopped and questioned, kept hash a month and a half later, september tenth, chaplin, James e. Took that same flight to Jackson bill to go on leave. He collected as bags.

And I have, as soon as I got to the door, these two FBI guys were there. Can we ask you couple of questions?

U. S. Military is charged to former muslim chaplain at guanta. O, with this handling classified information that was .

all over the news, first, the announcement of his arrest, he supposedly had secret documents in his backpack then .

of comment senior airman ogen alho by holiday work, does an eric translator or at the workers have been arrested in a probe of alleged.

Third guy arrested was another arabic c linguis OK man behind A, A civilian contractor originally from egypt, stopped at logan airport in boston in late september when customs agent searched his bags. They found one hundred and thirty two cds, muslim music and videos, but among them was one with classified information copied onto IT. Also in late september, their friend, the navy petty officer, he's a training in los Angeles. When he sees a couple of navy investigators in the lobby of the hotel was staying, he recognizes one of them from a prior assignment.

So when I saw him, i'm like, smiling. So you like.

oh, how are you on? Yes.

but they look at me and there looks like, look different, like, like, like I am guilty or something.

He found out that questioned his shipmates back in italy when he went to his commander for support. The guy told him, I would advise you to hire a lawyer.

The investigators in Jackson, bill interviewed OK, md, for four or five hours, including a break when oxmain says they fetched him a yma filia sandwiches cdl d afterwards, they took augment to jail. He still didn't know what was going on. Pretty soon he sits down with a lawyer, air force major kim london.

and SHE said, well, even a holiday is there, accusing you are very serious things.

Espana, adding the enemy misbehavior before the enemy augmon didn't even know what some of the words meant. Over time, this charge sheet would grow. Attempted espinoza king false statements, bang fraud at its most alarming IT contained thirty offences. What major london was seeing in ocmi was slowly catching up to her was that the government thought augment was a spy, possibly part of a spy ring, or even a sleeping cell. That first meeting, major london talked .

him through IT, and he lays out all of the charges and that the government made IT so clear that they have so much evidence, and you know that i'm gonna go away for a very long time, if not the execution. yeah. So this is so grave that, you know, execution is on the line.

As of july two thousand, three, when oxford was arrested, the government's principal evidence against him consisted of two photos from inside the wire he initially lied about having. And on his laptop they'd found one hundred and eighty six detainees letters he'd translated that he said he had forgotten to delete. Not exactly overwhelmed but then oakmar rule break er made this grave situation even worse for for himself.

Remember that box when argument was getting ready to leave antonio, he packed a box of his stuff and mailed IT back to himself at travis air for space in california. Now that box is sitting at the base post office waiting for him. Arguments s in jail though he can't pick IT up.

So he tries to get his mail, including this box, forwarded to his sister, who lives in anna hai. Instead, in early september of two thousand, three and investigator figures out at sitting there, they get a warn, collect the box and bring you back to their office. Lutte kernel. Brian wheeler was a lead prosecutor on acmd case. The day the investigators open the box at travis, wheer was working the case at antonio.

So after the open the box, uh, we had a conversation and city line.

oh, they called you, yes, okay, where are they excited?

sure. yeah. I mean we uh, when you you work in a case, you are looking for more evidence and and this was, Frankly, I thought, Better evidence what they had so far back .

at their office, the investigators opens some beers to celebrate their smoking gun inside the box wrapped in a blanket or a bunch of papers. Many of them innocuous, but others there was a complete list of detainee names and their corresponding internment serial numbers, or issys. At the time, the U.

S. Government hadn't publicly confirmed the identities of any detainees, so this list was alarming. Also in the box, they found papers related to ocs airbridge mission to afghanistan, the one some of his colleagues got worked up about.

The papers included details about logistics s in security, and they were marked secret. Rich men. Ocma had knowingly sent himself classified documents, and even more suspect had then tried to get the incriminating box moved to his sister's address.

We we have to be, uh, very suspicious about that.

IT did not look good. Why would he have secreted these papers out of cuba? Why would he try to send them to his sister? Along with the box, investigators at travel also intercepted a letter to accompany ID from the syrian embassy in washington, confirming oxford passage to syria.

And cutter was ocma trying to pass information about detainees to someone overseas. The box contributed additional spying crimes to the already virtual ous charge sheet. The government treated OK md, not so much as a defendant, but as an enemy asset and Operative working for who knows who, maybe syria, maybe alka.

They took no chances on security while they await trial at travel air for space. IT was confined to a makeshift holding cell, a toilet less metal box that, as attorneys would later describe as a kin to the inside of a filing cabinet. Later, the air force move dog men more than three hundred miles south to a different base, which had Better jail offerings, but they keep him isolated for bayed him from speaking arabic on the phone or in person for his arrangement.

They put him in a cava, our vest, and helicoptered him to court masses of cops at the ready. When they transported in ivan, they thread about being followed. During one drive.

A guard reported that, okay, was messing with this digital watch, perhaps timing the route. They are confiscated the watch and claimed they were sending IT out for analysis. Meanwhile, back at guantanamo, ingests were reading the shocking news of these arrests and not knowing what to think.

Maybe they're worse bias among them. Maybe they going to accuse me next one by one. The linguis were brought in by counter intelligence for questioning interrogations, basically some that lasted six hours, nine hours. People were Polly raft, rather rights quote, just to be on the safe side, a handful of oculus fellow linguis, perhaps to hedged their bets, would end up writing insinuating statements about OK mad, describing him as excessively conservative in his beliefs s or excessively shady and his behavior, notably the ones who gave such statements or not muslim.

By late fall of two thousand, three months after news stories all over the world showed augment being brought into court in the government's big balloon of a case against OK, mod was threatened by a big hat .

pin of a problem. We want sure a about the espino sh that slutty .

kerner brian wheeler, again the prosecutor, the government IT appeared, had no evidence that oxford passed any information to anyone or that .

he planned to uh, we had indications that, uh, something had happened.

Um what were those indications? Do you member, what the indications were?

There are some things I can talk about. You can quote me on this one. IT was total bolt.

and that's danny rake, one of ocred three attacks. He'd been in the air force himself for twenty eight years, but by the time he joined oxx case, he was a civilian freer than the uniform attorneys to deploy spirit language.

This was probably the worst of any U. S. Military court martial i've ever been involved. And and I ve tried two hundred court martial. IT was IT was just the cascade of errors.

I know litigators tend to be fast and loose with the superlative insults, but it's true. Confusion abounded. In oceans case.

The government tried again and again to find indications that the way oxford had done his job in one tanami, the way he translated, simplifying the prayers, the way he used his computer, weren't simply shortcuts. There were deceptions. Investigators needed deep into his hard drive looking for evidence.

He'd upload secret information or embedded IT in his personal website or email detainee information to someone, but there was nothing. F, B, I agent secretly raided his sister's s house in anaheim, breaking a window in rifling through their home office, traumatizing her in the process. No evidence.

They are either also get into the government's case. They did not know what was classified and what was not. Ryan wheeler, the prosecutor, told me that early out in the case, he'd gone to a meeting at the panaji where he'd been informed in serious tones that the list of detainees and their I S. And numbers was classified, not just secret, but possibly top secret. Months later, after a formal classification review, I told them.

well, maybe not so much as not secret all, uh, well, that really affected things.

One hundred and eighty six letters on documents computer weren't classified either. In fact, the only classified papers document had were the ones from the average mission. Meanwhile, the government's case against James e was falling apart too.

They accused him of his handling classified information, but never produced any evidence to back IT up. After two and a half months in a navy brig, they let him out and eventually dismiss the charges. And ogwen mhb a the linguis arrested in boston, we end up pleading guilty to one count of unauthorized possession of classified materials, a crime he insisted was unintentional on his part.

He's been a year and a half in jail. IT had been only two years since nine eleven. We ve just had the biggest scare of our lives. So when you think about the weaknesses in the government's case against the acmd is only fair to keep that in mind if alcade could take control of commercial airplanes and steer them into skyscrapers, into the was IT irrational to think that they could be Operating inside guantanamo, one of the most secure facilities on earth.

On the other hand, the number of times that simple logical explanations for what investigators and prosecutors were seeing, we're rushed aside the sheer slopping ss of some of their work. That, too, is remarkable. Mistakes are one thing, but this started to feel like something else was at play.

It's worth pointing out the investigators looking into acmd were Young in their twenties and inexperienced. The lead investigator, special agent lands waga, was so new at his job, he was still on problem with the air force office of special investigations. Another agent on the team, he had just turned twenty three.

Their supervisors were little older, but one of the investigators told me, as far as he knew, none of them had ever worked on a counter intelligence investigation before, and within a couple of month of documents arrest, one supervisor was pulled off the case. He'd later plead guilty to this handling classified documents and a slow of sex crimes against two Young girls. Then the investigators would talk to me on the record, but I just say the people trying to prove okd was a spy.

This wasn't exactly the eighteen. Some of the accusations they made against okd were eminently checker, but simply hadn't been before ending up on a charge sheet. The bank fraud allegations, for instance, complete nonsense.

A military judge noted the prosecutions, quote, appalling lack of evidence for that one. Or the document had lied about being A U. S.

Citizen when in fact, he was A U. S. Citizen, he'd been naturalized just a week before he arrived at one hanimal. Other allegations were so thin, yet so casually and confidently weaponized. The only explanation seemed to be not just incompetence, but bad faith.

After accord hearing, for instance, a government translator realized he'd made a mistake, translate a piece of evidence the government was relying on to show OK md was trying to pedal secret information abroad. But when SHE notified a prosecutor, she's misinterpreted a crucial word he told her, are not to mention that to anyone. He too, we start off the case.

To demonstrate that argument was a sympathiser, impossibly an extremist, the government assembled a patrik of statements from far flying sources, a couple of which turned into criminal charges, who's accused of making anti american comments and then lying to investigators about that. The lead investigator, lands' aga, testified that one such statement had been realized by ed Brooks, the eric linguist, informally annoying, eventually Christian quote, surgeon books, allegedly told F, B, I agents that senior airmen, our holiday I said, quote, that camped alpha's detainees were treated unfairly and the guards deserved to be spat upon, or words to that effect unquote. But when I asked at Brooks about this, twenty years later, he didn't know what I was talking about. IT was the first time he was hearing he'd been part of oceans case in any way to prove IT. I read him from the court record against a specialized aga.

said, oh my god okay yes I that distracted um I did say that in an interview, but IT wasn't to slam him everything .

like ed said. Some investigator had come to him asking whether augmented said those things and ed said, did he did? But here's what happened.

They're been an earthing that had gone south. The interpreters had suspected this one guard of denying a detainee food on multiple occasions and harassing him by keeping him awake. And so the detainee had finally spatted the guy the guards decided to earth, him called for an interpreter.

how we responded to the serving. They started without them, which was completely against buckin. S O B, like, they were dead wrong to do IT. But they wanted to the tunes, you know, they earth, the detainees hog time. And then I will be there for like the end of IT and how will be had come back angry about IT IT was like they deserve to be spin on bobbi law like not the guards as in all like there's one earth that had gone down badly um so that is super out of fucking context. The fact that someone would then take me and quote that as an entire market, that's fucking ridiculous.

A bunch of statements in otmar case were liked that ridiculous even in context. IT really is striking how so much of this the inexperience, the tenuous connections, the lack of rigorous and professional restraint, all echoes inside the case files of guantanamo detainees. I've spoken to a handful of people who ve seen inside the classified intelligence files we kept on the detainees, and most of them told me, quote, yeah, we had some good information, but overall, we should be skeptical.

A former CIA analyst named gale held, who reviewed the detainee intelligence, told me, quote, the associations, the linkages that they made, like, I don't want to be undulate harsh to people who are working under intense and immense pressure after nine eleven, but the associations they made were stupid. Another analyst, jake mire, an army until guy who worked at antonio o for about five years on an offset, especially in the earlier years, they were working at break next speed to get information. And everybody's caught up in IT, in your producing, your producing.

And in this massive swelling pile of bulls shit is what he called IT. And some of what in that swing pile is good and important, quote. But as an analyst, we're supposed to be able to filter through all the other bullshit to find the good stuff. We found that we probably should have been filtering through our own bullshit unquote.

Ogni doesn't blame the government for investigating him. He just wishes that they'd one IT with an even hand. He said.

I was able to give them the benefit of the doubt. They didn't give IT to me. Okay, I asked him, so why did you take those papers home? Everybody else seem to know that wasn't allowed. What were you thinking when you packed up that box, for instance, with the classified average papers? He was about to ship out, he said, and those documents, he thought they're cool.

He wanted to keep them. I'm not gonna IT with me. Me just send IT in the box in case they searched and I find IT on me, right?

So i'm like that. So you totally know you.

Yeah, like I said, you, I the inner self telling me, maybe I shouldn't do this, but like what? What's the worst that can happen? Course, worse can happen again, arrested, right?

The word naive tends to come up when people describe OK mod. Back then, he used that word to describe himself. Maybe that was true, but also true.

Augment was the egana fear he didn't plan to do anything with those papers, he said. So he didn't see the harm in taking them and these documents, he told me he felt entitled to them. He just spent eight rough months working in a detention facility like.

yeah, I deserve to keep something from that time because I already had nothing take, you know, living like I was supposed to get a medal and I didn't and I was very posed off, you know, because everybody gets a medal. But for some reason or another, they didn't have medals at that time and they didn't have the time to do a ceremony for us leaving. And I didn't get that. So you know, like, well, let me get something, takes something. So I took these documents or papers.

The most logical explanation for what alchemy did is this one, the one he admits to, that despite the government's year long effort to prove otherwise, his intention wasn't nefer ious, was just dumb, petty. What shocked argument about this case, he told me, was how sudden that all was. Who was shocking, he said, to know that you can turn on one of your own this quickly and this heavily.

I was taken back for a second by this idea that they turned on one of their own, because did the military consider OK ment one of their own? Maybe they didn't, not really. And maybe that's why they didn't entertain the logical explanation for what uma did, or for what other muslim personnel did.

Consider around the same time of mid and captain James e and that other linguistic cumin mhb a were all arrested and imprisoned and charged with crimes. A fourth person was also stopped on his way out of guantanamo with a number of classified documents in his brief case, his computer, his footlocker. He was an intelligence officer older, a decorated kernel.

He was not muslim. He looked and spoke like one of their own. His case ended with no detention, no criminal proceedings. Instead, he got an administration of dying in the benefit of the doubt.

The investigators I spoke to all denied that aum foreignness as ocular put IT my accent, my funny name, my religion, played any part in his prosecution. They were following the facts. They said full stop. But in the end, it's not just the wrongness of some of their facts that makes me disagree, it's the origin of some of those facts. The case against OK md was fun up, in part because of a guy named Jason orlean, an army reserve captain who worked as the camp security officer.

Captain orleans office shared space with the dog ax office for a while, and his working suspicions about religious muslim personal c were at the root of the government's investigations, as one of oxman layers said in court captain Jason olic. Frankly, iron, or was the one that started this whole must to begin with. Captain order didn't want to talk to me, but back when all this happened, the seattle times newspaper did a nine part investigation, mostly about the e case.

An, olic did speak to that reporter, ray Rivera. At length. Olic told Rivera he became suspicious of chaplin. E, almost as soon as he got to go hano, when he SAT through yeast cultural awareness briefing for incoming personnel, basic information about the detainees and about islam. The presentation made orlick uncomfortable, as if he was justifying extremist actions.

You could ask anyone who went through that initial briefing, or IT is quoted as saying everybody who walked out after IT was over SAT they're going, is he on our side or the on the enemy side? After that, olic began keeping tabs on you and on use group of friends, including captain hashim and the navy party officer, and augment the way they prayed, in particular rubbin the wrong way, or like himself as a devoured catholic, and described himself in ray various series as accepting of other religions. But he said the way he and his coron quote, muslim click, behaved was strange to him in statements he made to investigators or many times our section could hear the muslim linguis, including our holiday by praying at the end of the hallway, a holiday, and captain hashim will try to get others to come to prayer.

The room at the end of the hallway became crowded with their recruits and quote, and they were fervent in their beliefs. A lot of their religious beliefs mear those of the detainees unquote, or like, told the seattle paper that some of the non muslim linguists, some of the same ones who'd complained about captain hashim favouring OK md, began coming to him with information about sympathiser things argument had supposedly said were done or let himself couldn't open an investigation, but he could in, did pass along his concerns, especially about chaplin e to the camps counter intelligence officer, who took them seriously and who in turn push them up the chain. Until finally, in may of two thousand, three, the military officially opened an investigation on japanese, and also unarguable.

Look, nobody wants to be accused of being a racist, prejudice, bigoted or like, told ray Rivera after the cases had fAllen apart. But if we hadn't done anything, some of us would have lost our jobs. But odmar lawyers did think olic was prejudice at the time.

Captain olic, in his pills, were passing around homemade cds loaded with offensive content. Alchemist defense tried to introduce this stuff in court, but the judge wouldn't have IT. I've seen IT though, sexist, racist, jingoistic, juvenile, islamabad c images, cartoons and little films. Even worse, some years after captain olic left guantanamo and was promoted to major relic, he made a powerpoint about islam based in part on quote, lessons learned, a joint task for antonio bay on quote, if you google IT, you'll see orlay's dangerous argument that there's no such thing as a moderate or peaceful form of islam, accompanied by images of burning towers, severed heads, bloody children, quotes, calling for death to all Christians and due and many examination points. According to court records, Jason olic is a guy who ended up with alchemic disposable camera, not entirely clear how, and had the film developed and identify those two verboten photos.

The incident that kicked off off men's case lanz waga, the lead investigator, testified that he took extensive guidance from captain or lic when he was gathering evidence, including about what documents and documents possession were classified, what documents included could on all extremist content. Even though IT turned out captain or lic didn't definitively know what was classified and didn't know arabic, c. Lz wago was praised for this investigation.

By the way, a performance report noted that he, quote, developed one of the most prolific asp age, adding the enemy investigations in recent memory unquote, and that his actions LED to eighteen other investigations, none of which turned up any serious violations. Much less inspiring, but they got an extra two thousand boxes. Thank you.

By september of two thousand four, a little more than a year after IT started, okaz case was a shadow of its most threatening self, the espionage eating the enemy, most of the false statements, the bank fried, that all dropped away until about half the original charges remained, and half of those, his lawyer said, were rinky link. Meanwhile, the mood of the press had showered on the prosecution.

Spiring at gizmo became three counts, dropped against schema translator. Finally, the government was grudging, ready to let go. A year earlier, prosecutors had offered up in a deal of fifty years in prison if he pleaded guilty to espana.

Now they were agreeing to zero, no more time at all. Augment admitted to this, handling classified documents, violating a general order, making false statements, all to do with those two pictures and the airbridge papers. He was sentenced to time served and a bad behavior discharge from the air force.

After the evidence in oculus case was aired out, the world learned oxman wasn't an islamic extremist or spy. He was just a Young airman with sticky fingers who'd learned the harsh st. Shoplifting lesson of all time.

Or that's what the world should have learned instead. And this, too, is true for the detainees. Even after the investigation was finished, the suspicion wasn't.

Even after sentencing, document's case wasn't over. As part of his plea, he agreed to be debriefed by the government. I assumed to this deprive was a lessons learned sort of thing.

The government trying to understand how it's big, flashy case ended up more than a year, and god us how many dollars later, as do gets caught with two boring photos and steale airbridge instructions and minimizing, I know, but surely somewhere someone with stars on his or herpes was asking what went wrong here. The debrief was not that oxford case was about to get a lot weirder. That's next time.

Serials produced by Jessica White berg dana chavez in me, our editor is Julie snider, additional reporting by correa career in amErica af ji but checking by ben fAiling and Jessica siriano music supervision, sound design and mixing by feb. Wang original score by Sophia daily alassane editing held from alvin melis janua and iron glass are contributing. Editors are Carol rosenberg and rozina.

Additional production from Daniel g met and emc gillo. Our standards editor is Susan westling. Legal review from alemtejo the art for show comes from public delkin and max guter, supervising producer for serial productions, is in day tube o.

Our executive assistant is mcmillan. Sam dollar is deputy managing editor of the new york times. Special thanks to gene pifer, ray Rivera, mehemet buni, Jordan cohen, jeffrey maranda, john Michael Murphy, zoe morphy, peer lui, Peter rent and Colin warmly.