The Story of Sofiane Berhoumi: Freed from Guantanamo

The Story of Sofiane Berhoumi: Freed from Guantanamo

By Karin Friedemann

newtrendmag.org

Sofiane Berhoumi, now 53, was released from Guantanamo just 4 years ago after 20 years in captivity. His father, who was a private lawyer, died in 2004 while he was imprisoned. Sofiane graced me with his polite and positive presence for nearly an hour on the phone on 9/23/25 and for another hour on 6/7/26. He spoke about how people often fear him, but those who take the time to get to know him realize that he is gentle and kind. "You can't judge people from the cover." He said that communicating with understanding people makes life beautiful. Some strangers have become more than family to him. Recently he was invited to personally attend a human rights conference at Graz University in Austria with all expenses paid, but he was unfortunately denied a visitor's visa. I was very curious to hear his life story.

He is the eldest of five brothers and there is one older sister. As a student, he was a good swimmer and a soccer player and dreamed of playing for a team. Sofiane left Algeria for Europe in search of work opportunities. He looked for work in Spain and France and England at age 22. He also visited his sister in Paris. He left Spain by stowing away on a ship. He was working loading the ship with truckloads of coffee beans and other merchandise. Eventually he got asylum in 1996 in Britain due to the Algerian civil war. However, by 1998, after gaining safety in Britain, he learned about the war in Chechnya from charity presentations in the London mosque, in which videos and slides of suffering Muslims were shown and funds collected. Like many other Muslim men who were inspired to leave their homes and fight for the sake of Allah, Sofiane felt that his soul was longing to go to Chechnya to defend the Muslim cause.

He knew that in order to get sent to Chechnya to fight, he first had to go to Afghanistan for military training. From there, he would need assistance from an organized Islamic group to facilitate his transport and connect him with the Muslim fighters in Chechnya. This was standard practice in those days. There were many Islamic military training camps in Afghanistan who welcomed foreigners in search of adventure.

So, with the contacts he received through a Pakistani friend, and with his advice, Sofiane left London for Karachi, and then on to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he stayed at a Lashkar Taiba guesthouse until he was assigned to be sent to Khaldan Camp in Khost, Afghanistan. During his training, an accident with an explosive permanently destroyed the use of his left hand. Despite this severe handicap, he tried multiple times to go to Chechnya, but icy weather conditions prevented him. Therefore he was basically stranded in Afghanistan. Biding his time for six years, he learned a bit of Persian and Pashtun. Everything was okay, until al-Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. Then his life changed forever.

Sofiane was hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora when the United States bombarded Afghanistan in November and December 2001. It was a terrifying experience. He saw many of his brothers killed by rockets fired from an Apache helicopter. Sofiane fled to Pakistan; first Peshawar then Islamabad. He ended up in Faysal Abad, a suburb of Lahore. In May 2002, the property where he was sheltering with Abu Zubaydah was raided by special Pakistani forces working for the CIA and he was sent to Guantanamo under suspicion of being al-Qaeda and dangerous. He was not with al-Qaeda. Neither was Abu Zubaydah. They were free, unaffiliated fighters. Abu Zubaydah had connections with al-Qaeda but was not part of their group. Abu Zubaydah was a Palestinian subjected to severe and prolonged torture, during which the US realized and admitted he was not with al-Qaeda. He continues to be held in Guantanamo.

Sofiane was charged with conspiracy and material support for a terrorist organization in 2005. In 2008 and again in 2012, the charges against him were dropped. In 2016 he went in front of a review board that included the US Justice Department, the CIA, and the National Security Agency. The decision went through six agencies until finally in 2016 he was cleared for release under the Obama administration. But when Trump became president, all transfers out of Guantanamo were frozen. Years later after many actual high profile al-Qaeda members were released from Guantanamo, Sofiane remained imprisoned, because nobody knew who he was. He was essentially a "nobody." He had never even served in one battle.

It was not until the Biden administration that Sofiane was scheduled for release. He was put on a plane on March 13, 2022 headed home to Algeria but two hours into the flight, the Algerian government announced bad weather conditions, so the plane turned around and took him back to Guantanamo! Sofiane found this very upsetting, worried they were playing a trick on him. On April 1, 2022 he boarded a second plane, which finally returned him back to his family.

Sofiane mentioned that a couple of the guards at Guantanamo really warmed up to him. He said 90% of the guards were mean and awful, but 10% were decent people who just happened to be in the US Army. So, generally speaking, he didn't like them and they didn't like him. They had been told that he was a dangerous terrorist, so how could they know? It was not until he started joking with them that they started to wonder, "How can you be cheerful when your life is so miserable?" He always tried to make the guards feel comfortable and laugh. Because keeping a positive attitude helped him keep up his morale despite his suffering.

Some of the younger guards started to confide in him instead of to their colleagues, because he sympathized with their lives. One female guard in her early twenties began to cry during her shift because she had no friends. Her mother had deserted her as a child due to mental illness, so she had to raise her younger brother alone. Sofiane encouraged her to give her mother a call. She took his advice, and experienced forgiveness with her mother. When Sofiane was released, she followed him all the way to the van that took him to the airport. "Please don't change," she said. "Stay like that." There was another young female guard who started crying when he was released. They cried together. There were some other guards, one was a Mexican-American man, who visited him and gave him a piece of food from time to time.

Sofiane's English interpreter for his legal proceedings was scared of him at first, but it wasn't long before the interpreter relaxed. Soon he was cooking special meals for Sofiane during their meetings with the lawyers, and watching movies with him.

Now, Sofiane is back in Algeria living with his mother. Long ago, when Sofiane was one year old, his mother was watching him sleep. She had a vision of a two-year-old with blue eyes wearing a US Army uniform. He was on top of her son, pinning him down. Several times the bully looked straight into her eyes in a way that was extremely frightening. This vision foretold his destiny with the Americans. Now his dear mother is old and sick. She is having trouble breathing, can't walk, and coughs a lot. Even so, she cooks for him and takes care of him. The local people are scared of him, and because he can't use his left hand, he has been unable to find work. She is patient and understands his situation, why he can't take care of her financially. Right now he is excitedly watching the World Championship games with his brothers at home.

It is very hard to scratch out a living in Algeria. Any medical care you need, you have to pay for it. Sofiane is in need of clothes. He asks anyone who has used or broken iPhone or laptops or anything he can sell to send them to him so that he can repair and resell them. Some supporters have started a collection to buy him a car so that he would be able to start a taxi service.

To donate: GoFundMe.com/f/a-taxi-and-a-new-beginning-for-sufiyan

Aafia: The Mystery

Speech Given by Karina on the Boston Common

Most of the world has stopped thinking about the long-incarcerated detainees of the War on Terror that was declared by George W. Bush after 9/11/2001. In truth, Federal government and Israel-connected Homeland Security agents had already started investigating and raiding Islamic organizations and charities around the US earlier that year. Of all the Muslim political prisoners of the US, one person in particular stands out: the graceful, articulate and brilliant young Dr. Aafia Siddique.  

All the other Muslim War On Terror prisoners who were extrajudicially rendered in Afghanistan or Pakistan and sold for bounty to the US have been male (to my knowledge). Everyone at Guantanamo is male. All of the Afghan militants held in Bagram prison are male. Only Aafia Siddique is female. Long before anyone knew her name, she was known as the “Grey Lady of Bagram.” She and her children were held and abused for years, separately, inside the walls of the US military prison in Afghanistan. 

After the US invaded Afghanistan they dropped leaflets down from airplanes offering between $2000-6000 per head for any suspected terrorists. As a result, a market was created for kidnappers. Thousands of random men were detained and handed over to the US for interrogation. Aafia Siddique was disappeared in Pakistan in the spring of 2003.

In the recently published book, “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found in Guantanamo,” Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni tourist thus detained without charge, explained that while there were a handful of prisoners there that actually knew Osama bin Laden or belonged to some kind of Islamic fighting group, the vast majority were completely innocent, non-violent people being held for years and years and brutally humiliated and tortured in an attempt to force them to confess to being people they were not, and that they had committed crimes they knew nothing about. 

It has always been a mystery as to why Aafia and her children were abducted while on their way to visit relatives. Was she the victim of a vindictive ex-husband’s slander? Did someone utter her name while being waterboarded? Was it her charity efforts as part of the Muslim Students Association to collect boots and winter clothing to send to displaced families fleeing war?

Aged 34, speaking fluent English, having earned a PhD in Child Development at MIT and Brandeis before returning to her native country of Pakistan, Aafia with her gentle eyes and happy demeanor does not fit the profile of an Islamic terrorist. It seems unlikely that this arrest, made most likely by ISI, Pakistani security services, was a random error in judgment.

An important clue emerged as a result of the Peace and Justice Foundation’s recent series of Freedom Rallies in various cities to support and raise awareness of US political prisoner Dr. Aafia Siddique. While most of America has forgotten her, or has no idea who she is, a very enthusiastic detractor crawled out of the woodwork: Sam Westrop, director of the Zionist extremist hate group that stalks Muslim leaders, “Islamist Watch.” He published a very dangerous hit piece on Aafia’s supporters in both the Middle East Forum and National Review, https://www.meforum.org/62644/american-islamists-advocate-for-lady-al-qaeda - publications with long and close connections to Bush-era neocons and anti-Muslim smear campaigners Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson, who facilitated the imprisonment and deportation of Muslim and Arab academics for their political views by feeding false intelligence to the US government via their “think tank” the Investigative Project and other extreme right-wing racist organizations whose main objective is trying to prevent Palestinians and American Muslims attain political equality. After these groups failed to prevent local Muslims from building the golden-domed Roxbury Mosque, https://rense.com/general76/who.htm I had totally forgot about them. 

But here Sam Westrop was, taking pictures of protesters without asking their permission and trying to get an interview with Mauri Saalakhan, the primary organizer of the event. Sam’s intense enthusiasm for the cause of undermining the case to free Aafia Siddique after 18 years really made it crystal clear that taking her down was one of his organization’s pet projects. 

But why did the pro-Israel lobbyists target this cute little grad student? Westrop leaves us a very important clue by linking to a press conference, covered by CNN, two years after she was abducted.  http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/05/26/terror.threat.transcript/ US Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller on May 27, 2004 displayed Aafia’s face alongside 6 men declared as America’s Most Wanted. Americans were to be “on the lookout” for them. Mueller claimed, “Aafia Siddique is an al Qaeda operative and facilitator, she attended colleges in the Boston area, and is believed to have left Boston in January of 2003.” Literally that’s all they could come up with. Bent over in agony from bullet wounds to her stomach, Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in US Federal prison by Judge Richard Berman for “attempted murder” of heavily armed US soldiers in an Afghan police station in 2008 as she allegedly tried to escape from custody. Her supposed “crime” was committed in Afghanistan by a Pakistani citizen. So by what stretch of the imagination should she go to trial in the United States? Keep in mind that al Qaida is not even known for recruiting female militants. The neocons have always been known to use the labels “al Qaeda” and “Islamofascist” extremely loosely. 

It sure looks like these right wing Zionist criminals were intimately involved in providing false intelligence to the US government in order to help the US create an illusion of “doing something” against the “Islamic threat” while simultaneously getting rid of a popular Muslim community organizer and public speaker. Boston neocon fingerprints are all over this case. Their time-worn approach, which they also used against the Roxbury mosque, was to feed fake terrorist allegations to the media, while simultaneously creating court cases over lesser crimes like money laundering or even civil infractions such as parking zoning laws. Similarly, at Aafia’s trial there was zero mention of her belonging to any terrorist group even though news agencies had claimed that she had gone to LIberia to sell diamonds in order to raise funds for al Qaeda.

In 1996, Professor Noam Chomsky said fondly of Aafia, who was his student, “Aafia Siddique is an Institute in her self. She will bring change wherever she goes.”

Did the FBI target Aafia as the next Malcolm or the next H Rap Brown? 

Aafia Siddique was an enthusiastic Muslim community organizer who was diligently engaged in outreach to explain Islam to her American fellow students, a philosopher who taught feminist theory based on theology, and who encouraged her fellow Muslim students to upgrade their religion. She was very much part of the movement to modernize Islamic political and moral thought to make it make sense for this century. She was a Hafiz of the Quran. She was also an idealist. Katherine Ozment describes in Boston Magazine how far-fetched seem the claims that this young mother and student had the time or the resources, let alone the desire to join al Qaida. https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/15/whos-afraid-of-aafia-siddiqui/  

Retired Professor Chomsky issued a statement to be read at the Freedom Rally in Boston that took place on October 23, 2021:

“The US “war on terror” has left a shameful record of torture, vicious brutality, brutal crimes of state, still continuing.  Aafiaa Siddiqui’s ordeal is one of the most disgraceful chapters of this trail of horror.  She should be freed and compensated to the extent that it is at all possible. And we should all be asking ourselves whether we want this is what we want our country to be.”

Marathon Bombing Case: They Forgave the killer of 9 in Charleston, but not Dzhokhar.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015, Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev finally spoke.

"I would like to begin in the name of Allah, the exalted and glorious, the most gracious, the most merciful, "Allah" among the most beautiful names. Any act that does not begin in the name of God is separate from goodness."

The victims, the jury, nobody was expecting this religious sermon.

"He did crack up and pause a few times, it sounded like he was trying to compose himself," stated a courtroom observer.

Before thanking his attorneys, he invoked the name of Muhammed. He thanked those who testified on his behalf, he thanked the jury for their service, and even the Court.

"The Prophet Muhammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said that if you do not show mercy to Allah's creation, then Allah will not have mercy on you, so I'd like to apologize now to the victims, to the survivors. Now, I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, for the suffering that I've caused you, for the damage that I've done. Irreparable damage."

What he said satisfied neither the victims nor those who continue to believe that he was framed.

"Immediately after the bombing, which I am guilty of - if there's any lingering doubt about that, let there be no more. I did do it, along with my brother."

Those who were hoping he would 'do a Tarek Mehanna' political speech got instead a speech on forgiveness that sounded at once sincere yet highly scripted, but answered nobody's questions like why? or how?

"Now, I am a Muslim. My religion is Islam. The God I worship, besides whom there is no other God, is Allah. And I prayed to Allah to bestow his mercy upon the deceased, those affected in the bombing, and their families. Allah says in the Quran that with every hardship is relief. I pray for your relief, for your healing, for your well-being, for your strength. I ask Allah to have mercy upon me and my brother and my family. I ask Allah to bestow his mercy upon those present here today. And Allah knows best those deserving of His mercy."

This convoluted sort of apology left everyone scratching their heads.

Why would he wait until AFTER he was found guilty and sentenced to death to apologize? And why, how, what the heck - and how is it that he is suddenly speaking with a thick Arabian accent? Not a Russian accent. He sounded Middle Eastern, two different observers told New Trend. It really was him, they said, but strangely out of character. He used to talk like "Yo what's up."

The most bizarre part of it is that not only Carmen Ortiz the lead prosecutor, but Judge O'Toole made public statements condemning Jahar's interpretation of his own religion.

"You did it on purpose... It is tragic, for your victims and now for you, surely someone who believes God smiles on and rewards the killing of innocents believes in a cruel god. This is not and cannot be the god of Islam," said the judge right before condemning Jahar to death. So is he being executed for murder or for a politically incorrect interpretation of Islam?

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office prosecuted Tsarnaev, said she was "struck more by what he didn't say.

"He didn't renounce terrorism, he didn't renounce violent extremism, and he couched his comments in line with Allah and Allah's view, which gave it a religious tone, and there was nothing...about this crime that was Islam-associated."

Tsarnaev adhered to a radicalized version of Islam was not in line with the faith's "peaceful and loving" roots, Ortiz explained.

"The youth will not stay quiet while America is killing the innocent Muslims. As my sons there will be many many many inshallah! And I will die with my love towards them," texted Jahar's mother to a supporter.

"Your country kills the brothers and sisters and those good hearted and beautiful souls like my sons who love their ummah cannot see the conspiracies of your government towards our ummah and things like that happen! For example if someone kills my brother or my sister I will not blink and destroy whoever killed them - why?? Because I love them...Everything is by Allah's will... Allah knows the intention and the purity of it and what was the intention for!" concluded Jahar's mother.

I am worried that they are going to execute Jahar before we learn the true story. His statement created as many questions as it answered. This is quite a decade, quite a century, already. However, Jahar has been moved to a prison in Florence, Colorado. It is nearby but not the same place where Imam Jamil al-Amin is being held in Supermax.

Movement Supporting Dr. Aafia Calls for Countrywide Protests

February 21, 2016 

[NOTE: I apologize for neglecting to post for a few months. The catch-up posts will be in the wrong chronological order. After that I promise to try and keep up my blog.]

March 16 marks 13 years that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has been wrongfully imprisoned. Aafia was a foreign student from Pakistan who graduated with honors from MIT and Brandeis University. She and her children were kidnapped in Pakistan and held without charge for five years in Afghan prisons under US control. According to Reuters, Siddiqui was wanted by the FBI in 2003 for questioning for possible ties to al Qaeda and was detained by Pakistani authorities. Things went terribly wrong, and rather than admit their grievous error, which included killing her baby, the US accused her of attacking a US soldier - even though she is the one who got a bullet in her stomach. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has described Aafia's ordeal as "the worst case of individual injustice I have ever witnessed."
AafiaMovement.com/the-aafia-mobilizations 

The Boston Rally on International Women's Day will be the first of four mobilizations for Dr. Aafia Siddique also planned for March 2016 in NY, DC and Fort Worth, Texas. Help us spread the word and build toward these actions. Contact Br. Mauri Saalakhan at peacethrujustice@aol.com for exact time and place, and to volunteer.

The issue is becoming increasingly urgent. There was an attack on Aafia's family's house in Karachi at 3am on February 16! The attempted kidnapping of Aafia's children occurred just a couple days after a February 14 huge Valentine's Day "We Love Aafia" march took place, which included many young children. Asmat Siddiqui, the mother of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, said that the attack of terrorists on the house of Dr Aafia in Karachi and the threats to the family are a message to them to keep silent on the issue of Aafia. The family is refusing to back down from their mission to bring Aafia home, despite being under threat of their lives; surely we have a deep obligation to support them!

In a statement released Tuesday, Aafia's mother said that the politicians have disappointed the nation of Pakistan on the issue of Aafia. They only did politics on her name. She appealed to the chief of army, Staff Gen Raheel Sharif, to play his role in bringing home Aafia and become immortal in history like Muhammad Bin Qasim. Briefing the media on the details of the attack on her house, Asmat Siddiqui said on the night between Monday and Tuesday at 3:00am, three unknown armed terrorists reached her house. They fed the dog some intoxicating substance and later beat up a volunteer of the Aafia Movement, Amir, who was guarding the house.

They asked Amir to tell them in which rooms the children of Aafia reside and which schools they attend. When Amir refused to reply to their questions, they told him they already knew. Then he was tortured mercilessly and fell unconscious. Between 6 and 7:00am when the occupants of the house came out, they found Amir injured and tied up with ropes.

Dr. Fowzia said police were informed about the incident. She asked which type of national security plan is this, in which the citizens are not provided any security. She said 13 years ago, on the day after the kidnapping of Aafia Siddiqui [and her children], we were also told to keep silent; otherwise, four dead bodies would be found on the back street of their house. She said this threat is being employed again "to pressure us not to raise our voices for the release of Aafia Siddiqui."

"As the Siddiqui family, frontline supporters of the Aafia Movement-Pakistan, and supporters from the US branch of the International Free Aafia Movement have already made clear, We Will Not Be Intimidated into a posture of Silence and Inaction! The struggle will continue!" writes Mauri Saalakhan, Aafia's unofficial ambassador in the US, who is organizing the upcoming mobilizations.

He is asking Muslims in the US to bombard the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, DC, with CALLS and E-MAILS. Phone: 202-243-6500 / E-mail: info@embassyofpakistanusa.org 

In your communication please express your concern regarding the safety of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's family in Karachi, Pakistan; and demand that the Pakistani government do more to get their citizen released and returned home where she belongs.

Who were the kidnappers? What political objective could possibly be gained by re-kidnapping Aafia's children? Most importantly - what can we do, what will we do as Americans to bring attention to our fellow Muslims and neighbors regarding the plight of this young woman, who has become the international face of the Disappeared? Her situation is not that unique. Political kidnappings are quite common throughout the world.

However, this is a girl who went to school in Massachusetts, who was known. She gave speeches during Muslim events, she was a leader in enthusiastic charity efforts and was even quoted in the news saying that if Americans learned about the beauty of Islam, they would all want to become Muslims! You can't just disappear someone like that and pretend it didn't happen. And indeed, she has become the Daughter of Pakistan. In many ways, her fate will determine the future of her nation.

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1642.htm

How Djamel Beghal was used : Kouachi brothers' Mentor?

How torture is used to make "terror" connections.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1584.htm


[Editor's note: Imam Abu Qatada was cleared of all charges when Britain deported him to Jordan. The Jordanian court found no evidence to convict him. ]


Djamel Beghal is described by media as a "terrorist connected to the notorious Finsbury Park mosque" who regularly attended "hate preacher" Imam Abu Qatada's sermons in the late 1990s, when the mosque "was Abu Hamza's base." Once "Osama bin Laden's main European recruiter," Beghal is now being said to be the Kouachi brothers' "mentor." He is even accused by media of having recruited "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. Beghal "is also said to have met one of Osama bin Laden's key deputies at the former Al Qaeda leader's base in Afghanistan," reports the UK Daily Mail. "The terror leader spent ten years in prison in France for planning attacks. He was only released in 2010."

Except that the truth is that he seems to actually be just a random guy that got kidnapped at the airport in Abu Dhabi in July of 2001. The Algerian immigrant to France, married to a Frenchwoman and father of four had made the decision in November of 2000 to move his family to Jalalabad, Afghanistan because they wanted to live in a Muslim country. In July 2001, Beghal was accompanying an ailing friend's family from Pakistan to Morocco, when he was inexplicably taken into custody and held for four years in pre-trial detention, during which time he was brutally tortured into falsely confessing to attacking the US Embassy in Paris. A team of doctors kept an eye on his vital signs to advise the torturers how much pain he could tolerate. They told him crazy stories over and over again.

"They wanted me to accuse Abu Qatada at any cost. They wanted me to accuse him of a military plot (bombing plan) or at least to make him responsible for the ideological and financial management of terrorist networks linking London to Kabul but also many other capitals in Europe, Africa and Asia," Beghal told Arnaud Mafille in a 2011 report by CagePrisoners entitled, "Djamel Beghal: British and French complicity in torture."

"He would insist with brutality to reveal the link between Abu Qatada and Osama bin Laden, whom they all called Abu Abdallah. He would also question me about Abu Hamza, the Egyptian Imam of Finsbury Park mosque in London... He was also interested in Sheikh Abdul Wahid. He presented him as the spiritual trainer for suicide bombers and the indoctrinator under the commandment of Osama bin Laden...

"Geographically, he interrogated me on what I knew about the projects of Muslims living mainly in London, Luton, Manchester and Leicester."

French intelligence officials had been tracking Beghal for almost a decade. He was a known activist with Takfir wal Hijra, which they defined as a splinter group from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Beghal continues, "I was offered a scenario of an attack in France without specifying the place but by citing the names of friends living in France I had never mentioned to them before... It was disturbing to hear those names from the mouth of Emirati and CIA agents. France was behind the scenes."

French Judge Brugui�re then offered a bargain to Beghal.

"He grabbed some documents, showing them to me from far, then, full of confidence, he proposed to recognize their contents, to sign them and hence to be saved immediately, as well as my wife and three children. He assured me that instead of being sentenced from 10 to 20 years, I would be sentenced to 5 years at most, and that later I would be released after two and a half years of detention.

"I asked him the content of those documents. I was shocked when he said that it acknowledged the preparation of an attack against the United States Embassy in Paris, adding that Osama bin Laden was the sponsor. It was also proclaiming my repentance and my acknowledgement that I had been misled by Al Qaeda, which would have, by the way, "sold" me to foreign secret services!"

Sylvie Beghal, wife of Djamel Beghal, insisting on his innocence, told UK human rights organization, CAGE that her husband "is being punished for something he didn't do."

"This isn't the first time Mr Beghal has been wrongfully accused. In 2005 an appeal court threw out an earlier conviction for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris as it had been reliant on a confession extracted under torture," reported CAGE.

"He has been placed in solitary confinement after all the false media coverage. He has nothing to do with the attack against Charlie Hebdo," said Mrs. Beghal. "The media is repeating false allegations which have been made against him for 14 years now."

Amandla Thomas-Johnson of CAGE, stated: "Djamel Beghal has never encouraged or carried out any act of violence and there is absolutely nothing that can link him to the attack. The narrative that Djamel Beghal is a 'radicalizer' is an old rumor without basis, its endless repetition causing endless problems to him and his family."

US Supreme Court Denies Mehanna Appeal

TMO 

Tarek Mehanna’s appeal to the US Supreme Court was rejected on Monday, October 6, 2014. Mehanna of Sudsbury, Massachusetts, is serving a sentence of 17 1/2 years on account of visiting Yemen to study Arabic and later translating Islamic texts for the website At Tibyan, which the government has construed as “supporting terrorism.”

“Where, exactly, does free speech end and unlawful terrorist coordination begin?” commented Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. “Translating, publishing, and praising ideological texts, no matter how morally vile, is generally considered to be a basic free speech activity. Everyone knows that the First Amendment protects translations of Mein Kampf. Why did Mehanna’s translation of jihadist hosannas land him behind bars?”

This question gains weight with the news this week that the Supreme Court also refused to hear appeals from two other Muslim men, who have suffered intolerably for no crime: Ziyad Yaghi, a North Carolina native and Guantanamo inmate Abdul Razak Ali.

“Petitioner raised arguments based solely on issues of undisputed fact: he was arrested in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan, he had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks or terrorism, and he was not engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies at any time. Petitioner’s “malfeasance” that apparently warrants his life imprisonment without charge was simply an eighteen day stay in the same guesthouse as a man who the government once believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but, as the evidence showed below, is now no longer believed by the government to have been associated with al-Qaeda,” wrote Abdul Razak Alik on August 23, 2014.

“The questions Petitioner asks in his petition are whether he can be held, indefinitely, based simply on the fact that he was staying in the same guesthouse in Pakistan as someone else who happened to once have been accused of being connected with Al-Qaeda, rather than upon actual evidence of Petitioner’s own overt acts hostile to the United States or its allies; and, where, as here, Petitioner was not alleged to have been engaged in an armed conflict against the United States in Afghanistan (or anywhere for that matter) prior to his capture. If the answer to those questions is yes, then Petitioner also asks whether there is any limit to the duration of his detention. It is clear that the government has avoided discussing or answering these questions, because its basis for holding Petitioner is based not on the law, but on its ever-expanding and elastic view of the law.”

As convincing as this argument may seem to loyal Americans, we need to be asking these questions of our government until they listen. This is very frightening, that the Supreme Court’s reaction to an obviously innocent person is to ignore his case because he is Muslim. And this doesn’t even just apply to foreigners.

Tarek Mehanna had no idea his actions were criminal . He possessed the self-confidence and outspoken attitude of a relatively affluent, American born male. His brother gave an interview on WGBH News on September 25, 2014 stating:

“The FBI was approaching my brother since 2004. So, we saw a lead up to something happening. and that kind of peaked in 2007 before we graduated from pharmacy school. He was arrested in 2008, he was let off on bail, and at that point we didn’t know what to expect. So when it happened again in 2009, at that point we didn’t know what to expect… My parents did discourage him from online activities, but his response to them was it’s free speech and it’s protected.”

Mehanna’s lawyers argued that he didn’t give any tangible support to al-Qaida, and his online activities were protected free speech.

However, five years later, Mehanna’s father Ahmed said his family had not even had “one iota of hope” that his son would get a hearing before the high court, in light of the news reports on ISIS.

“Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is affected by such a saga and such media frenzy,” Ahmed Mehanna said. “It is a very, very sad day.”

Mehanna’s prosecutor, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, is the same one who is pursuing the prosecutions of youths accused in relation to the Boston Marathon bombings. She claims Mehanna was “using the Internet to encourage others to support terrorism.”

“I’m disappointed to see even the highest court still submissive to the executive branch’s fabrication of charges. It’s clearly the First Amendment [at issue], and they refused to even look at it.”

Mehanna was threatened with prosecution after refusing to act as an informant for the FBI. He is accused of support for terrorism, though his support never included picking up a gun or fundraising. The government alleges that Mehanna “intended” to go to Iraq to take up arms against the US, although there is no evidence of this.

Moazzam Begg freed: UK drops charges

Blatant Attempt to Stop Humanitarian Aid to Islamic People in Syria Fails on Legal Grounds. 

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1570.htm


On Wednesday, October 2, 2014 Moazzam Begg was released from prison after all charges against him were dropped due to "insufficient evidence" that Begg's trips to Syria involved terrorism. Begg's lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who described her client as "a good man trying to the right thing in a very difficult world," told the Guardian that "he should never have been charged, as his activities did not amount to terrorism."

The former Guantanamo inmate had received a generous payout after suing the UK for wrongful imprisonment that enabled him to buy a house in England for his family. Begg became a tireless activist for prisoner rights and served as Outreach Director for CAGE. He was re-arrested in February by the Crown Prosecution Service the day before his report on Syria was scheduled to be released. He was being held without bail in prison, until his sudden release Wednesday.

Government prosecutor Christopher Hehir told the court, "The prosecution have recently become aware of relevant material, in the light of which, after careful and anxious consideration, the conclusion has been reached that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction in this case. The prosecution therefore offers no evidence." Mirza Begg, brother of Moazzam Begg said, "We are just so happy to have Moazzam home with us in time for Eid."

Andy Worthington wrote that "it was impossible to believe that Begg, one of the most scrutinized Muslims in the UK, would have engaged in any activities that could be construed as terrorism."

UK security services had already interviewed Begg before his last trip to Syria in April 2013. Knowing that he was doing research on the US torture rendition program under the Assad regime, they did not prevent him from traveling. However, his passport was taken away upon his return. It is remarkable that the British government has now admitted that they had no case against Begg and dropped the charges - especially compared to the common practice in the US of using prejudice to sway the jury to convict Muslim defendants in the absence of clear and convincing evidence.

Neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the local police would say what "new material" had impacted the government's decision that the standard of proof had not been met. The local Muslim community and other supporters were extremely active in advocating for Begg and insisting on his innocence and his importance to human rights activism. It is probable that public pressure played a role in his release, especially at this time when the suspicion and demonization of British Muslims that have gone to Syria has increased in intensity.

Amandla Thomas-Johnson, spokesperson for CAGE expressed relief that the ordeal, which had largely paralyzed the prisoner advocacy organization, was over.

"Moazzam Begg and his family have suffered over the past 7 months not only because of his incarceration but also because of the financial sanctions imposed upon him, as a result of which his bank accounts (including joint accounts) were frozen or shut down. His wife was unable to pay her utility bills that were held in their joint names without receiving a license from the Treasury, and it became a criminal offense to even try and support his family with money and food during this period. Our thoughts are with his family and we share in the joy of receiving him home again."

"We call on the CPS to review all ongoing Syria-related terrorism trials to review the evidence and drop charges. We believe many of these trials and the campaigns against Muslim charities and individuals working in Syria are politically motivated fishing expeditions using the wide scope of terror laws and Prevent policy to criminalize Muslims. We also ask that the British state reviews its policies of harassment intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions of Muslims involved in the Syria crisis."

"Everything is terrorism and for those who fear losing their jobs and government funding, terrorism is everything. It is time to change the narrative," wrote Begg the month before his arrest.

Moazzam Begg's past articles can be found on the CAGE website. For example his interviews with British Muslims fighting in Syria and explanation of fighting groups: http://cageuk.org/article/syria-britain%E2%80%99s-new-war-teror and his Islamic explanation of Jihad. http://cageuk.org/article/jihad-and-terrorism-war-words

It remains to be seen whether Begg's written report on torture rendition involving Syrian prisons, confiscated by British police, will now be allowed to be published.

NC Upholds Fake Terror Convictions

 TMO 

From left, Hysen Sherifi, Ziyad Yaghi and Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan: Al-Arabiya

On February 11, 2014, a federal appeals court upheld the convictions of three young Muslim men from North Carolina: Omar Hassan, Hysen Sherifi and Ziyad Yaghi. The three were convicted in 2011 after two paid FBI informants falsely testified that they were part of a home-grown terror group. The men were given prison terms ranging from 15 years to 45 years. Ziyad got 31 years.

Ziyad’s attorney, Robert Boyle said that the appeals court failed to address the key legal issues. “What I find particularly disturbing is the undercurrent of Islamophobia in the decision.”

Like he has done against many other innocents, the fraud Evan Kohlmann served as the government’s expert witness during the trial. He portrayed Muslim men as inherently violent and explained how Muslims supposedly think. He convinced the jury that even though the men had not committed any crime, they would eventually commit an act of terrorism in the future.

“How on earth can he even say that and how on earth can his juvenile testimony be even taken into consideration at court?!” laments Ziyad’s mother Laila Yaghi.

In 2006 and 2007, Ziyad and Omar visited Jordan, the country of Ziyad’s birth, and Egypt, Omar’s country of origin. He and Omar also attempted to visit Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, but were denied entry by Israel. The US indictment claims Ziyad’s intention in his travels was to seek armed conflict. Ziyad’s mother Laila insists otherwise:

“All they did was go sightseeing and visit family members and were looking for a future bride. Nothing out of the ordinary took place. An American with Arab background and dual citizenship was accused of conspiracy and material support based on two trips he took abroad to his own homeland! A young man who wanted to do the right thing and get married so he won’t do anything immoral at a time where women offered themselves cheaply to him!”

The testimony of the woman who met with Ziyad was not allowed in court.

Stephen Lendmann summarizes: “Paid agent provocateur informants entrap unwary targets. Secret evidence unavailable to defense attorneys convicts them.

Government paid bogus experts lie. False testimony given is inflammatory. Credible defense witnesses are ruled out of order and denied. Pre-trial publicity hypes spurious terror threats. Media scoundrels headline them. Juries are intimidated to convict. Right-wing judges facilitate witch-hunt injustice. Targeted Muslims haven’t a chance.”

Laila remembers the horrible day in July 2009 when her son was taken away.

“He was looking ahead to go to college when that day he decided to surprise me, his mother, by cleaning the kitchen floor then marinating the chicken, then afterwards he went for a swim in the neighborhood pool. Of course, who would have even imagined that a SWAT team will come to arrest an unarmed young man of 21! A young man who had not done anything wrong or illegal, who did not even break any law but happened to be a somewhat dedicated Muslim!”

Ziyad was basically punished because he knew a guy named Daniel Patrick Boyd, an American Muslim who spoke against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though Ziyad’s association with Boyd was very limited the FBI wanted something from Ziyad that was immoral, to lie against Boyd and say whatever pleases the FBI so they can say, “we caught a terrorist,” Laila explained.

When Ziyad and his friend Omar refused to lie, the FBI retaliated. Everything they did was interpreted by the FBI in the most bizarre way. Wrestling, paintball and kickboxing became training for jihad! The word ‘marriage’ became a code word for Jihad and so was ‘the beach’. Ziyad was charged and convicted of conspiracy and material support yet the indictment does not even say which “terrorist organization.” 

“The trial was set in a town 2 1/2 hours away from us to make it hard on people to come and support us. The jury consisted of mostly senior citizens who dozed off during the trial! Most of the jury had family members in the military and were not highly educated, handpicked by the judge! Everything was done deliberately to convict these young men. Hate for our religion is growing tremendously in the US! To top it all, they tried to single us out as un-American based on our religion!” Laila continued.

“They have Ziyad in what is called the SHU, Special Housing Unit, a cell underground like a grave designed to make one lose his/her mind. A cell as small as your bathroom where Ziyad is alone in it and only allowed out of his cell an hour every two days! A country that tries to portray itself as democratic, as a first world country, treats its Muslim citizens with so much unfairness and in such an inhumane way that any reader or observer will be shocked!

“How is my son convicted of material support when he did not spend any money on anything illegal or any terrorist organization? How is he convicted of conspiracy when there hasn’t been a crime that has taken place or even a plan to commit a crime?”

One way the prosecutors manipulated the jury into thinking that these young men were jihadis was by playing endless hours of boring unclear tape recordings of Boyd, who they referred to as “the ring leader.” The prosecutors gave the jury some transcripts with words filled in by the prosecutors.

Then, even though Ziyad was not in any of these tape recordings, the prosecutors kept bringing up his name and showing his picture while the tape recordings were being played, while the jury were reading a fabricated filled in transcript by the prosecutors. Not only that, the prosecutors kept showing pictures of jihadis beheading and killing people.

“So an uninformed jury, not well educated, not traveled and elderly people who some of them mind you, can barely walk and keep awake, were anxious of getting this ordeal over and in favor of whom, of course, the well convincing prosecutors,” Laila concluded.

“Nobody should feign surprise or shock, it is painfully obvious that this is about cops and prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves when in fact, they had to rely on the anti-Islam hysteria that has gripped this nation for years now. In other words, they took the easy road toward conviction using full advantage of public ignorance and blind faith; two very dangerous commodities in this day and age. I find no honor in this and suspect future generations will look back at this time as a renaissance of the Salem Witch Trials,” writes Tim King of Salem News.

“The War on Terrorism has created a breeding ground wherein racists, political pundits, religious zealots, and more have been the catalysts of impregnating the general American mind with detrimental emotions and thoughts that challenge those founding principles,” writes Siraj Davis.

“Ziyad Yaghi is a victim, not only because he is innocent of the charges against him, but because our silence allowed it.”

“Why would my own country do this to my son and I?” Laila weeps.

“Nights seem to not end with the nightmares of my son cooped up in a tiny cell!  In the morning, the first thing that comes to my mind is that my son is in jail and when I sleep that is the last thing I pray for which is his release! All my senses are abused and hurt by what has happened to my son and until this ends and my son is out, I will continue to scream that this is a grave injustice that has happened to us just because we are Muslims.”

“I wake up every morning as if I were dead but I am still counted as alive. I wake up hoping that this world never existed that there was no such thing as life! In spite of all this pain, I have to pull all my shattered pieces together and go to work,” Laila told TMO.

Ziyad Yaghi, #51771-056; Federal Correctional Complex-USP-2; PO Box 1034; Coleman, FL 33521-0879.