Moazzam Begg: Difference between revisions

Moazzam Begg (born 1968) is one of nine British Muslims who were held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, by the U.S. government.^[2] After intensive discussions with the U.K. government, President Bush had him released without charge on 25 January 2005, along with Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, and Richard Belmar.

Bush released Begg over the objections of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, who were concerned that Begg could still be a dangerous terrorist.^[3] After his release, Begg appeared in the video 21st Century CrUSAders and said the War on Terrorism is really akin to a war against Islam.^[4][5] The British government considers possession of this film to indicate possible radicalization.^[6]

Begg says that when he was incarcerated Bagram Theater Internment Facility, though not in Guantanamo Bay to which he was later moved, he was hog-tied, kicked, punched, and left in a room with a bag put over his head, even though he suffered from asthma. Since he release, he has become a commentator on radio and television on issues pertaining to the UK Muslim community and UK and worldwide anti-terror measures, and toured as a speaker about his time in Guantanamo and other detention facilities. He has also co-authored a book, and authored broadsheet and magazine pieces.^[3]

In 2010, Gita Sahgal, then the head of Amnesty International's gender unit, publicly condemned her organization for its collaboration with Begg.

Begg, who was born to to Muslim parents, is originally from Sparkhill, a suburb of Birmingham, and grew up in the Moseley area of Birmingham.^[7] He has dual U.K./Pakistani citizenship.^[8] His father, Azmat Begg, was a bank manager born in India.^[3] His mother died when he was 6, and his father sent him to the Jewish King David school in Birmingham from the ages of 5 to 11, because he thought it inculcated good values.^[7][9]

During high school, Begg became a member of a Birmingham gang called the Lynx Gang.^[3] In his autobiography, Begg describes the gang as consisting of teenage boys from Asian, Afro-Caribbean, and Irish backgrounds who banded together to fight against the extreme right, punk rockers, and skinheads after having suffered severe violence at the hands of neo-nazi skinhead anti-immigrant groups.^[10][3] He said he rarely joined in the fights.^[3]

Begg “received extensive training in al-Qaeda terrorist camps since 1993”, according to an official dossier released by the U.S. Justice Department.^[11] Pentagon officials say that in all Begg trained at three terrorist camps "associated" with al-Qaeda members.^[3] The dossier said that while at the training camps he trained how to use handguns, an AK-47 rifle, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and how to plan ambushes.^[11] The dossier also identified him as “a member of al-Qaeda and affiliated organisations” who was “engaged in hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners”.^[11] The file also said he “provided support to al-Qaeda terrorists by providing shelter for their families while the al-Qaeda terrorists committed terrorist acts”.^[11]

On a family holiday to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in his late teens he became interested in Islam.^[3] In late 1993 he returned to Pakistan, and crossed the Pakistani/Afghan border with the leader of the Lynx Gang, Syed Murad Meah Butt (known as Niaaz), and some fellow young Pakistanis near the city of Khost. He met various groups of nationalist and Islamic rebels (mujahedeen) fighting the occupying Soviet forces and the Soviet-backed Afghan government.^[8][3] He admits visiting a training camp there for two weeks, run by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, at which people were being trained how to use Kalashnikovs and handguns.^[8] Begg says he himself didn't train.^[8]

Inspired by the commitment of the mujahedeen, he also admits travelling to Bosnia in the early 1990s to help the Muslims there, where he was "terribly affected by some of the stories that I'd heard of the atrocities taking place there".^[8][3] In 1994 he joined a charity delivering aid to Muslims in Bosnia.^[7]

And he attempted to travel to Chechnya.^[8] But though he says he "thought about it", he denies he took up arms there.^[8] He does acknowledge he supported Muslim fighters, and gave financial support to them.^[8][12][13]

He was first arrested in 1994, as he showed up for work at a benefits office at Small Heath, Birmingham, for alleged involvement in a benefit fraud case, and charged with conspiracy to defraud the Department of Social Security.^[13] His friend Butt, now residing in Glasgow, Scotland,^[14] was also charged, pleaded guilty, and served 18 months in jail.^[13][15] In 1999, Butt was jailed for five years in Yemen along with the son of Abu Hamza for planning a terrorist bombing.^{[3][15][16][13]}

The fraud charges against Begg were subsequently dropped.^[13] But a search of his home by anti-terrorist police^[7] reportedly found night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest, and "extremist Islamic literature".^[13] His family said that he was collecting the items as a hobby. Since his return from Guantanamo Bay, Begg has been asked about this several times. He says the items mentioned were in fact a flak jacket, for protection against shrapnel from mines in Bosnia-one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, and a hand-held night vision lens, to help navigate Bosnian streets that lacked electricity. He also claims he knows of no "extremist Islamic literature" being seized at the time.^[17] The latter point, he says, is particularly relevant, claiming one would be hard-pressed to find something fitting the category of "extremist Islamic literature" in the way it does today. The items seized were, he says, no different than what many aid workers operating in conflict zones might be expected to carry.^[17][13]

In early 1998 Begg was married, with two small children. He moved his family to Peshawar, Pakistan, on the Afghan border.^[3]

He and his wife socialized primarily with members of the town's small Palestinian community, and some Arab and Afghan veterans of the anti-Soviet jihad.^[3] One was Palestinian Khalil Deek, whom the U.S. 9/11 Commission described as an associate of Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant who was also in Peshawar, recruiting new members and sending them to train at Afghan camps.^[3] An American counterterrorism official said the CIA and MI5 suspected Begg worked with Deek to create a CD-ROM of a terrorist manual, "Encyclopedia of Jihad," which Deek gave to two Palestinians who plotted with Zubaydah to bomb tourist sites in Jordan.^[3] Begg acknowledged in an interview that he had met Deek in Bosnia, and later invested with him in a small business deal, but said he never met Abu Zubaydah (though Pentagon officials said that conflicted with what he told interrogators).^[3]

Begg admits he visited a second Afghan training camp near Jalalabad, for a day and a half during that time.^[8] He claims it was run by Iraqi Kurds who had been fighting against Saddam Hussein, not by al-Qaeda.^[8]

In 1999 his Maktabah Al Ansar bookshop in Birmingham, an Islamic book and video store,^[18] commissioned and published a book by Dhiren Barot (later convicted as a terrorist), who joined the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir against India. Barot, who later pleaded guilty to terror-related charges, wrote in the book: "Terror works, and that is why the believers are commanded to enforce it by Allah."^[19]

In 2000, Special Branch and MI5 officers investigating Islamic terrorism raided the bookshop, and arrested Begg under British anti-terrorism laws.^[13] They found the bookstore offered titles such as The Virtues of Jihad and Declaration of War.^[20][13] He also said that the store's most popular book was Defence of the Muslim Lands, by al-Qaeda co-founder Abdullah Azzam.^[21] He was released without charge, according to his father.^[20][13] His father also said the British government retrieved encrypted files from his computer, and ordered Begg to open them, but Begg refused, and a judge ruled in his favor.^[13]

His home in the U.K. was raided by anti-terrorist police in the summer of 2001, and a computer, five floppy disks, and two CD-roms were taken, but no charges were pressed.^[7]

With his wife Zaynab and three young children, Begg moved to Kabul, Afghanistan, in mid-2001.^[13] He insists his move was to fulfill his dream of being a teacher, and claimed that he became a charity worker at a school. Allegedly moved by the plight of the Afghan people living under the highly conservative Taliban regime, Begg claims to have travelled to Kabul with his family to start a school for basic education and provide water pumps. Begg had allegedly begun formal sponsorship of the school from the U.K., providing books, teaching materials, and classroom and playground equipment. The school had separate facilities for boys and girls, despite the fact that the Taliban regime opposed education for females.^{[citation needed]} In his book Enemy Combatant, Begg recalls that he told two U.S. agents who visited him in his Guantanamo Bay cell that: "I wanted to live in an Islamic state–one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world," and goes on to say "I knew you wouldn't understand. The Taliban were better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past 25 years."^[22]

When the Allied attack on Afghanistan began in November 2001, following the defeat of the Taliban, a U.S. Justice Department dossier on Begg indicated that he joined their retreat to the Tora Bora mountains, where he had been “prepared to fight in the front line against allied forces”, according to the Pentagon.^[11][3] He said that he and his family evacuated to Islamabad in Pakistan for safety.^[7]

The Guardian and USA Today reported that when al-Qaeda's Derunta training camp was captured in November 2001, a photocopy of a money transfer was found there requesting that a London branch of Pakistan's Habib Bank AG Zurich credit the account of an individual identified as "Moazzam Begg" in Karachi, Pakistan, with a sum of money in sterling.^[23] The money order photocopy was found alongside al-Qaeda training books, listed targets for destruction, hand-drawn sketches of bombs, and bomb-building manuals.^[23] U.S. and Pakistani officials said at the time that they did not know who Begg was, but would try to find him.^[23] Since his release Begg has said that he is unaware of such a transaction, and that no one has shown him the document.^[24][25]

In February 2002, Begg was arrested at his rented home in Islamabad on suspicion of links with the Taliban or al-Qaeda by Pakistani police officers, who handed him over to American officers,^[26] in what his family maintains was a case of mistaken identity.^[13][27] He was bundled into the back of a car, and taken back to Kabul.^[7]

Begg was held at Bagram Theater Internment Facility for approximately a year. He was then transferred in February 2003 to Guantanamo Bay.^[26]

Begg claimed that while at Bagram, he witnessed two other detainees (Dilawar and Habibullah) being beaten to death.^[28] He is featured in the film Taxi to the Dark Side talking about one of the deaths.

CNN reported in April 2004 that leaks of intelligence reports to British newspapers alleged Begg spent time in an Afghan al-Qaeda training camp, where he learned to make bombs, and that he had been linked to a plot to attack the British Houses of Parliament.^[29] In an editorial in Gulf News Linda Heard said that Begg, who wrote his parents that he had no idea of what he was supposed to have done and was "beginning to lose the fight against depression and hopelessness",

"confessed to being part of a plot to spray the British Parliament with anthrax.... Begg's confession has been the cause for hilarity in certain circles; among those who know how difficult it would be to come up with a pilot-less drone, not to mention weaponised anthrax."^[30]

Begg claimed that while at Bagram, he witnessed two other detainees being beaten to death.^[28] He is featured in the film Taxi to the Dark Side, talking about one of the deaths.

He was held for just under three years. The U.S. government considered Begg an enemy combatant, and claimed that he trained at al-Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.^[31] He was not charged with any crime, nor allowed to consult legal counsel.^[32]

A 9 October 2003 memo summarizing a meeting between General Geoffrey Miller and his staff and Vincent Cassard of the ICRC said that camp authorities were not permitting the ICRC to have access to Begg, due to "military necessity",^[33] an exception allowed for by the Geneva Conventions.

His American lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez, received a handwritten letter from him, dated 12 July 2004, addressed to the U.S. Forces Administration at Guantánamo Bay and copied to Begg's lawyers, among others, which U.S. authorities agreed to declassify.^[34][35][36] Its full text was passed to his British lawyer, Gareth Peirce.

In the letter he wrote of: "threats of torture, actual torture, death threats, racial and religious abuse", "cruel and unusual treatment" and that "documents ... were signed under duress".^[36] He also wrote: "This culminated, in my opinion, with the deaths of two fellow detainees, at the hands of US military personnel, to which I myself was partially witness".^[36] He insisted: "I am a law-abiding citizen of the UK, and attest vehemently to my innocence, before God and the law, of any crime—though none has even been alleged".^[36]

After his release, Begg said he had seen two people beaten so badly at Bagram that he believed it caused their deaths.^[8] He said he had been tortured in Bagram, in that he was hog-tied, kicked, punched, and left in a room with a bag put over his head, even though he suffered from asthma.^[8] He said he was not tortured in Guantanamo, though the conditions were "torturous".^[8]

Template:CSRT-Yes

a. The detainee is a member of al Qaida and other affiliated terrorist organizations.

1. The detainee recruited individuals to attend al Qaida run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
2. The detainee provided money and material support to al Qaida terrorist training camps.
3. The detainee has received extensive training at al Qaida run terrorist training camps since 1993. He has been trained on the AK-47, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), handgun, ambush theory, detection of land mines and he manufacture of improvised grenades.
4. The detainee provided support to al Qaida terrorists by providing shelter for their families while the al Qaida members committed terrorist acts.

b. The detainees engaged in hostile acts against the United States or its coalition Partners.

1. The detainee was armed and prepared to fight on the frontlines against US and allied forces alongside Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
2. The detainee retreated to the Tora Bora Afghanistan along with other Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
3. The detainee engaged in these hostile actions while neither he nor his fellow fighters wore distinctive military emblems on their clothes, not followed a typical chain of command.
4. The detainee provided support to Usama Bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network with full knowledge that Bin Laden had issued a declaration of war against the United States and that the al Qaida network had committed numerous terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens.

^[38]

The Combatant Status Review Tribunal was held on 13 November 2004.^[39] Begg's unclassified dossier was published in early 2005, and hosted by the Associated Press. On 3 March 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a Summarized transcripts from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[40] The tribunal considered 6 unclassified documents, and 27 classified documents, before they confirmed that he was an "enemy combatant". He was never brought before a US Court of Justice.

Begg asserted that he was not claiming POW status—because he regarded himself as a civilian. However, he submitted a list of witnesses he wanted to testify on his behalf. He thought two of them, an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a US officer, could testify that he been classified as a Prisoner of War, and had been issued a POW card. James Crisfield, the legal advisor to the Tribunals, wrote:

The detainee proffered that this witness was an ICRC employee who would testify that the detainee had previously been issued a POW identity card at a U.S. detention facility in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The Tribunal President initially determined that the witness was relevant, but after consultation with the Assistant Legal Advisor, she changed her determination. She based her decision on her conclusion that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not have the discretion to determine that a detainee should be classified as a prisoner of war -- only whether the detainee satisfies the definition of "enemy combatant" as provided in references (a) and (b). In my opinion, this decision was correct. It bears noting that in a written statement prepared by the detainee especially for the CSRT, the detainee specifically says that he does not claim POW status (see exhibit D-e).^[41]

Begg's Personal Representative read a brief statement Begg had dictated.^[42]

All Personal Representatives completed a form commenting on the Tribunal's conclusions.^[43] Almost all checked a box signifying they had no comments. Begg's Personal Representative, however, wrote a memo:^[44]

• challenging the Tribunal's President and the OARDEC legal advisor conclusion that the witness Begg requested, showing he had previously been classified as a POW were not relevant.
• challenging the Tribunal's fundamental justice, because: "the Tribunal was instructed to assume that the detainee is an enemy combatant does not provide a means of denying the detainee the right to rebut the presumption."
• asserting that "the Tribunal incorrectly ruled the above witnesses not relevant because they were not disputing that the detainee aided the Taliban or al Qaida. POW status would not have precluded these facts from being true."
• disputing the Tribunal President's and legal advisor's assertion that Tribunals did not have the authority to agree to captive's requests to be truthfulness evaluated during a polygraph examination by a polygraph examiner.

His Personal Representative concluded: "The above-mentioned failure to view relevant testimony denied this detainee adequate due process as outlined in the order of the convening authority."^[44]

It was reported in mid-November 2004 that the Britons in Guantanamo Bay "expect to face charges within six weeks".^[45] However by the end of December 2004 this time had passed without any news of charges being laid. Later in 2004, Clive Stafford Smith (a British born lawyer then working in the United States), was allowed to visit Begg and Richard Belmar. Smith said that he had heard "credible and consistent evidence" from Mr. Begg of torture, including the use of strappado^[46][47]

The Pentagon has maintained that torture is prohibited at Guantanamo bay, that all credible allegations of abuse are investigated, and that "the United States operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information on the War on Terrorism."

The British government protested the Guantánamo tribunals, because due process rights were sharply limited.^[3] On 11 January 2005, the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that after "intensive and complex discussions" discussions between the U.S. and the British government, the four British citizens remaining in Guantanamo Bay would be returned to Britain "within weeks".^[48] While they were still regarded as "enemy combatants" by the U.S. government, no specific charges had been brought against them.

Bush released Begg as a favor to Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was being harshly criticized for his support of the Iraq war.^[3]

On 25 January 2005, Begg and the three other British citizen detainees were flown back to RAF Northolt in West London, the United Kingdom on an RAF aircraft.^[48][49] On arrival they were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police, and taken to Paddington Green police station for questioning under the Terrorism Act 2000 by anti-terrorist officers.^[48] By 9 pm on 26 January, all four had been released without charge.

Bush released Begg over the objections of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, all of whom were concerned that Begg could still be a dangerous terrorist, overruling most of his senior national security advisers .^[3] As of the June following Beggs' release, the Pentagon still maintained he was a terrorist.^[3]

"He has strong, long-term ties to terrorism — as a sympathizer, as a recruiter, as a financier and as a combatant," said a Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, after his release.^[3] And Christopher Hogan, a former military interrogator who oversaw some of Begg's early questioning and said "He provided us with excellent information routinely," added: "I don't think he was the mastermind of 9/11, but nor do I think he was just an innocent."^[3]

On 9 December 2005, Begg made a video appeal to the Iraqi kidnappers of four Christian peace workers.^[50][51] Begg said seeing the peace workers in orange boiler suits reminded him of his own incarceration in Guantanamo Bay.

Begg authored a 2006 book about his Guantanamo experiences, published in Britain as Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey To Guantanamo and Back (ISBN 0-7432-8567-0), and in the U.S. as Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (ISBN 1-59558-136-7).^[3][52] It was co-written with Victoria Brittain, and published in Spanish, Arabic, Indonesian, Urdu, Marhati, and Portuguese. The book received praise from a cross-section of reviewers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Tony Benn, and Jon Snow.

"Much of the Moazzam Begg story is consistent with other accounts of detention conditions in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo," wrote John Sifton, a New York-based official from Human Rights Watch who interviewed former Guantanamo prisoners in Pakistan and Afghanistan.^[53] "It is now clear that there is a systemic problem of abuse throughout the US military's detention facilities—not merely misbehaviour by a few bad apples."

But The New York Times reported "some notable gaps in Mr. Begg's memoir", in that he did not mention a previous arrest, nor some of his alleged ties to terrorism.^[3]

Begg was one of the detainees who would have faced charges before a military commission,^[54] but on 29 June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) that President Bush did not have the authority to set up such commissions. Begg commented:^[55]

"A lot of us remain skeptical of what this decision will actually accomplish because it only applies to the handful of men who have been charged and Bush has not respected past court decisions. That said, I'm very glad to hear the news and hope it will be the beginning of the end for many of these men."

Begg was a technical advisor for Scottish software company T-Enterprise in the development of video game Rendition: Guantanamo. The game would have put the player in the place of the detainees.^[56][57]

The game was cancelled before it could be marketed due to opposition by the public.^[57]

Begg has become a commentator on issues pertaining to the UK Muslim community and UK and worldwide anti-terror measures. He has appeared on radio and television interviews and documentaries, including the BBC's Panorama^[58] and Newsnight^[59] shows, PBS's The Prisoner^[60] Al-Jazeera's Prisoner 345, Taking Liberties, Torturing Democracy, National Geographic's Guantanamo's Secrets,^[61] and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side.

He has toured as a speaker about his time in Guantanamo and other detention facilities, characterising the British response to terrorism as racist, and disproportionate to anti-terror measures and legislation during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.^[62] As Director for the prisoner rights organisation, Cageprisoners, Begg appears in the media and around the country, lecturing on imprisonment without trial, torture, anti-terror legislation, and community relations. In January 2009, Begg toured the UK with former Guantanamo guard, Christopher Arendt, in the Two Sides, One Story tour.^[63] He has authored pieces that appeared in broadsheets and magazines,^[64][65][66] and has written an award-winning book^{[citation needed]} detailing life as a Muslim in the UK and his further experiences in Guantánamo.^[67] Begg also campaigned against U.S. wartime policy with human rights organisations such as Reprieve, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Peacemaker and Conflicts Forum.^{[68][69][70][71][72][73]}

In 2010, Gita Sahgal, then the head of Amnesty International's gender unit, publicly condemned her organization for its collaboration with Begg, saying that it "constitutes a threat to human rights." In a letter to Amnesty's leadership, she warned: "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment."^[74][75] Sahgal argued that by associating itself with Begg and Cageprisoners, Amnesty is risking its reputation on human rights.^[76][77][78]

After this was report appeared in the press, Begg filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission, and notified his attorney to pursue legal action against The Sunday Times.^[79] Amnesty International posted a response by Widney Brown, Senior Director for International Law and Policy, on its blog LiveWire.^[80]

Denis MacShane, a Member of the British Parliament, wrote Amnesty saying Sahgal: "rightly called into question Amnesty’s endorsement of Mozzam Begg, whose views on the Taliban and on Islamist jihad stand in total contradiction of everything Amnesty has fought for."^[81] Writing in The National Post, writer Christopher Hitchens said "It's well-nigh incredible that Amnesty should give a platform to people who are shady on this question," and writing in The Spectator journalist Martin Bright said: "It is Gita Sahgal who should be the darling of the human rights establishment, not Moazzam Begg."^[82][83] Journalist Nick Cohen wrote in The Observer "Amnesty is living in the make-believe world ... where it thinks that liberals are free to form alliances with defenders of clerical fascists who want to do everything in their power to suppress liberals, most notably liberal-minded Muslims."^[84][85]

• Guantanamo Bay detention camp
• Bagram Theater Internment Facility
• Torture
• Babar Ahmed
• Lynx Gang

• CagePrisoners.com - featuring articles by Begg
• - Interview wih Moazzam Begg 6 March 2006
• Moazzam Begg Describes Abuse at Bagram and Guantanamo and Witnessing the Killing of Two Fellow Detainees15 March 2006
• Interview with Moazzam Begg 11 July 2005
• The Prisoner, NOW on PBS
• US Department of Defense statements
• Vikram Dodd, Tania Branigan (12 January 2005). "Health fears for 'torture victims'". The Guardian.
• A conversation about detainment, torture, and civil liberties, via videoconference from the U.K. with Moazzam Begg, 12 November 2006
• How Amnesty chose the wrong poster-boy, David Aaronovitch, The Times, 9 February 2010