Binyam Mohamed: They could still come for me
By politics.co.uk staff
Binyam Mohamed has admitted he still fears being seized by British and American authorities after spending seven years in custody.
In his first broadcast interview since being released from Guantanamo Bay last month, the British resident said he felt “dead”.
Mr Mohamed, first detained trying to leave Pakistan in 2002, claims to have been tortured in Morocco and Afghanistan by US authorities with the knowledge of UK secret services.
Held at Guantanamo since 2004 because the CIA believed he was part of a dirty nuclear bomb plot, Mr Mohamed became the first detainee to be released since the inauguration of Barack Obama.
The 30-year-old, who has spent the last two weeks at an undisclosed location in south-west England while his immigration status is clarified, told the Today programme that even now he did not feel free.
“I mean it’s been seven years of literal darkness that I’ve been through, it’s kind of like coming back to life [and] it’s taking me some time.
“That hasn’t shaken off yet,” Mr Mohamed said.
In the interview, the first occasion most people will have heard Mr Mohamed speak, the former Guantanamo detainee admitted he did not feel secure in his adopted home.
“The Americans won’t come and take me to Guantanamo but we still have MI5, the British government; there all the same.
“I don’t feel secure. It’s not fear, I expect that to happen at anytime so it’s gone past fear.
“I’ve already put it into my mind that Guantanamo is not over yet and at anytime I could be taken to wherever it is they want to take me and whoever it is that wants to take me.”
Mr Mohamed added: “I don’t have the regular person’s feelings that people have; the feelings of happiness and sadness I still don’t have
“As far as I’m concerned nothing matters.”
