PESHAWAR, Nov 5: Three top Taliban leaders, including their ambassador to Pakistan Mulla Abdus Salam Zaeef, are in the custody of the US forces at Camp X-Ray, Mohammad Saghir released from Guantanamo Bay told Dawn on Tuesday.
“Pakistan has not been fair to us,” Mr Saghir quoted Mulla Zaeef as saying.
Mr Saghir, the first amongst the dozens of Pakistanis released from the detention centre last week, said that he had had many meetings at the Camp X-Ray with the then Taliban’s governor in Herat, Mulla Khairullah Khairkhwa; then deputy defence minister Mulla Fazal, and Mulla Abdur Rauf.
“I used to meet them quite often...and every time I meet them they would speak of Pakistan’s betrayal,” Mr Saghir, who is back in his village Pattan in the Kohistan district, said.
He recalled that the first time he had met Mulla Zaeef was at the US detention centre in Kandahar. “Now, Zaeef spends most of his time reciting the Holy Quran or praying.”
Denying that he had any connections with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, Mr Saghir said that many days before 9/11 he with some other people had gone to Kabul as part of a Tableeghi Jamaat. From there, they were sent to Kunduz. “When the Taliban surrendered to the Northern Alliance, we too were asked to give ourselves up,” he said.
Mr Saghir said that the convoy of prisoners was bombed on their way to Mazar-i-Sharif. “Hundreds of people were killed, while hundreds of wounded prisoners were thrown into ditches and buried alive by the forces of Gen Rashid Dostum,” he claimed.
“Those who survived were ripped off of their belongings. Dostum’s forces took away everything that we had.”
Mr Saghir said that they were stuffed into containers and taken to Shibarghan, where they were locked in small rooms and given almost nothing to eat. He said that scores of the prisoners died of suffocation in containers.
He said there were more than 3,000 Pakistani prisoners in Shibarghan. “They all are in a very bad shape, in very miserable condition.”
Two weeks later, Mr Saghir said, he and others were flown to Kandahar in batches of 15 prisoners and held for 18 days. “Our heads, moustaches and beards were shaved, and we were flown to Cuba. It was a long flight of 22 hours, with a one-hour stop in between for refuelling of the plane. It was a long and tiring journey with our eyes covered up. We were not even allowed to speak.”
He, however, said that the treatment meted out to them by Gen Dostum was worst than the Americans. “Initially, the Americans were a bit harsh and strict. But they did not torture us. Later, we were allowed to offer prayers, given Holy Quran to recite and allowed to grow beards.”
The 60-year-old father of 17 children said that there were more than 70 Pakistanis at Guantanamo, mostly young people from Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Multan and Balochistan.
He said that during his 10 months’ detention, he was interrogated many times about his alleged links with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. “But I was able to convince them of my innocence.”
He said that upon his release, the Americans gave him $100 and asked him to collect more money in Pakistan. “But I did not receive the money here,” he complained.
Mr Saghir, who runs a saw machine to earn a living for his family, said his machine had gone out of order during his absence and he needed money to get it repaired
Mr Saghir said that the Arab prisoners at Camp X-Ray resorted to hunger strike day in, day out and had become a big problem for the Americans. These prisoners, he said, refused to speak to their interrogators or prove their innocence.