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JENNIE PASQUARELLA: My name is Jennie Pasquarella and I'm a staff attorney with the ACLU of
Southern California. And we filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking
documents relating to the United States Government's role in Naji Hamdan's detention, interrogation
and torture in the United Arab Emirates, and it's unexplained surveillance of Naji Hamdan
and his brother, Hossam Hemdan. We filed this case in the Central District of California
and we have here Naji Hamdan from Beirut, Lebannon to discuss the case and its importance.
PASQUARELLA: Why don't we start by having you describe why you sought to file this lawsuit?
NAJI HAMDAN: I say there's nothing worse for a person to be under surveillance for seven
years, to be under interrogation several different times, get detained in foreign countries,
held in secret locations, tortured with the worst-ever judicial system - you noticed that
when you came to U.A.E. and saw the kind of judicial system that they have - get sentenced,
deported, yet does not know why such happened to him. This is exactly what happened to me,
Jennie.
PASQUARELLA: Yes.
HAMDAN: My life in a split second was turned upside down. I feel a very simple need to
know why this happened to me. What role the United States government played in my ordeal
in the U.A.E. The truth is what I'm after, and I think this is really important for me,
my family and my friends.
PASQUARELLA: What is it that lead you to believe, Naji, that the U.S. government was responsible
for your detention and ultimate torture and prosecution in the U.A.E.?
HAMDAN: Well, actually, Jennie, I lived in the United States for over 20 years. I was
constantly watched and harassed by the FBI and other agencies, as so many Muslims in
Southern California are right now. A few weeks before my detention in U.A.E. two FBI agents
flew from Los Angeles to U.A.E., questioned me at the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi for
about three hours. Two weeks later I was detained by U.A.E. state security and was taken to
a secret prison house. No one knew my whereabouts, not even myself - I didn't know where I was
until about two months later when I was visited by an American official from the embassy and
I was told by him I that I was in Abu Dhabi with security. And so did my family until
then, that I was detained with security.
So now, in one of the torture sessions, of course cuffed, handcuffed and shackled, blindfolded,
I had a brief conversation with a person that spoke pure American English. I had no doubt
in my mind that that person was an American agent attending that torture session. From
the bottom of the blindfold I could see his black shoes and grey pants, that they were
different from everyone else in the room. From his accent I knew that he is an American
agent.
PASQUARELLA: And Naji, do you believe that the U.S. knew all along that you were being
tortured?
HAMDAN: I have no doubts.
PASQUARELLA: Naji, if we're successful in this lawsuit, and we get all the documents
we've requested, what are the biggest questions in your mind that you think these documents
will answer?
HAMDAN: I really want to know why and what basis they did all that to me and my family.
This is my basic concern. I want to know why they did this to me. I also want Americans
to know how our agencies are conducting their business using dictatorships to do their dirty
jobs in secret. I feel that I was betrayed by the U.S. government and the state department,
whom they could have at least easily protected me from all the torture I received, but they
did not. On the contrary, they contributed one way or another in my torture and suffering.