Ruhal Ahmed
Encyclopedia
Ruhal Ahmed is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 citizen. He was detained without trial for over two years by the United States government, first in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, and then in Camp Delta
Camp Delta
Camp Delta is a permanent detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay that replaced the temporary facilities of Camp X-Ray. Its first facilities were built between February 27 and mid-April 2002 by Navy Seabees, Marine Engineers, and workers from Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root...

, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 prison for people it describes as suspects in its "War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

", at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. His Internment Serial Number was 110.

Ahmed was released in March 2004.

In August 2004 Ahmed, Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul is best known for being a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States, which treated him an unlawful combatant. His detainee ID number was 86....

 and Asif Iqbal, all from Tipton
Tipton
Tipton is a town in the Sandwell borough of the West Midlands, England, with a population of around 47,000. Tipton is located about halfway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is a part of the Black Country....

, compiled a report on their abuse and humiliation while in US custody.
The 2006 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, The Road to Guantánamo
The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo, alternatively The Road to Guantánamo, is a British 2006 docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees at a detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba...

 is a docu-drama depicting their version of the story of their detention.

In Rasul v. Rumsfeld
Rasul v. Rumsfeld
Plaintiffs Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith, four former Guantánamo Bay detainees, are suing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They charge that illegal interrogation tactics were permitted to be used against them by Secretary Rumsfeld and the military chain of...

, plaintiffs Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Udeen Al-Harith
Jamal Udeen Al-Harith
Jamal Udeen Al-Harith is a British citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention as a suspected terrorist in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba for two and a half years.Al-Harith's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 490....

, four former Guantánamo Bay internees, sued former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...

. They charge that illegal interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...

 tactics were permitted to be used against them by Rumsfeld and the US military chain of command.

In 2007 Ahmed and Rasul participated in "Lie Lab", a scientific programme on the United Kingdom's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

. Contrary to the account of his presence in Afghanistan to the press and as depicted in The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo, alternatively The Road to Guantánamo, is a British 2006 docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees at a detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba...

, Ahmed admitted attending an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...

. Rasul refused to take the lie detector tests.

Ruhal is of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

i origin; his father Riasoth Ahmed is Bangladesh-born.

Ahmed has been refused a visa to visit Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 to promote The Road to Guantanamo. He has taken part in a campaign against torture, organized by Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

.

Comments on the three alleged suicides of 11 June 2006

The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 quoted Ruhal following the announcement of the deaths of three detainees, who were alleged to have committed suicide.
  • "There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself. It is the despair _ not the thought of martyrdom _ that consumes you there."
  • "A Saudi detainee in the cell in front of us had had enough. We could hear him rip up his sheets and tie it to the wire mesh roof of the cell. He jumped off his sink and tried to hang himself. We shouted to the military police and they came and saved him."
  • "It's weird because when we left we weren't even that religious, We were young _ average British lads. Obviously if we knew what we were getting ourselves into we would have never gone."

The McClatchy interview

On 15 June 2008 the McClatchy News Service published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Ruhal Ahmed in Britain.
Ahmed said when he arrived back in Tipton he was greeted by an effigy clad in an orange Guantanamo coverall
Guantanamo captives' uniforms
Detainees held at the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp are typically issued one of two uniforms, either a white jumpsuit if the prisoner has been labelled "compliant", or an orange jumpsuit if the detainee has been labelled "non-compliant"....

, labelled "Tipton Taliban will die."

External links

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