Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
October 30, 2002
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Recounting an odyssey that took them from Afghanistan to America's island prison in Cuba, three Afghan men just released from Guantanamo Bay said Tuesday they were confined and interrogated for long periods and denied contact with their families for the better part of a year.
But the men, the first to be released and speak openly of their time at Guantanamo, said they were not mistreated by their American guards and practiced their religion freely.
Two of the men appeared to be in their 70s and professed innocence, while the third acknowledged fighting for the Taliban but said he was forced.
The men were handed over to Afghan authorities after their arrival Sunday at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters north of the Afghan capital. After spending Monday night in a military hospital, they were taken away Tuesday by Interior Ministry officials who debriefed them and said they would be allowed to go home today.
"They kept us in cages like animals," one of the men, 35-year-old Jan Mohammed, said of the chain-link open-air cell he says he spent months in at Guantanamo. "We were only allowed out twice per week, for half an hour."
Mohammed said shackles were put around the prisoners' feet when they were allowed to leave their cells -- for exercise or for interrogation.
He said he was captured by Afghan soldiers loyal to warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum just after the northern city of Kunduz fell in November 2001.
Speaking from a hospital with Afghan guards standing by, Mohammed said Taliban soldiers conscripted him to fight at gunpoint.
"I wasn't Taliban, but the Taliban made me fight with them. I'm innocent. I'm a farmer," he said.
It was unclear what value the two other men could have offered the Americans.
One of them, Mohammed Hagi Fiz, a toothless and frail man with a bushy white beard, claimed to be 105 years old.
But a plastic wristband, issued by American authorities, showed Fiz in the bright orange uniform he wore at Guantanamo and gave his approximate birth date as 1931 and weight as 123 pounds.
Fiz said he was arrested by American forces eight months ago while being treated at a clinic in the central province of Uruzgan. Tied up and blindfolded, he was flown by helicopter to Kandahar and later by plane to Guantanamo.
"I don't know why the Americans arrested me. I told them I was innocent. I'm just an old man," he said.
The third prisoner, Mohammed Sadiq, walked with a cane and claimed to be 90. He said American forces arrested him at his house in the eastern province of Paktia and flew him to Kandahar, where he was kept for four months before being transferred to Guantanamo.
Each said they were questioned about a dozen times.
"They interrogated us for hours at a time. They wanted to know, 'Where are you from? Are you a member of the Taliban? Did you support the Taliban? Were your relatives Taliban? Did the Taliban give you weapons?' " Fiz said.
Interior Minister Taj Mohammed Wardak said Tuesday that the men would be given $500 to divide among themselves, and the government would help them get home.
The detainees were the first to be transferred out of Guantanamo who have been allowed to tell their stories since the start of the U.S.-led war on terror. In May, an Afghan suffering from schizophrenia was sent home.
Besides the three Afghans, a 60-year-old Pakistani named Mohammed Saghir returned Sunday to Islamabad, where he was being questioned by Pakistani authorities. U.S. officials said the four were released because they no longer posed a threat.
The two elderly Afghans said they had had no contact with family.
"My family has no idea where I am, and I've not had any word from them," Fiz said. "I don't even know if they're still alive. All they know is that I went to a doctor for treatment and disappeared."
The United States is holding about 625 men from at least 42 countries.
Mohammed said life in the prison was not pleasant, but he was thankful to be able to see the sun and stars through the mesh walls of his cell. "There are still many of us left in that prison," Mohammed said. "They think they'll die there."