This was the first interview given in the UK (I am led to believe) by Ronald Fiddler aka Jamal Al Harith who hailed from Manchester, UK. He’d ended up, via a Pakistan and a subsequent, long and truly bizarre journey, inside Guantanamo Bay. He is featured in the new Wikileaks documents ‘The Guantanamo Files‘ and the specific document relating to his case can be located here.
My article appeared a full seven years (almost to the day) before the Wikileaks revelations and reading the two together makes for an interesting comparison in terms of comparing his version of events made to me in 2004 and the claims made in the US’ Department of Defense paperwork from 9th July 2003. Make your own mind up.
My meeting, interview and dealings with him were complicated to say the least. I found him to to be cagey, angry and at times, downright surly: equally, I met him a second time after this interview, but with a film crew from New York, and thought he’d mellowed into a more gentle and even amiable person. What was not in doubt what the damage that incarceration in Guantanamo Bay had done to his psyche.
Interestingly, the second time I met him, I was followed before, during and after my meetings. When I mentioned this to Jamal and his lawyer, they both told me matter-of-fact I was being trailed by MI6 (which, I hasten to add, was not remotely like an out-take of ‘The Bourne Identity’ or anything like that… more like two-blokes in a car constantly in my rear-view mirror, parked outside my hotel and circling the M6 service-station as I bought petrol… not scary as such, but certainly unsettling).
Thanks to the unassailable Herald magazine editor (the best it ever had) Kathleen Morgan for editing this, Paul Stuart for the great photos (in this and many other articles we’ve collaborated on – he’s one of the best of our generation), Craig Alexander for coordinating the powerful, iconic design and the subs (especially Simon Stuart – a genius with words and at cleaning up my dodgy prose) at The Herald for making this what it is. I was proud to have it as part of the winning British Press Awards supplement of the year submission which won in 2005 and even prouder to see this cover-story on the massive screen behind Kathleen as she accepted the award in the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London.
Click here to access PDF of this article
My colleagues at Scottish TV – Bob Tomlinson, David Scott, Paul Murricane and Ross Wilson – investigated a man named Tony Gecas in the 1990s who turned out to be a Nazi war criminal He failed to successfully sue the company and ended up living in old-age in Edinburgh still claiming he was innocent. I was curious why the War Crimes Act had never been used to prosecute him so I started investigating the old leads and some new ones: the answer I got was shocking. A few days after this article was published Gecas died – he was buried anonymously so the press couldn’t attend his service. Link to PDF here: GECAS
