Exclusive interview: Bisher al-Rawi

Last Modified: 30 Jul 2007
By: Channel 4 News

Jon Snow talks exclusively to the MI5 recruit who was abandoned in Guantanamo Bay for four years by the same agents he helped after 9/11.

In an exclusive interview with Channel 4 News to be broadcast tonight former Guantanamo Bay detainee Bisher al-Rawi tells Jon Snow how the same MI5 officers who recruited him in the UK visited him in Cuba, interrogated him but failed to secure his release - breaking their earlier promise to protect him.

Mr al-Rawi says: "It was the same guys. The MI5 guys who I knew from the UK passed by Guantanamo and wanted to say hello.

Jon Snow: "Not Matthew and Alex?"

Bisher al-Rawi: "Matthew, Alex and Martin as well."

Jon Snow: "You're joking?"

Bisher al-Rawi: (with irony) "No, no. It was a reunion. We had to have a reunion. That's exactly how it was."

Jon Snow: "The same people who approached you in the first place turned up at Guantanamo?"

Bisher al-Rawi: "Yes. It was a coincidence. It wasn't planned. I did not plan it. Alex, Matthew and Martin were there."

Mr al-Rawi tells Channel 4 News how he was recruited by MI5 weeks after the events of 9/11 to be used as a go-between between the security services and the Islamic cleric Abu Qatada - who they later arrested and is now in detention.

'I could easily understand the tension that had arisen and I had no problem whatsoever explaining myself or those around me to the authorities in the hope that we could reduce, if not resolve the problem.'
Bisher al-Rawi

He says: "It was two or three weeks after 9/11 ... they came to where I lived with my sister and her husband ... it was just a general sort of introductory conversation ... getting a feel for me, understanding me, understanding my situation. I know for a fact they kept an eye on myself and many other people. I had no problem with that.

"I think that after 9/11 everything was very very difficult. I could easily understand the tension that had arisen and I had no problem whatsoever explaining myself or those around me to the authorities in the hope that we could reduce, if not resolve the problem.

"For me and I'm sure for almost everybody, to be interviewed or seen by MI5 is an extremely unusual and difficult experience and that's how it was for me. I was worried I have to say.

"We had a couple of initial meetings. There was not a problem. I asked them 'what do you want now'? They wanted more. They wanted help to understand things. I was concerned they were trying to entrap me or get me into trouble. I was very very clear and explicit about this.

"They started assuring me that this was absolutely not the way they operated and that was not their intention. I asked for their assurances and they gave me them in a way that was very very solid."

'Unfortunately authorities in the UK refused to offer any explanation or say anything about the situation and that did not help me at all.'
Bisher al-Rawi

Bisher al-Rawi was arrested in the Gambia in 2002 and rendered into detention at the 'dark prison' in Kabul, Afghanistan. Here he was denied food, water and light.

He was then taken to Bagram airbase, where he was beaten up and then on to Guantanamo Bay, where he was interrogated for four years before finally being released in March this year.

Talking about his plea for the MI5 officers to help him by giving evidence at his military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, he says: "I thought their promises to me, Mathew and Alex, this is the time to resolve this, if I just ask for them everything will be said, clarified, and this whole episode is over.

"Unfortunately authorities in the UK refused to offer any explanation or say anything about the situation and that did not help me at all."

Just this very week the Intelligence and Security Committee corroborated Mr al-Rawi's claim that the security services abandoned him.

In its report on rendition it states: "... We consider that the Security Service should have informed ministers about the case at the time, and are concerned that it took *** years, and a court case, to bring it to their attention."

Jon Snow asks Mr al-Rawi what his advice would be to other Muslims who are approached by 'Matthew and Alex'.

He replies: "Well these are very complex and difficult decisions. Everyone must make their own decision but I entered this relationship with goodwill and I think what they've done to me is very very bad. People could make their own conclusions about this, my experience was very very bad from beginning to end."