All language subtitles for We Are Not Ghouls (2022)_en

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[birds chirping]

[waves calmly crashing]

[pensive music playing]

[Bush] The United States
of America makes

the following demands:

close immediately
every terrorist training camp

in Afghanistan
and hand over every terrorist

and every person in
their support structure.

[applause]

[reporter] First strike
against terrorism

as a missile barrage
lands on Afghanistan.

[Bush] If anybody harbors a
terrorist, they are a terrorist.

If they fund a terrorist,
they are terrorists.

Battle is now joined
on many fronts.

[crowd applauding]

The American flag flies again
over our embassy in Kabul.

The terrorists who once
occupied Afghanistan,

now occupy cells
in Guantanamo Bay.

[applause]

[Yvonne]
My third year in law school,

I was interviewing
with some of the large firms.

They always ask you,
"Where do you see yourself

15 years from now?"

And you can't say, "I don't
see myself working for you,"

which I wanted to say.

Some great costume
you got there.

Yeah. [laughs]

[Yvonne]
No matter how much money,

I didn't feel I would
be happy in a large law firm.

And so, I started looking
for alternative ways

to practice law
and came across the JAG Corps.

Many of my classmates thought
I had failed out of law school

'cause they couldn't understand

why anyone would go through
three years of law school

and then go into the military
and practice law.

Any opinions
I state are my opinions.

They do not represent
the United States government,

United States Air Force,
Department of Defense

or any government agency.

[Bush] And terrorist
leaders who urge followers

to sacrifice their lives
while running for their own.

[Yvonne] I had done
at least 12 to 15 years

of being in the JAG program
before Guantanamo Bay.

[indistinct chatter]

What I knew about
Guantanamo Bay was very little.

I knew we had individuals
that we were holding

from the war on terror

that we had picked up
from the battlefield.

That we have a group who claim
the status of Taliban.

The smaller number are Al-Qaeda.

We have a group who
we have not determined

what their status is.

All that we can
say with certainty

is that none of these people
are on our side.

Remember, these are the ones
in Guantanamo Bay are killers.

Uh, they're, uh, they don't
share the same values we share.

[Yvonne]
What I had heard in the media

that they were the worst of
the worst terrorists locked up

and that we're gonna
give them full and fair trials.

I-- I have absolute
faith in the men and women

of our armed forces who, when
called upon to participate

in these commissions,

will do their utmost
to ensure a very fair,

forthright, honest trial.

I just figured by this time,
who we had at Guantanamo Bay,

since you have taken 'em
from Afghanistan and Pakistan

and brought 'em over here.

You have the CIA involved,
the FBI involved,

that we had to have
the bad guys.

[phone ringing]

I remember receiving a call
from the Chief Defense Counsel,

asking me about being involved
with Guantanamo Bay.

I hesitated
a little about volunteering.

I knew that the trials
that they would have

at Guantanamo Bay
would be very historic trials.

General Hemingway,
I really want to move forward

as quickly as you can
with prosecution.

Let the public know
that we're fighting

and winning this war

and the type of people
we're dealing with.

Long prison terms, maybe even
death in accordance with law--

[Yvonne]
I got involved in Guantanamo

because I raised my hand
and said,

"No, I'll-- If you want
me to volunteer, I'll do so."

[Graham] These guys
are not prisoners of war.

They are people who
have engaged in warfare

without meeting
the preconditions of a warrior.

[Yvonne] The case
was Binyam Mohamed's case.

Binyam's case was up as one
of the first ten individuals

to be tried by
military commission.

And at that time,
there was concern

that his case would probably
be a death penalty case.

When I got
assigned to the case,

Clive Stafford Smith was
representing Binyam as his--

Binyam's defense attorney.

Clive was a well-known
capital habeas attorney.

And honestly,
I think what we're about to do

is utterly barbaric.

Yvonne was quite open
about who she was.

She said that she was

a relatively
fundamental Christian

and she voted Republican,

something that I've never done,
I will say.

I had a lot of questions for him

because I knew
that he had met Binyam.

Clive sent me the charge sheet

and some other information
about Binyam's case.

Clive was telling me
about he was tortured

and all this stuff.

I thought he was exaggerating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, of course.

What else is he gonna say?

I didn't take a lot
of credibility to it.

But, I was reading
the allegations and like,

"This doesn't even make sense."

These charges don't make sense.

There is no war crime in here.

This whole case right now
doesn't make sense.

And I remember
emailing him back saying,

"Clive, I think you
left off some of the documents.

Where are
the rest of the documents?

Because this
can't be all of it."

So that was
my first clue, like,

something's not quite right.

But I still wasn't
putting it all together.

[Cori] So Yvonne was Binyam's
military Defense Council.

So, Yvonne was defending him
in this commissions process

and Clive and myself,
we were civilian lawyers.

So, Clive and Yvonne
cooperated on parallel tracks.

[Clive]
I was a bit worried

that we weren't
gonna get along. [laughs]

[Pam]
Yvonne was the oldest.

Back then, whatever Yvonne did,
"Oh, we wanna do that."

So she did softball,
we did softball.

She did field hockey,
we did field hockey.

She did basketball,
we did basketball.

Growing up, we were in
the suburbs of Philadelphia,

the mixed neighborhood.

Four kids, single parent.

And if you crossed over

a certain part
of the neighborhood,

you knew you
were gonna get chased.

You knew you were gonna
get called all kinds of names.

In our neighborhood,
there was a swim club

that we couldn't attend
because we were Black.

Two separate worlds.

Yvonne always knew
she wanted to be a lawyer.

The State of Georgia
versus Lester Mathews.

Benjamin Matlock
for the bench, Your Honor.

[Pam] Yvonne was always
watching lawyer shows

like Matlockand Perry Mason.

Yeah, would you change
your testimony about me?

[Pam]
I think it was in high school,

I remember her coming home
saying the teacher told her

she should be a gym teacher,
not a lawyer.

There was this whole concept
of kids of color,

you know, maybe your best
could be a gym teacher,

or not ever aspiring
anything higher than that.

But my mom would say
that was never an excuse

for you not to achieve.

In our house, you had no choice
but to go to college.

To go and get a full ride
to Notre Dame

and to be able
to do law school.

It was really
a big honor for her.

And when I tell people
she did Notre Dame,

they would be like,
"What? Notre Dame Law School?

Are you serious?" Like, Notre
Dame around the corner like,

you know, community college
Notre Dame. No.

They were still sort
of separated social segregation

to some degree.

But Yvonne was
actually our hero in many ways.

People tried to put her
in a category and she defied.

She didn't stay in that box.

♪ Christmas time ♪

[Yvonne] So, I spent
Christmas day with my family

and I think on the 26th,

I was heading down
to Jacksonville, Florida

to meet Clive so we could
head down to Guantanamo Bay.

Because I've been told
this guy is a terrorist

and he was
gonna blow up Americans

and do all these nasty things.

In my own mind,
psychologically, I'm thinking,

"This guy's a terrorist. This
guy's the worst of the worst."

I didn't tell Clive this,
but I was actually scared

to go into the cell with--
with Binyam.

[crickets chirping]

But as a Christian,
how can you represent someone

you know did the crime
and who's guilty?

Why would you
wanna get somebody off?

After doing my six years
in the military,

I started doing capital cases
in Pennsylvania. Death row.

And I had really been
with the worst of the worst.

I-- I've
represented an individual

who had killed at least
six or seven people.

We had what we called
contact visits.

You would go into
the meeting room

or the cell with your client.

I would read
the case file beforehand.

I was like, "Oh, this person's
an animal. This person's a,"

you know, you-- you--
you get very negative effects

just by reading the transcript.

When you sit down
and you talk to the person,

you realize I could have
a conversation with a person

who's sitting on death row

and talk about
the Phillies game

or talk about the weather
or talk about sports.

And you connect on
a more personal level.

Everyone has this misconception

that defense attorney's role
is to get people off.

My role is not
to get people off.

My role is to make sure
that the system works.

And in order
for that system to work,

both the state
and the defense have to have

competent individuals
representing it.

And if the system's
working correctly,

then I believe in
the end of the day, you know,

if someone is guilty,
they'll be convicted,

but they're gonna get
a fair sentence, a fair trial.

And it's all about making
sure everyone gets fairness

because anyone can get
caught up in the system.

And I think most people
really think

only guilty people
get caught up in the system

and that-- that's not true.

[pensive music playing]

I had no problem
with walking to a cell

with someone who has
been sentenced to death.

However, the first day
when I went to meet Binyam,

I was scared.

We were over at six.

It's one of the newer buildings
that they built.

There were-- Had been complaints

about whether or not
the guards could overhear

the privileged conversation
between counsel and client.

[fan whirring]

And I remember
big commercial fans

on the outside of the door.

It was just weird
to hear this large fan sound.

It was the only mechanism
that the facility had

to mask the sound.

And I remember walking in there

and sitting down with Binyam.

I wanted to size up
the situation myself.

So, I spent most of that time
just kind of watching Binyam.

I allowed Clive
to ask the questions.

The thing I noticed immediately

that Binyam was more scared
of me than I was of him.

And immediately it-- That just
hit me like a ton of bricks.

You could tell in his head
he thought this was a set up.

Talking with Binyam
and what happened from him,

he was captured at
Karachi Airport in Pakistan

and that was just
the beginning of his ordeal.

[reporter]
People want to know

why you were in
the part of the world

where you were arrested.

Why did you go to Afghanistan
in-- in the first place?

Catastrophic wars
are tearing apart,

Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

And in Ethiopia,
some four million people

are on the brink
of famine once again.

[announcer]
About civil war,

which has already cost
hundreds of thousands of lives.

[Yvonne]
Binyam was born in Ethiopia.

There was
a change of government

and his family escaped from
the Ethiopia to United Kingdom.

He was a UK resident.

His father and parents end up
going back to Ethiopia

after there was
another regime change,

but they left Binyam
back in the UK by himself.

Binyam ended up
getting into drugs,

got himself in a little bit
of trouble in that way.

He was a teenager left
on his own, pretty much.

He was making bad choices
until he found Islam.

And that's really what
rescued him from the street.

[reporter] In Afghanistan,
his mission--

[Yvonne] So, this is before
September 11th.

He had made a decision
to do a pilgrimage.

He was in Afghanistan
at the wrong time,

at the wrong place.

Because as we all know,
September 2001, 9/11.

And then in October,

was when we went
to war in Afghanistan.

-[gunfire]
-All hell broke loose.

Once the war broke out,

it was almost impossible
to get out of Afghanistan.

Binyam brought this
to my attention

'cause I never
thought about it before.

It's not as if
you can just, you know,

go down to the airport
and-- and-- and, you know,

book a flight and go home.

You're in a third world country
to begin with.

Now, you're in a country
that's at war with the US.

Bombs are dropping everywhere.
Everything's closed.

Anyone trying to
get outta Afghanistan

had to go through Pakistan

and that's where he eventually
made his way through.

April 10th, 2002, he got
stopped at the Karachi Airport.

He was trying to
go back home to the UK.

He was caught
with a forged passport,

arrested and from there,

he entered into
a nightmare world

that I wouldn't wish on anybody.

[pensive music playing]

According to Binyam,

he was moved around a couple
times, held in local prisons.

Within about a week or two,

some Americans came in
who he identified as the FBI

and started to participate in
some of the interrogation.

Binyam kept asking for a lawyer.
He wasn't telling him anything.

He said, "Hey, look,
I want a lawyer.

I don't know anything."

But another week or
two later, MI5 came in.

MI5 is like the CIA
for the UK government.

And he was trying to tell him

that he was being mistreated
by the Pakistanis.

And he was happy when he saw MI5

because he knew
someone from the UK government

knew of his whereabouts.

MI5 gave him some tea
and he asked for just like,

one lump of sugar.

One MI5 agent said,
"Well, you probably want more

than that for
where you're going."

And Binyam didn't understand
it fully at the time,

but he understood something,
he thought,

"Does that mean
I'm gonna be moved somewhere?"

July 2002,
he was rendered, taken off

and moved to an
unknown location.

That's when things
got from bad to worse.

He's moved to Morocco
and for 18 months,

even MI5 can't find Binyam.

Because when they moved him,

the US refused to tell MI5
where they had moved him.

He talks about some
of the worst physical torture

happening in Morocco.

Because they weren't
getting anything from him,

they continued to increase
the amount of pressure.

One day,
they stripped him naked,

which was not
an unusual thing to do.

They held his genitals
in his hand

and with a razor and they said,
"We might as well cut this off

because the only
thing you'll ever do

is breed more terrorists."

They took what Binyam described
as a razor type of device

like a scalpel and made little
cuts in his genital areas,

which were extremely painful,

but not enough
that they wouldn't heal.

And they would make five,
six small cuts in him

and he would just scream.

I mean, he said,
first he tried not to scream,

but it was just so painful.

After that, a doctor
or someone would come in,

put some kind
of liquid on it, let it heal,

and then two or
three days later,

they would come back
and do the same thing.

[Yvonne]
Long-term sleep deprivation,

stress positions,
long-term mind games.

All of this
was to break him down

and get him
to confess to things.

He said he lost hope
when during one interrogation,

they start asking him questions

and were telling him
about things about him

when he lived in London.

He said he realized then

when he saw his own government
was involved in this,

that he lost hope because
he could hold out like this

is just the Americans
doing these things.

But when he feel-- Realized MI5
was now involved in this

and somehow, um, I think
that was one of the things

that broke his spirit.

[chopper whirring]

Binyam, after spending
about 18 months in Morocco,

was then moved
to the Dark Prison.

[Clive]
I remember just becoming numb.

He basically said,
"Clive, you're gonna have to

fill in the emotion because
I'm kinda dead in the head."

He was speaking very
matter of matter-of-factly,

this is what happened,
this is what happened,

this is what happened.

Uh, and I was just writing
it down and it was horrifying.

[Yvonne]
After the Dark Prison,

he was finally transferred
to Guantanamo Bay.

[Clive] The stuff that Binyam
shared with me is horrific,

but there were things
that he didn't want me

to share with the world
and they're worse.

And they're worse in ways
that are just so humiliating

on different levels.

After that,
I was pretty much suffering

from post-traumatic
stress disorder myself,

just listening to him.

So, I walked
into that cell scared.

I walked out
of that cell very upset and--

and-- and extremely mad.

Going in there with
that type of attitude,

I just didn't realize that
we were really holding people

at rendition
and then torturing them.

That just never crossed my mind.

[Bush]
I can tell you two things.

One, that we abide by the law
of the United States

and we do not torture.

And two, we will try to,
um, do everything we can

to protect us within the law.

We do not render
to countries that torture.

That has been our policy

and that policy
will remain the same.

[Yvonne]
You go through so many emotions.

I think
I learned more about myself

than I did about Binyam

because I realized that
in a sense I had been had.

[pensive music playing]

[Steve]
Do you think it's inevitable

that some people
who are innocent

are going to
end up in this system

spending years
and years in Guantanamo Bay?

[John] There's no
perfect system. I agree, Steve.

There's always the chance

that there will be
people who are detained,

who are not enemy combatants.

The same is true
of our criminal justice system.

We are--
You know, there's no doubt

that we have people in
the criminal justice system

who are innocent.

That's why we have
all these processes.

That's why we have
all these appeals levels

is to try to
correct any mistakes

that were made
and prevent errors.

[Steve]
Mr. Yoo, thanks very much.

[John]
Thanks, Steve, for having me.

[announcer] The rights
and responsibilities

inherent in freedom

and to celebrate the joys
that life and liberty provide

and with these,
to take renewed pride

in the continuing
American revolution.

[Yvonne]
There was always an issue

about whether Binyam
is really as innocent

as the defense counsel say.

He was giving us
a lot of information,

which we were trying
to get evidence to back up.

And in Binyam's case,
that became really important

because the government wasn't
giving us any information.

There were many ways

in which we tried to
corroborate what Binyam said.

You just go down
to the secure facility

where all of the classified
files are kept,

to the FBI office

and you look at the pile
of so-called intelligence

on your client,
what they say your client did.

What they say,
the evidence for it is.

[Yvonne] The US was insistent
that Binyam was this big shot

or knew something
or was somebody.

[Bush]
I can tell you that--

that we have a man detained
who is a threat to the country.

This whole conspiracy connected
Jose Padilla and Binyam

into this dirty bomb plot.

[Bush] Vigilance
of our intelligence gathering

and law enforcement, he is now--

[Clive] John Ashcroft,
who was then Attorney General,

held a press
conference where he said

that they captured
the dirty bombers.

The Al-Qaeda operative
and was exploring a plan

to build and explode
a radioactive dirty bomb.

Now, let me be clear. We know
from multiple independent

and corroborating sources
that Abdullah al-Muhajir

was closely
associated with Al-Qaeda.

And that as an
Al-Qaeda operative,

he was involved in planning
future terrorist attacks

on innocent American citizens.

And that was
a huge part of the case.

[reporter] They obtained
information that led the CIA

and the FBI to capture this man,
Jose Padilla.

[reporter 2] What this new term,
enemy combatants, is.

This is the most extreme case.

Padilla and his accomplices,
as with all of Al-Qaeda,

would go with any plan
that would result

in maximum death
and destruction.

[Yvonne] Binyam and Jose Padilla
were supposed to be

coming to the US and have
a radioactive bomb with them.

Discuss plans for exploding
a radioactive dispersal device.

It's commonly
called a dirty bomb.

[Yvonne] I talked to experts
about this and they laughed

to think that this
could even be carried out.

There were discussions about,
um, this, uh, possible plan

and it was in
the discussion stage and, uh,

it had not gone
as far as we know

much past the discussion stage.

[Yvonne]
Anyone who knows chemistry,

there'd be no way
that these two individuals

could just carry
a radioactive bomb into the US.

[reporter 3] Could we see this
end up in court?

[Yvonne] But Americans,
they just heard the dirty bomb

and after 9/11 was like,
you know, the sky was falling.

The problem was,
Binyam didn't know Jose Padilla.

Jose Padilla didn't-- didn't
know-- didn't know Binyam.

Binyam, when they caught him
at the airport in Pakistan,

he was flying from
Karachi to Zurich to the UK

because there's no direct flight
from Karachi to London.

Jose Padilla travelling
around at the same time

was going to Cairo.

They may have been
going to Zurich together

because every flight from
Karachi had to go to Zurich

'cause that was its hub.

So, they were on
two different flights.

When Binyam was trying
to make his way into Pakistan

to fly out, they did stay
at different Madrasas.

They made it. Stayed at
a Madrasa together. Who knows?

That would've
been the only connection

between Jose Padilla and Binyam.

But there was
never a clear connection.

Everyone who you
could ever think of,

you could ever name in Al-Qaeda

was named in
Binyam's charge sheet.

You had him connected
with Jose Padilla,

Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.

I'm like,
"How are they connecting Binyam

with you know, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, Bin Laden."

And I'm thinking, Binyam, here
you are, you converted to Islam

back in early 2001.

By 2002, you're shaking hands
with Bin Laden

and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
and you don't speak Arabic,

but I'm quite sure
they probably thought

you were one of the club.

One of the things that happened
during that time period

was that Abu Zubaydah
had been captured.

We knew that Zubaydah
had more information

that could save innocent lives,
but he stopped talking.

It became clear that
he had received training

on how to resist interrogation.

And so, the CIA used an
alternative set of procedures.

[Ali] And then, uh,
and then we finally reported

to headquarters
that, you know, this--

What's happening,
as I called it in the, uh, uh,

D-O-J, Department of Justice
Inspector General Report,

borderline torture.

[Yvonne]
When they had picked up Binyam,

I think they kind
of forced Abu Zubaydah,

when he was
making these confessions

and was waterboarded
to try to-- to say,

"Do you know this
person, that person?"

There was a confinement box.

I mean, definitely it's--
it's for, uh, for Abu Zubaydah.

And, uh, I really
cannot be part of this.

And at the time, I felt that
waterboarding was something

that we needed to do.

And as time has passed,
and has--

As September 11th has--
has, you know,

has moved farther
and farther back into history,

um, I think
I've changed my mind.

[Yvonne] And because
they have been Binyam,

they kinda forced Abu Zubaydah.

They were probably saying,
"Do you know this guy?"

"Hey, you know,
I know anyone you want

if you stop pouring
this water down my throat."

They were connecting dots
that just did not connect

because they did the same
thing with Binyam with Jose.

They showed him
a picture of Jose.

He's like,
"I don't know who this guy is."

But by the time
they finished with Binyam,

he would've known
who anyone in the world

wanted to be to
stop the torture.

The US was
trying to connect dots

and forcing people
to confess to things

to justify their detention

and to show that they were
terrorists and bad, bad men.

They had charged both
Jose Padilla and Binyam,

pretty much co-conspirators.

I was very interested
in what evidence

the government had on
this whole dirty bomb thing.

[reporter] Jose Padilla,
he was accused

in a radioactive dirty bomb.

[Yvonne]
We knew it was hogwash.

But we were kind of interested

on how the government
was gonna present this at trial.

Because Jose Padilla was
in the federal court system

and not down at Guantanamo Bay
in the commissions,

his trial actually kicked off
first down in Florida.

So, I go to Florida to see
the Jose Padilla case,

get to Miami.

I have a brief chance to talk
with Jose Padilla's attorney

and he was the first one
to tell me that the charges

that they originally
had picked up Jose Padilla for

had magically disappeared.

[reporter]
But those charges disappeared.

It's just impossible
in this country

for someone to get a fair trial

when they're lumped in with
Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

[Yvonne] That was a shock
because that was the big thing

that hit the news.

Big thing that made
Jose Padilla

and Binyam really bad guys
and the worst of the worst,

where they were gonna
come to the United States

and set off these dirty bombs.

It told me right then and there

that was something
that was made outta thin air.

And that the government had
no evidence on the dirty bomb.

That corroborated
Binyam's stories.

The, uh, front page
of USA Todayhas a story.

"Ashcroft's remarks
annoy the White House."

It says, "Ashcroft's ominous
tone surprise the White House.

They say that
the former Chicago gang member,

once known as Jose Padilla,
was up to no good.

But then, any plans involving
radiation were not as mature

as Ashcroft suggested.

Administration sources
say the White House

emphatically told Ashcroft
it was dissatisfied

with his description
of the alleged plot.

Publicly, the White House
defended Ashcroft,

saying he was
technically correct.

There's always
a tendency at times like this,

that initial
reports immediately lurch

to the worst case scenario."
Next is a call--

[Yvonne]
So, I was happy in some ways,

but in another way,

I knew the commissions were
a totally different set of laws.

[Dana] Wow.
This was weird and different

and the CIA is
really involved in it

and we don't know
if it's good or bad,

but it doesn't feel comfortable
to a lot of people.

You know, how are you--

Where are you
gonna put these people?

And that's where the whole
transportation system,

the secret airplanes
come into play.

'Cause you have to

logistically get them
somewhere secretly. And then--

[Yvonne] Normally, when you
have someone in your custody,

to move 'em from
one jurisdiction to another,

the judicial proceedings
that are supposed to take place.

When you render someone,
you move them improperly

or illegally and often
to locations or places

where you know that the
treatment will not be humane.

So, I've been
investigating, uh,

the CIA's policy
of extraordinary rendition

for the last two, three years.

[Clive] There were many allies
in the battle for Binyam.

Stephen Grey was one

and he was doing
some work on airplanes.

[reporter]
And the man that exposed

this whole dark program
to the world,

journalist, Stephen Grey.

[Stephen]
How do you investigate

the world's
biggest intelligence agency?

How do you
prove this is going on?

How could you track what had
happened to these prisoners?

Bear in mind,
most of 'em disappeared.

And those that did come out
and tell some story,

no one believed
anything they said.

So the question was,
how do you prove it?

How do you show
what's being going on?

You can see, uh,
there is Guantanamo Bay.

One of the techniques
was to find all the planes

that went to Guantanamo
and then follow the--

the flight routes
that they take.

There's always a key detail

that allows you
to unlock a bigger puzzle.

These are what
flight plans look like.

This is a flight plan
N379P with tail number

of the Gulfstream jet.

I latched onto that
detail

of the tail number
of a plane. Registration.

Maybe in this story, it's
not about following the money,

it's about
following the planes.

I remember
sitting in this very room

and worked out a method

of following from
one plane to another

to see which planes were
following a particular pattern.

I realized there
was a very clear pattern.

I was staring
and-- and thinking,

"I'm following the movement
of these planes in real time."

This is actually
the full CIA's fleet.

Actually, I'm the only one

who knows this information
right now.

All of a sudden, there
was this really strong noise

of a-- a chopper
flying really close nearby

and I thought to myself,

"They're about
to raid my office."

[chopper whirring]

At that point, no one else
had got those flight plans.

I was afraid if you publish all
the details on the internet,

then people would
study the flight plans and say,

"I remember being on
that plane at this time."

Make up details and they could
have invented the story.

So, what I did was
I kept all that back.

People like, uh,
Clive Stafford Smith

and Yvonne Bradley would want
to have these flight plans,

but I wouldn't
give them to anybody

until we'd got the prisoners
to sit down

and write the exact details
of what they remembered

of when and where
they were picked up

and where they were taken to

and where they
were taken to after that.

The whole story. And then,
I used that to compare against

the flight plans
and the planes.

And that was what was amazing
is that it all matched up.

And that suddenly made
all kinds of people credible,

who otherwise
you would never have believed.

[Yvonne]
Binyam was right on

when he was moved and all
this stuff was confirmed.

The only person
capable of telling me the truth

during this time was Binyam.

You know,
finally I ended up working

with the New York Times

and we found pilots
of these planes

who confirmed
exactly what had happened.

[Steven] Jeppesen Dataplan
are wholly owned subsidiary

of the Boeing Aerospace Company.

They allege that
over a four year period,

Jeppesen actively participated
in the rendition program

by supplying flight
and logistical services

to 15 aircraft used by the CIA

in the extraordinary
rendition program

to pick Mohammed up in Pakistan
and then fly him to--

[Yvonne] At that point
in my mind, I start thinking,

"This is so much
bigger than just Binyam.

This is a constitutional issue.

It was a different type
of fire in me to represent him

and not allow him
to be railroad.

And I had fought that case
from a different viewpoint

than I fought any other case.

[radio host]
On the line, this is Evie.

Evie calling us
from Boise in Idaho.

[Evie] Hi. I wanna know,
have the names of the prisoners

down there ever been released?

[woman]
Not formally, no.

The US government
so far has declined

to release those names.

None of the names have
ever been formally released.

[reporter] The secretive
tribunals at Guantanamo Bay

is set to resume this month.

And while press cameras
are not allowed in,

courtroom sketch artist,
Janet Hamlin,

will be illustrating the scenes
for the world to see.

The Associated Press sent
Hamlin to Guantanamo in 2006.

[woman] I took the dogs for
a walk and I gave him a bath.

[Janet] I've been
illustrating for years.

That's all
we had before cameras,

was court sketch artists.

The venue in Guantanamo
will always be a sketch venue.

These three scenes.

This one, see I was thinking
about an earlier drawing there

and just decided--

There's too many
sensitive things happening

in that environment

and I can be edited
and I am edited.

Anything I sketch
has to be reviewed

by a court security officer
and literally signed off.

That's the sticker

that has to be on
every sketch that goes out.

This was Yvonne Bradley

and Binyam is
wearing an orange tunic.

Oh. [chuckles]
Yes. This is the--

the art sketching at the courts

because it was against
the Geneva Convention

to take pictures of people.

It's not against the Geneva
Convention to torture people

or hold 'em forever
and do everything else,

but you couldn't
take the picture of 'em,

but you could
take the sketching.

The manner in
which we conduct trials

under military
commissions will speak volumes

about our character
as a nation.

Just as the manner in which
we were attacked speaks volumes

about the character
of our adversaries.

Thank you.

[Yvonne] Binyam had
only met me maybe twice

before we went to trial.

At this time, the ten detainees
who were going to trial,

none of them trusted their
military defense attorneys.

We went to his hearing,
April 2006.

When we initially
started the hearing,

Binyam wanted
to represent himself.

The rule stated
that he had to have

a military defense counsel.

I had to be at the table

in order to follow
the rules of the commission.

Binyam tells the judge, he says,

"Look, let me explain to you

why I don't
necessarily trust her.

Imagine if you were
picked up by a Muslim

and they took you away
and put you in a cell for years

and flew you around
and tortured you for years

and interrogated you for years.

And then,
one day someone in a--

in a turban
and a beard came in and say,

'Trust me, I'm your lawyer.'

At what point
would you trust him?"

And you could hear everyone

in the commission
saying that's true.

Binyam understood the issues
very clearly

and was trying to demonstrate
to the court how ironic

and how silly this
whole situation was.

[marker squeaking]

Binyam had
a white piece of paper

and he had a magic marker.

And I'm talking to the judge

and so what I'm
hearing is this squeak,

squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak, squeak.

Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

Binyam has a magic marker
and he's writing something

and I'm trying to keep talking

'cause I don't
know what Binyam's doing.

I can't like distract him like,
"Binyam, stop it.

You're making all this
noise with the magic marker."

And Binyam kinda taps me and
he says, "Let me take over."

So, I sit down
and Binyam goes on.

He says, "Your Honor,
you know why she's confused

about what this is? Because
no one's done this before.

If the US carries on
these type of hearings

that are inappropriate,
the next thing you know,

Canada will wanna do it

because America's
the leader of things

and people follow after America,
then if Canada does it,

then, uh, South American
countries going to do it.

And then, you have
a European country doing it."

He said, "You guys
are leading a bad example."

He said, "I'm gonna
tell you what this is.

The reason she
doesn't understand it,

these aren't commissions,
they're con missions."

And he holds up
the sign that says con mission.

He said, "This is
a mission to con the world."

And so, he's just holding it up
and he turns it around.

The press is behind him,
the media's behind him.

So, they're seeing this sign
that says con mission.

This isn't a mission
for fairness.

You wanna con people.

You wanna con people as if
you're giving them fair trial.

You wanna con them
as if these are real hearings.

I didn't expect him
to hold up the sign.

[reporter]
For the first time ever,

the military has
released the names

of all the people in custody
at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

The Pentagon
handing over the names

as part of a freedom
of information request lawsuit

filed by
the Associated Press--

[reporter 2]
Human Rights Watch says

it believes the United States
operated a secret prison

in Afghanistan that engaged
in torture and abuse

as early as 2002
and as late as last year.

It bases that claim
on descriptions

that eight detainees
at Guantanamo...

[Yvonne]
When we went to court, 2006,

I had brought up an issue

that I thought there
was a conflict of interest

in the way these commissions
were gonna be set up.

The way this was all
supposed to be designed,

he had these ten defendants.

At least four or five of them

when they were charged,
were charged with a conspiracy

and named on
each other's charge sheet.

So, you might have Binyam's name
in Barhoumi's sheet

or Qahtani's sheet.

And then, Qahtani's name

that he committed
these offenses with Binyam

and other individuals.

Each of these individuals
are represented

by different JAG attorneys.

All these
ten attorneys will work

out of the same
legal office in D.C.

You have one
Chief Defense Attorney.

Not only did the Chief
Defense Attorney give advice

to each of the ten attorneys,

he always did
a performance evaluation.

And in the military,

your performance evaluation
is how you get promoted.

So, each of these attorneys
have a stake in the CDC,

how they would evaluate them.

If I gave the CDC information

that was confidential
privilege on Binyam's case,

he'd give me advice.

And then, say, Omar Khadr's
attorney comes to CDC.

The CDC is now entitled
for Omar Khadr's best interest

to reveal that
information to him,

but he can't reveal it to him

because it conflicts
with Binyam's interest.

The CDC, he has now
put himself in a situation

where he's in
a major conflict of interest.

It puts me in the situation

where I'm supposed
to report to him.

He's supposed
to do my evaluation,

but now I know
I can't really report to him

because my concern
is if I tell you something,

are you gonna
tell these other four

or five individuals
who are named

in Binyam's charge sheet?

There's no way
I can go to the CDC.

The whole thing
was a stack of cards

that really had to be addressed.

And everyone was
ignoring the issue.

And I was
the one willing to say,

"The emperor's not
wearing any clothes."

When I brought this issue up,

the residing officer who
was hearing the commissions,

what he was telling me,

"Counselor, Major,
I don't wanna hear it.

I'm a colonel, you're major.
We're gonna move on."

I was trying to be a litigator,

a advocate, bring up
a legitimate legal issue

and I could not allow him

both ethically
to roll over the issue

or constitutionally
roll over the issue.

And I realized then
their whole game plan

was just to
steamroll through this,

put on these show trials
and to get these convictions.

And they'll pat each other
on the back and say,

"No, what good
boys and girls we are."

And I just decided
at that point,

I wasn't gonna be part of it.

I ended up pleading the fifth

because I refused to
answer any more questions

on Mr. Binyam's behalf.

It became very contentious.

[Clive]
The judge, who was a colonel,

he was trying to get her
to say she agreed with him.

He was ordering her to say that.

And Yvonne was not doing it.

And indeed she was
being pretty verbal about it.

And I just thought,
"Oh, my goodness,

I think he's gonna
lose it in a minute.

[Yvonne] Now, I didn't think
I was disobeying an order.

In the heat of the battle,

there was a bailiff
or someone who came

and gave him a piece of paper

and told him to take a recess.

And he said he would
take a 15 minute recess.

There were members
of the press coming up to me,

asking me, "Is there
a barracks or something

that can put you in?"

I'm like, "What are
you guys talking about?"

Oh, my gosh. I mean, there's
a chance there could be,

like, a court-martial
or some kind of incident

where she's gonna get punished?

I've never seen
anything like this happen.

[Yvonne]
That's the first time I realized

that I might get locked up

because I wasn't even thinking
about getting locked up.

I wasn't even
thinking along those lines.

I think everyone
in that courtroom,

including Binyam, thought
I was gonna get locked up.

And I definitely knew

what some
of the consequences could be.

The hearings,
from my understanding,

were being heard back
in the Pentagon or elsewhere.

I later understood
from one of the PA officers

who worked in the Pentagon
that during this recess,

the judge had
called back to the Pentagon.

And so, the judge
was pretty much told,

"You need to calm things down.

You got the world press
there and you have counsel,

which looks like
you're about to lock up."

So during that recess,
whoever he talked to,

whoever happened, he came back
and it was like

a totally different judge
took that stand.

"It's obvious, Major Bradley,
you believe you have a conflict

and we will reschedule this
for another day

and you can
properly raise your motion."

I think when Binyam saw
that I was willing to fight

and even willing to lose
my career and/or get locked up,

that was one of the points
where he realized,

"Wait a minute,
she's not one of them."

She is one of them,
but she's not one of them.

There's something wrong
when your client,

the terrorist,
is the truth teller.

And your peers
and your superiors,

you always have to question
what their motives are

and tell you
whatever they're telling you.

We used to call it
like Twilight Zone

or Alice In Wonderland

'cause everything was turned
upside down in Guantanamo.

It was a world of its own.

Binyam was on
a couple hunger strikes,

um, while he was there.

And every time I would come
to see him on hunger strike,

I would always bring him food.

So, he would always
break his hunger strike

when I was there.

During these meetings,
Binyam would be gorging himself

on food that we would bring him.

He was telling me
how he was a great cook

and how he make
this great spaghetti.

Binyam, this seems
like torture to me

for you to talk
about food when--

when you're on a hunger strike.

He said, "You know,
if I ever get outta here,

I'm gonna cook you
a spaghetti dinner."

And I was like, "Okay, Binyam.
That's really nice."

He said, "No, really. I'mma--
I'mma cook you spaghetti."

He said,
"I make great spaghetti."

Going on about his skills
at cooking spaghetti.

A devastating report

that three Guantanamo Bay
detainees killed themselves.

Are these suicides
in Guantanamo,

they are what they seem?

Very hard to know,

uh, definitively anything
that goes on down there.

[reporter] Guantanamo
Admiral Harry Harris describe

their deaths as a quote,

"Act of asymmetrical warfare
waged against us."

[Yvonne] A day or two
before Binyam's hearing,

they had three detainees who
died down at Guantanamo Bay.

Now, some people were
saying they were suicides.

The inmates believed
it was more nefarious.

The whole world
shut down at Guantanamo.

As a result,
Binyam's trial got shut down.

They would come in, they
take all his legal paperwork,

everything that he had
without telling him

they were
stripping the paperwork

from all the detainees
because of the suicides.

I was unable to talk with him.

Clive was unable
to talk with him.

We couldn't
even get letters down

because they were
running the investigation.

So, he has no idea
what's happening.

All he knows,
he's supposed to be

in a hearing on that day.

They say nothing to him
and nothing happens.

So, that leads him to
his imagination as to what deal

I may have made?
What's happening?

I didn't see him
'til another month or two

and he still had
not been told anything.

Trust is a hard thing
for many people to have

and it's almost impossible
in this situation

in which Binyam was in.

So, the very first time
I'm coming in,

I want to come in
and tell him what happened.

I have to now explain why,
for a month,

he's been sitting in his cell
without news.

He can either hear it from me
and maybe believe me

or I can provide him
news reports

that may corroborate the
information I'm telling him.

And I remember
trying to bring news reports

into Guantanamo.

They were seized

because of some national
security information saying

that I couldn't
bring in propaganda.

So, it put me really between
a rock and a hard place.

So, he says,
"What happened to those people

who the US killed?"

I'm dancing around the issue

and I'm trying not to
dance around the issue.

I'm like,
"Who are you talking about?"

He says, "The three deaths."

So, information I was told
I couldn't give to him,

he already knew.

So, it puts me in a bad place

as if I'm hiding
information from him.

Whatever baby steps I had made

in our trusting
relationship was shattered.

I remember at some point,
he looked at me,

"You're just part
of the same circus."

[reporter] There's another
Supreme Court decision

regarding Guantanamo.

[man] Well, the case is
called Hamdan versus Rumsfeld.

And it has to do with

whether the military
commissions are constitutional.

And it's gonna be decided
in a couple days.

No one knows
how that's going to--

[Yvonne]
Even after the Hamdan case

where the Supreme Court ruled

that the first set
of commissions

were unconstitutional,
within two, three months,

they tweaked it a little bit

and the charges on all the
individuals stayed the same.

[Vandeveld]
When I started the commissions,

I viewed the defense lawyers

as instruments
of terrorism themselves.

Here they are,
preventing these terrorists

from being brought to justice.

The case that
really started my career

at the commissions was the case
against Mohammed Jawad,

a Pakistani child soldier.

I think he was 14 or 15.

And because I was
the most zealous prosecutor

at the commissions at the time,

I instituted
charges against five others

and Binyam was one of them.

I looked at the evidence

and I thought it
was pretty compelling

that he had
committed these offenses.

[Yvonne] We realized
that it was not gonna be

in the courts of Guantanamo Bay,
that we were gonna get victory,

but it will be in
the court of public opinion.

Bringing this story to the media
and to the press,

people understanding
the tragedy of Guantanamo

and Binyam
and what was happening.

Concerning allegations this
morning from a military attorney

who represented an inmate
at Guantanamo Bay.

[Yvonne]
That's the CNN interview.

She says, to get information,
her client was tortured.

[Yvonne]
This is the one I talked about

what we knew about torture

and waterboarding was
the tip of the iceberg.

It's the tip
of-- of the iceberg.

[host] Air Force
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel

Yvonne Bradley says--

[Yvonne] The interviewer
asked me something about

how I could represent Binyam.

Because I raised my hand

to protect the Constitution
of the United States.

This has nothing to do
about national security,

has to do with
national embarrassment.

[host] Obviously,
a story we'll probably hear

a lot more about.

[reporter] The US government
alleges Mohamed trained

with weapons at Al-Qaeda's
al Farooq training camp

where he met Osama Bin Laden.

[reporter 2] US claims
Mohamed and his accomplice

discussed constructing
a dirty bomb

as well as blowing up
tankers in apartment buildings

and spraying people
with cyanide in nightclubs in--

[reporter 3] His defense
team say the only evidence

the Americans ever had
was obtained by torture.

[Yvonne]
Everything they have from him

came after he was
severely tortured, beaten,

threatened with his life,
threatened to be raped,

um, cut with a scalpel
on his genitals, on his chest.

And then miraculously,

these statements come that
he was in Al-Qaeda, that he--

This dirty bomb plot.

No government
should hide such information

because it's embarrassing,
but deal with what it occurred.

The United States has not,
is not, torturing,

uh, any detainees
in the global war on terror.

It is, uh,
I'll leave it where it is.

In the present,
it is accurate in saying--

Questioning your
own government and to,

at the same time,
trying to hold up values

of your government, it--

it-- it really is
schizophrenia at times

of having to deal
with all these things.

Presumably the people with
most to lose with his freedom

are the very people who
still detain him in Guantanamo.

Yes. Because he has information

that obviously they
do not want-- want out.

Uh, all the torture and
extraordinary ren-- rendition.

But this is
a terrible situation.

I mean, will you ever be hired
as a military lawyer again?

Well, I'm doing
my job as a lawyer.

Because you're in
the midst of the battle

of trying to do
the right thing and--

and you don't have
really have time to breathe,

you take it a day
at a time and you focus on

trying to do what's right
for your client.

Um, at the same time
frightened for your sy--

For-- for what you
think the system should be--

should be doing.

And making sure
that not in my name

are you gonna do these--
do these type of things.

And so, you really
don't have time to breathe,

you just do it.

[Pam] Yvonne, she's not one
that likes to answer

a lot of questions.

I found out, sort of, gradually
as things were happening.

I was like, "Oh, Yvonne,
I'm coming down for something.

Will you be home?"
"Oh, um, no, I won't be home

but maybe you can pick
me up from the airport."

I'm like, "The airport.
Where-- where you going?"

"Oh, um, you know, I'll
be getting back from Cuba."

"You getting from where?
Excuse me? Pardon me?"

There are certain conversations

you can't have with everyone.
You still have--

People have
very strong opinions.

Thinking, "Oh, you just
let a criminal out."

You know what I'm saying?
You let a terrorist out.

[Yvonne]
I didn't tell my family

or friends very little,
if anything.

It was my own psychosis
in some ways.

And even when they would ask

I would just, um, you know,
you can't get into it.

I was having my own doubts
of what we were doing

and I just didn't
wanna get people involved.

[Vandeveld]
As I delved into the case,

I began to see that
it wasn't as clear cut

as I had thought.

There were elements to it

beyond simply
prosecuting somebody

that deserved more attention.

Stafford Smith is working

on behalf
of Guantanamo detainees.

When I went to law school
in New York at Columbia

many, many years ago,
it never occurred to me

that one day, I would be
sitting across a table

from one of my clients,

talking to him about how my
government took him to Morocco.

And they had him tortured
for 18 months,

including, and excuse me,
for saying this in public,

they took a razor blade
to his penis.

Binyam Mohamed is
certainly a strong example

of why we need to be
closing Guantanamo Bay.

I believe this is the first time

that many, uh, many Americans
will have heard this

from people who know
what they're talking about

and are not trying--

[reporter]
Lieutenant Colonel Bradley says,

Binyam Mohamed is dying.

Britain, she insists,
must get him out now.

When I walked into his cell,

I was shocked
to see his condition.

I mean, to put in a nutshell,
he was skin and bones.

I mean, he-- he was so thin.
His arms looked like twigs.

What is Binyam's situation
now with the hunger strike?

He's down to nothing
but skin and-- skin and bones

and has lost a lot of weight
and looks-- It looks hard.

According to US officials,

84 prisoners are on
hunger strike currently.

[reporter]
The pressure is building.

His US military
appointed lawyer,

Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne
Bradley, has flown to Britain

to lobby local officials about
the dire state of his health.

[Yvonne]
Towards the end,

I was spending
more time over in London,

doing press releases and trying
to talk with politicians

to convince them the dire
straits of Binyam's situation.

I'm going to say very few words

'cause the person we wanna hear
from today is Colonel Bradley.

Mr. Mohamed was rendered

and he was tortured
by my government,

but there were other
governments involved.

Mr. Mohamed has told me year--
months before this happened,

I've represent him
for three years,

that the FBI, CIA,
and MI5 agents

were involved
in his conditions in Pakistan

and his later--
His being removed to Morocco

where he suffered
horrendous torture.

He will leave
Guantanamo Bay either insane

because that's slowly was
happening to him or in a coffin

because his condition
is declining. Thank you.

In London,
they had a greater interest

of what was happening
in Binyam's case.

It was a totally
different atmosphere.

[reporter]
An American military lawyer

on a mercy mission to London.

She's flown in
to plead for the life

of a British resident,
for the past four years,

a resident of Guantanamo Bay.

To even describe what's
happening in Guantanamo Bay

and describe what's
happening in commissions,

I-- I-- I think it's
a mystery for everyone.

On one of those trips,
I took my sister.

Oh, there she is.
I'm like, "Where is she?"

[Pam]
Yvonne, right here.

[Yvonne]
She's a teacher in New York.

-Are you ready?
-Yep.

Okay. Let's go.

Yvonne said, "I have to go
to London for a few days."

She said,
"Why don't you come over here?

You can stay here for a while.

You get your mind
off of everything."

So, I go over there

and still,
she doesn't say anything.

I don't know
why she's over there.

We're going somewhere
and I hear someone say,

"Isn't that that lady
that was on TV?"

So, I'm looking
around to see what the lady--

Who-- who are
they talking about?

I realize they talking
about Yvonne,

but Yvonne still
doesn't say anything.

Just walked down memory lane.

[woman] You've handled
a lot of big cases.

This is quite
an unusual one, isn't it?

It-- it is. And I've
done some high profile cases,

but this is probably-- Is the
most unusual usual case. Yes.

[Pam] So, I get on
the computer in the hotel.

So, I start
looking up her name, right?

And all these clips
are coming up on Yvonne.

[Yvonne] She's saying
"Torture. And who's MI5?"

What are you
talking about? CIA, FBI?

What did you do?"

Not knowing
she's on the news every night.

Not knowing
I've picked up the newspaper

and there's my sister.

No. As I said, we're moving
forward in the process

and we're
really grateful for, you know,

what we're working on here.

And I start letting people know.

Everyone was like, "What?
Yvonne did what? She what?"

Because no one knew.

She never said anything,
you know.

And no one
understood the magnitude

of the nature
of the work that she did.

[Yvonne] I had no doubt
that Binyam was innocent

of these charges, but because
it was so controversial.

Clive and I were
walking down the street

and some guy came up to us,

he was walking the opposite
direction and he stopped.

He said, "Aren't
you representing that bloke

who's in Guantanamo Bay?
You're that--

Those two who's helping
that guy, aren't you?"

He said, "Good. Keep
doing what you're doing."

Because in London,
because in the UK,

it was more
of a big deal than the US.

"You're that lady on
the telly, aren't you?"

Because we were not
getting from the US

what evidence the UK had,

there were several lawsuits
in trying to bring things out

into the light.

And it was always that thin
line of what was classified,

what was not classified
on Binyam.

So, if he was
going through trial

that we would
have all the evidence.

And that created a conflict
between the US and the UK

because the US was adamant

of not releasing
that information.

A fundamental principle
for both of our countries

is that we don't
disclose publicly

each other's intelligence.

Are you at all concerned

that the judges think that
justice would be better served

if the material was published?

Well, I'm not gonna
comment on the last question.

[Yvonne] The British government
knew this guy disappeared.

They knew that
the Americans had him

and they were complicit

because they
allow their questions

to be filtered
through the Americans

to Binyam to get--
to get answers.

But what
you're essentially saying

is some people
need to be tortured.

No, I did not say that.
I did not say.

You're telling me that
the enhanced interrogation--

[George]
I didn't say that.

We do not tort-- Listen to me.

You call it in the book
enhanced interrogation.

Well, that's what we call it.

That's a euphemism.

I'm not having
a semantic debate with you.

[Yvonne] Once the UK government
had a realization

that there may have been some
complicity by MI5

and Binyam's, um, rendering
and, uh, torture,

the UK government,
unlike the US go-- government

didn't hide
behind national security.

They wanted to bring
this to the light.

They were appalled that
their government officials

would've been
anywhere involved.

[Snow] Foreign Secretary,
Binyam Mohamed was tortured.

He was certainly subject
to inhuman treatment.

-There's a blurred--
-[Snow] No. Was he tortured?

-Well, torture--
-[Snow] Yes, tortured.

No, torture can be constituted
by repeated inhuman treatment.

That's something
that the courts--

[Yvonne] At some point,
there was--

"That's what the US is doing.
No one else is doing it."

And when the UK realized
that their hands may not have

been as clean as they liked,
there was a reaction

by the UK courts
and the UK public.

That these things if true
are not only morally wrong,

but harm our efforts
to combat terrorists.

Knowledge of the American
use of torture did not remain

within the Secret Service,
but was almost certainly passed

onto the highest levels
of government.

If in fact, we know that
torture is being carried out

by our closest ally, we have
a responsibility to act.

And I'm afraid when
in the case of Mr. Mohamed,

we didn't do so.

[Yvonne] So, it was the
UK government who allowed us

to file suit
in the court about,

if we're involved in this,
if there's evidence that

should be released,
should be-- should be released.

The reason you sub-- You, uh,
suppressed the seven paragraphs

which the court has now
released to the general public

was because they revealed
he'd been tortured.

Not because, in any way,

they compromised
our relationship with America.

That's a completely untrue.
That is an absolute slur.

This government, and myself in
particular, were instrumental

in getting the documents to
Binyam Mohamed's legal council.

[Yvonne] I think that
was pivotal because

there were a group of
people willing to say,

"We are going to allow
this evidence to be released

if you're going
to try this individual. "

So pretty much, US, either
you release the information

or we release the information.

[Vandeveld] As I got deeper
into the commissions,

I had these misgivings
about what I was doing.

Ethical considerations,
but also moral considerations

like is this consistent
with my Catholic faith?

Is this something that I can do
and still be a good Catholic?

[man] Guantanamo Bay
and its judicial system

is a stain on
the reputation of America.

This is not some hand-wringing
liberal lawyer

or a peace activist speaking.

It's a military officer who,
until a few months ago,

was charged with prosecuting
the suspected terrorists

held there,
including the British resident,

Binyam Mohamed.

[Vandeveld]
I became skeptical

of the military commissions
process as a result.

And ultimately led to
a crisis of conscience,

you know, and I left
the commissions in a--

in-- in what was
considered to be a public way.

My conscience is not clear.

I participated in
the commissions for too long.

[reporter] Lieutenant Colonel
Darrel Vandeveld,

he'd accused the military
of deliberately withholding

evidence that could
have helped clear them.

One of the five men is the
Ethiopian born Binyam Mohamed.

That there isn't enough
evidence to prove

your case beyond
reasonable doubt.

You're almost guilty
until proven innocent.

I looked back
and I was in the middle of it.

And I'm surprised at how calm
I was because outwardly--

Because inwardly, I had all
these conflicting emotions

and, you know, I thought
I'd be toss--

tossed out on my ear, you know.

And that I would lose
a lot of friends

that I had developed over
these 25 years

because I was going against
the institution of the army.

Except for maybe a dozen
and a half hardcore terrorists,

war criminals who should
be prosecuted, which you have

there are people who would
not be considered

to be war criminals
under any other regime

or legal circumstances.

[reporter]
Vandeveld's resignation

led to charges being
dropped against Mohamed.

And he believes
they will not be refiled,

partly to protect
the details of rendition.

[Yvonne]
I may have been the voice

for Binyam Mohamed's case,
but I wasn't the only attorney

saying that
these are unfair trials.

I felt the need
to speak out publicly about this

and to expose, you know,

the injustices that
were occurring in our name.

[Yvonne] I've been gardening
for quite a while.

I started doing it when I was
doing death penalty cases.

In the industry where you're
putting people to death,

to be able to just grow
something from seed

into something alive and watch
the progress that things grow.

Going down to Guantanamo

and dealing with the pressure
and stress,

being in a garden
was just the opposite for me.

90 days
turned into nine months.

Nine months turned into a year

and a year turned
into many other years.

It always seemed like it wou--
Was never going to end.

Until you saw something happen,
you never put

any true hope in,
no matter what someone told you.

And even when they said they
were gonna put him on the plane,

you never believed anything.

I remember that day that Binyam
was returned to the UK and--

After being released
from Guantanamo Bay.

[man]
You're clearly quite emotional.

I was able to keep a promise.

There's not many promises
I can keep, but I told him,

"Next time I see you Binyam,
you'll be a free man."

So, I mean, I'm overwhelmed.

I'm thrilled that I was able
of these three years

of representing him.

And we're waiting
for him to come.

Even with the press there,
I still didn't believe it

until I saw the plane land.

[reporter] About a ten hour
flight from Guantanamo Bay.

That's the same type of plane
that they rendered him in

to Morocco and elsewhere.

It's also the plane that
brought him home to freedom.

[man] After nearly seven
years in US captivity.

[Yvonne] Binyam,
stepping off the plane

and taking his first steps on
British soil after his freedom.

[reporter] His case has raised
questions about torture

and secrecy for the British
and US governments.

Both face related lawsuits.

[man] It all happened before
he went to Guantanamo...

That moment.

Charges were dropped two times.

He was never convicted
and the American government

never apologized for
taking away close to seven,

eight years of this
man's life and putting him

through this before
they released him pretty much

with just the clothes
on his back and goodbye.

Of course,
given what he had gone through--

Clive and I
at the press conference--

[reporter]
After Mohamad's arrival,

an attorney
read a statement from him.

"And tortured in medieval ways,
all orchestrated

by the United States
government.

I'm not asking for vengeance
only that the truth

should be made known
so that nobody

in the future should have to
endure what I have endured."

[Yvonne] Clive read
a statement from Binyam

about being grateful
and thankful for his release,

but at the same time
asking for his privacy.

There was never a notion
that Binyam was gonna speak.

He wasn't about
to subject himself

under another
type of captivity.

That's the photo of
Binyam being mobbed

by the press coming home.

In the UK the tabloid
press is really big.

So when Binyam came home, there
was a lot of press coverage.

They had a big interest
of following him around.

So, even coming back to the UK,
it wasn't a normal life.

And the hat that he has on,
which I can't find that hat.

That was my hat.

He asked me to wear my hat so
he can kind of shield himself

from the, uh, from the--
from the-- from the press.

In fact, what that hat says is,
"Human rights quarterly" on it.

[pensive music playing]

Binyam Mohamed obviously
has refugee status

in the United Kingdom.

He can be kept under
surveillance there

to the extent that
he will no longer pose

any kind of danger
to the United States.

[reporter] Darrel Vandeveld's
crisis of conscience

raised deeper questions
about how America

is going to deal
with the men it's detained

in its
so-called War on Terror.

[Vandeveld] I actually
thought that Binyam had

committed the offenses that he
was alleged to have committed.

And so,
I was surprised his release

was agreed to by the US.

[Stephen] I remember trying to
get this story onto 60 Minutes.

What I was told was, "Can you
prove these guys are innocent?"

And I was like,
"Well, that's not the point.

You know, I don't know if
they're innocent or not really.

That's not what I'm about.

I'm saying that they--
they're being tortured

and that's probably
wrong by itself. "

[Yvonne] In the UK, there was
another suit on their treatment

and what had happened
and what the British government

knew or should have known
what was-- what was happening

in particular with
the US being their ally.

So I had
some involvement in that

and just providing
affidavits of what I knew.

The government has always denied
any allegations of, uh, torture.

The government was left with
little option but to concede

in order to protect
such information

from further public scrutiny.

They won a large sum
money that was divided up

among the detainees.

Among those said to
be in line for payments

are Binyam Mohamed,
who was released

from Guantanamo Bay and
returned to Britain in 2009.

[man] Binyam Mohamed
will almost certainly

receive one
of the highest payments.

At least one
of the former detainees

will very likely get more
than a million pounds.

[Yvonne]
I think what the UK was saying,

"Hey, let's just put
an end to all this

because this stuff
could go on forever."

Sometimes, you do those
settlement suits

to make things go away,
pay off a large sum of money

and put an end
to this continued dispute.

But no one should read into
this admissions of liability.

No one should read into
this that once I packed up

their claims,
we just agreed to come

to a very sensible
mediative settlement.

In the US, anytime we bring
any suits up, we were blocked.

National security,
state secrets.

The most popular question
on your own website,

"Will you appoint
a special prosecutor

to independently investigate
the gravest crimes

of the Bush administration,
including torture?"

Uh, I don't believe
that anybody is above the law.

Uh, on the other hand, uh,
I also have a belief

that we need to look forward as
opposed to look--

looking backwards.

Getting things right, uh,
in the future as opposed to,

uh, looking at what
we got wrong in the past.

[reporter] The CIA's policy
of extraordinary rendition

goes on trial today
in California.

Jeppesen Dataplan,
a Boeing subsidiary,

which provided aeronautical
services for rendition flights

is accused by
Binyam Mohamed and four others

of involvement
in kidnap and torture.

The company says
there's no basis--

US corporations should not be
able to reap profits

off of a program that is illegal

and violates
the basic values of Americans.

[Ben] This Boeing subsidiary,
and we know from an employee

of this company, that it
was openly discussed

within the company that these
were the CIA's torture flights

and that they were making
a handsome profit

from these flights.

The problem is, President Obama
will not be president forever.

Uh, and-- and there is a
dangerous possibility that a--

That his successor will return
to these kinds of policies.

It's not enough for
this administration to say,

"We are
not running secret prisons.

We're not torturing people."

Without a definitive ruling
by a court

that what happened was illegal
and unacceptable,

uh, there is a real danger

that we'll see
a repeat of these abuses.

[woman] Are you appealing
the case to the Supreme Court?

[Ben] Absolutely.

We are going to ask the
Supreme Court to review this.

And I hope that the
Supreme Court will see

this in
an international context.

Many other countries
like the United Kingdom

are investigating
their secondary...

The President does believe

that those that believed
in good faith,

that these techniques
have been declared legal

by the Department of Justice,
uh, should not be prosecuted.

Bipartisan review board
has found it indisputable

in their words
that the United States

has engaged in the practice
of torture since 9/11.

The report also criticizes
the Obama administration

for what it calls
excessive secrecy.

They say the highest officials
in our country

bear responsibility and
share responsibility for it.

The report says torture
has damaged the state...

[pensive music playing]

[Yvonne] That was a hard thing
for me to have to deal with.

When you unwind, you realize

the rollercoaster of emotions
and the rollercoaster

of situations that
you've been through.

[reporter] Four memos
have been released

which detail extreme
interrogation techniques;

keeping detainees naked
for long periods of time,

keeping them
in painful positions,

beating and kicking them,

locking them into
a box with insects,

threatening their families
and simulated drowning.

In the immediate
aftermath of 9/11, uh,

we did some
things that were wrong.

We did a whole lot of
things that were right,

but we tortured some folks.

We did some things that
were contrary to our values.

I understand why it happened.

[Yvonne] Guantanamo is written
in the history

of many countries
and many people.

In every war that I've ever
seen, there's been mistakes.

In-- even the war in terrorism.

And whether or not
one individual

was mistakenly tortured,
mistakenly, uh, mistreated.

I'm afraid that's the price
we pay in-- in a real world.

I mean, they do have terrorists
at-- at Guantanamo Bay.

Unfortunately,
they had a whole lot of

people who weren't
terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

We are not ghouls.

We're not-- We don't--
We're not--

We don't wanna torture somebody
because he has a bad name.

We wanna-- we wanna
get information from somebody

that we think might
wanna kill our children

and kill your children.

[man] Request that those
in the audience

causing this disruption
cease their actions immediately.

[woman] Being told to us--

[overlapping indistinct
conversation]

[man]
Committee will suspend--

[Obama]
It's important for us

not to feel too sanctimonious
in retrospect

about the tough job
that those folks had.

And a lot of those folks
were working hard

under enormous pressure
and are real patriots.

But having said all that,

we did some things
that were wrong.

We crossed the line.

[Yvonne] We lost ourselves,
we lost our values.

And those are the type
of things that are so hard

once you give up to get back,

'cause you almost lose, in some
way, your innocence.

I would like to pass
you on to somebody

who needs little introduction.

And that is because
his case has been

in the media almost every week
in one form or another.

He's Binyam Mohamed.

[Yvonne]
I pray for Binyam a lot.

I can't even imagine
to today, you know,

how he lives in his head
and his self.

He's strained from
all his prior relationships.

In a time
when he needed people the most,

no one could help him.

And I think it's hard
for him to understand

that everyone's hands were tied.

And his brother, his sisters,
they continued

to try to look for him,
work-- Find where he was.

And everyone's hand was tied.

And that's what people
don't realize.

The human toll this
has on families, on people--

On sisters and brothers,
on cousins, on everyone.

On mothers and fathers.

We don't think about the
long-term effect that we have,

not just on the individual
that we wrong,

but everyone else who
gets dragged into this.

[Yvonne]
As horrendous as it was

to have the scalpel
used on his private areas,

he said, "I heal from that."

He said,
"It's the psychological things

of being in a dark room
and have that music playing

that you never get outta
your-- get outta your head."

He says, like, every
time the lights go out...

it brings him back.

I don't think
he'll ever be the same.

[tense music]

[Cori]
I don't think any of us

who are not in the military
can realize

the kinds of pressures that
would've been put on people

who volunteered to defend
Guantanamo prisoners.

These people had drilled
to them every day.

Every single man in
Guantanamo Bay would,

if he got the chance,
kill every last one of you,

every member of your family.

These people wanna
literally destroy America.

[Pam]
When you're going up against

such a major government,
people will never know

the wear and tear it takes on
you to be that person.

[man]
Ladies and gentlemen,

please join us
in congratulating

Lieutenant Colonel Bradley
and her family.

[applause]

[Pam]
I was so proud of her.

What she did in putting
herself out there.

You can't appreciate it because
it's just of how subtle she is.

But that had impact on her.

It really, I think to
this day weighs on her.

It was a hard struggle,
a hard fight

and I think it--
it's had impact.

[Yvonne] A couple months later
I went to London

and Binyam called me up.

He said,
"I know you're in town.

I need you to come over.

I have a surprise for you,"
type of thing.

So, he and Omar Deghayes
and about one or two women

from reprieve, we went over
to where Binyam was staying.

And he had cooked me
a spaghetti dinner.

And, uh, and he kept apologizing

the entire time because he
didn't have proper spaghetti.

He had like the short noodles,
like, more like the ziti.

He kept apologizing
'cause he had the wrong pasta.

"Binyam," I said,
"I can't believe,"

'Cause we had this
conversation maybe three

or four years
before he got released.

"Um, that you've remembered
and you actually

cooked me the spaghetti dinner."

'Cause I don't know
if I could be big enough

if we reverse the roles,
to be honest with you.

[laughs]

I-- I-- I think it wouldn't
be hard to be bitter.

[gentle, stirring music]