strongly critical of it it's also my home it's also where i live where the language i speak i think in this language is the place where my mother is buried my sister's buried and my kids grow up and where i grew up is where i have my memories of childhood and happiness and joy. coming into conflict with the west would also mean coming into conflict with home and that's something i've never ever want to do advocate. i remember distinctly there was a. knock on my daughter early morning around six o'clock and i opened the door three able to men and a woman and i said mr i would like to talk to you and a really odd one of them identify themselves as a police officer the other guys didn't really say who they were. they sat down and we spoke and it was about an individual somebody i knew who'd gone to the emirates

and had been detained in the emirates and being beaten and tortured and had written to me asking if i can get him a lawyer because they force him to sign confessions of all sorts of stuff related to terrorism this was the first of at meetings with one particular individual out of these three the two i never saw again but this one person became i don't know if the right word is nemesis for me but he he he was haunting me like a spook the next several years and this man. introduced himself as as andrew that i've always known him as andrew and that that there is no other name andrew seemed to me. just more aware of what he wants why he is that he was. to me it was clear to intelligence gathering exercise he said. i mean there's anything that you can do to help us don't

forget this is your country too i found that interesting that he'd say that. this is your country too i was flying out i think in ninety nine following year two to turkey. and before i took the flight i was stopped at the airport and. taken by airport security to a room and they said we've got somebody who'd like to speak to you. so i was surprised but not completely taken aback because the person who walked in next was andrew he started to speak to me about all of my political views which he hadn't done before in the presence of the police officers now i knew andrew i had an understanding of what this man is like in terms of his power and if he wants to

he can have me stopped. and prevented from flying which is what he did the next time i saw andrew was when i was kneeling on the hood of my head my hands shackled behind my back and a gun pointed to my body in bagram and. that was a shock. you're telling me the story is there you go to sit on the beach and like that's not what you're going to do your kind of withholding of the. crucial details you know i'm interested in why it's been i i was going to turkey to go and meet some friends to go and possibly go over to chechnya. chechnya was one of these places where there was a a growing sense i think in the muslim world or some part of the muslim world that here's a another place of resistance i found it inspirational and i wanted to go and see

for myself what's happening in chechnya again it's a war zone something i was interested in didn't know enough about wanted to explore it and study it just like this and as i've gone to bosnia before and seen for myself the atrocities and so forth i went to the border with georgia with a friend. we were not allowed in. and. so we returned i stayed a couple of weeks. last night officers from the west midlands police and m i five carried out raids on three premises in birmingham the police at the time told the press that the rates were linked to islamic extremist activities i was of course arrested in two thousand and one under the. terrorism act. and they raided by home and. the bookstore the author of his really didn't know

when to. they couldn't explain to me they really couldn't explain to me what it is that they think i've done yes terrorism in what context according to whom with whom which dates which times which places who's been hurt i don't understand when a crime was committed and of course charges were dropped. but it did shake me up that. i've actually been arrested for terrorism. the un is about to publish a major report condemning the taliban regime in afghanistan for its repression and violence against women since it imposed its brand of islam four years ago. and that's the international claims that i that afghanistan's taliban militia has massacred thousands of civilians in the past few weeks victims they say include women children and the elderly taliban officials have strongly denied the

accusations. there's a kind of common perception that you went to afghanistan to practically join the taliban. no i didn't join the taliban. but i want to live under them and i lived for several months and i think i got my eleven and i. probably have to stay there for a lot longer. my views on the taliban were not formed by the media that's one thing that i wasn't going to do and that's one reason why i want to see things for myself the talk was all that the afghan taliban are not allowing female education so when my friends told me actually that's not technically true they are allowing schools for girls as long as they are of an islam and he thought we helped to set up curriculums we helped to buy a playground equipment and computers and all of that from britain to afghanistan.

to. tell of my experiences of the taliban of course living in afghanistan. made me question. who they really were about what they were really about. i remember once when i was driving through kabul center and there was a crowd of people gathered at one of the major roundabout so you couldn't drive through. and so i had to get out to walk to see what's going on as i got closer and closer i realised that there are four cranes. at this roundabout and each crane. off it. a person and a four people can executed ironically for terrorists. and the crowds which is standing around looking at these bodies and the tongues block and. i remember thinking i wonder what sort of legal process they these guys must have gone through .

i can hear you now getting arrested i want to hear you and if. you are not. well hear all of us. good. by aiding and abetting murder the taliban regime is committing murder. and tonight the united states of america makes the following demands on the

taliban. delivered to united states authorities all the leaders of al qaeda who hide in your land. the taliban has reiterated that if one time to some of bin laden without evidence of his involvement i think them coming out if unbelievers attack the territory as muslims said the taliban today then she hides how you will becomes an obligation because in other words we'll fight. locos a couple of hours away from cops out of the back later to this place just looking to find ways to get into pakistan we stayed in the i think for a few weeks until. my family evacuated but i got separated from it can you tell me the story of how you got separate from. i'd gone to kabul

to clear out the rest of our house and get some things from there but some friends might left my family in loco. and during the night. there was mayhem and commotion for talk about how to vacuum to abandon their positions and they're looking at foreigners anybody who's a foreigner of our muslim faith with god as al qaeda. it was a very very scary time and i wanted to just get to my family. i couldn't because the roads have been plotted all the entry exit points into kabul will be blocked. so there's a group of people that i was with pakistanis and others who said they know a route over the hills of mountains to both take me to. they drove all night long and it doesn't take all like to get a mobile and decide they were going to local and i kept on telling them i need to get to lower my families and. they just carried on.

i remember telling my father that i've lost my family i don't know where they are. it was. heartbreaking. almost two maybe three weeks had passed and still i did nothing. so i was planning to go back into afghanistan. knowing that it was going to extremely risky for me but i had to i had to go back in. and just as i was about to go back in i got a phone call. from a friend and said don't go away most of your families here right here in pakistan in islamabad. that rushed back all the way thank god thank you. everybody i could. and eventually got to islamabad where my family was staying at the house of some people who took them in.

and we decided we're going to stay in pakistan for a while and just ride this through and then eventually go back to the u.k. and the mountains that you were. with the tora bora i don't know i didn't know the name of those places i've heard the name of it was called as far as i understand. these are the first pictures of al-qaeda fighters who've been captured in all thirty five were caught today these men gave themselves up in no fit state to fight after days of brutal temperatures and. this is what osama bin laden's force has been reduced to. the night of the thirty first of january two thousand and two. the wife and kids go to sleep and knock on the door. it was midnight and it was strange to see them knock on the

door at the time. i open the door and. there's a group of people studying this large group of people. nobody in uniform nobody identify themselves hardly any would set a target even asked me who i was and they just stormed in. and pushed to the side one of them put a gun to me to my head. pushed me on to the ground on my knees. they shackled my hands behind my back to the probation shackled my legs. they would have me and physically picked me up and carried me into the back of one of the vehicles like pop by the side of the house. and. opposite and i was so my family came from that night. and saw the vehicle they lifted the hood off my head from the bottom. i saw two

cook asian looking men. and they spoke with american accents and they were dressed i'd say very badly as pakistanis. one of them said that you can either also questions here in. or you can ask them in kuantan i'm ok. and then they put me onto this aircraft. transport plane. i was seated on the floor my and was shackled behind my back i don't hit over the head. at the sounds of these dogs barking hugs grauer of the engines the jet engines hear screams of other prisoners i was trying my best not to shout a scream there i was just sitting there like no idea we were quite what's happening but i sense that there was some people next to me so i ended up speaking to this

guy. who turned out to be a libyan i think. but i was shocked by his. what was going on in his mind you know we spoke an hour because salaam aleikum to each other and. it seemed to be like a month and conversation he said brother have you prayed a decompressor. no i haven't said anything we should. listen you know i think probably now is a better time than any and so. he led the prayer being on the left hand side to recite the print at that point an american soldier a member came over and he put a knife to my throat and he said if you speak again i'll cut your throat. when we landed at the airport in kandahar the americans tried to through the modern it was freezing cold at a time and. two of them sat on top of me one to try to push his new you know his

knee into the small of my back the other one pushed his his knee up to my head and then they started slicing off my clothes with with a knife. and then off into this interrogation tent one by one. where there were two agents of the f.b.i. that f.b.i. cops or. they were asking each person when was the last time you saw bin laden when's the last time you saw a lot of the taliban. as i was kneeling. with this one of my had. only cost anywhere around when they lifted the hood over my head i see andrew. same andrew had been in my house and met me in the u.k. . their dreams have turned out to be disappointed. that if anyone called me to say he'd leave egypt

i'd advise him not to come three young north africans tell the story of how europe is not all they hoped it would be. now does their world welcome to italy. the latest news as it breaks while this is a training exercise the dangers are real because the threat you are a hidden melody is slowly deteriorating with detailed coverage and how that is the donald tough to reason may make think clear that the current political impasse simply can't go on from around the world while aid agencies are warning people of the dangers of cholera and distributing vaccines many are still using levers for thing and cleaning. how if you changed since he was seven.

charting the lives of the children of apartheid over twenty one years each story reflecting a history of dramatic social and political change twenty eight up soft africa part one on al-jazeera. hello i'm. with the top stories on al-jazeera a sense of version of the report into whether u.s. president twenty sixteen presidential campaign colluded with russia says it found no such evidence but it doesn't clear him of obstruction of justice the u.s. attorney general when he released the report on thursday the report recounts ten episodes involving the president and discusses potential legal theories for

connecting those activities to the elements of an obstruction offense after carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report and in consultation with the office of legal counsel and other department lawyers the deputy attorney general and i concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense president has declared total victory but democrats want. a tiny general to testify before congress the u.s. house judiciary committee chair says they also want to access to the full unedited version of the reports and other leading democrat says questions still remain. when the attorney general gives the perception that the president fully cooperated in the investigation when he didn't know that they provided all the information materials when they didn't when the president in fact deprive the special counsel

perhaps the single most important piece of evidence that is his own verbal testimony that misleads the american people now molly's prime minister has resigned along with his entire government for weeks after a mass killing of one hundred sixty people the ethnic violence prompted thousands to rally in the capital bamako president abraham his office says he accepts the resignation of the prime minister and that of the members of his government. the u.n. envoy for libya is warning of a broader escalation in violence fighters loyal to the internationally recognized government in tripoli and launched a new campaign in the south against world khalifa haftar. sudanese protest as a continuing to demand an end to military rule a sit in outside the army's headquarters has now been going on for two weeks a military transitional council took over after president omar al bashir was forced to resign well those are the headlines and now it's back to with us.

using the end of those weeks of custody in bagram two thousand and two a confession. to being a member of. yes i signed two confessions these pows both these confessions were. one was in bagram one was in kuantan m a but it was by the same agents so the same f.b.i. agents. to made me sign some documents i can't remember what they were. then. returned again in kuantan m o. and i produced some documents and they had asked me to sign them again in the first instance it was.

completely out of. the threats they were making about being tortured and sent to syria and to egypt in the second instance they said if you don't sign that you will be prosecuted in a summary court where you could face execution and my reason for signing at that time was that at least if i sign up get to go to court. i had learnt from the cia about the case of one particular individual which has been extremely important in my view in the whole war on terror. there was a case of a man called it no shade a libyan the cia agent in. told me that if you don't cooperate with us we will do to you we did not shake a libyan no sheikh a libby was sent. from bagram in a coffin. to a ship in the persian gulf called the u.s.s. bataan. a false confession was produced and the confession was that he had not

shaken libya as a member of al qaeda senior member of al qaeda which i later learned he wasn't. i was working with saddam hussein on obtain weapons of mass destruction. i can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how rac provided training in these weapons. to british men along the first al qaeda terrorist suspects who will go on trial before american military tribunals they are laws him bag from birmingham who was arrested by the cia in pakistan last year and is now being held at guantanamo bay

in cuba. the experience of solitary confinement. was so. destructive internally destructive initially so i did have a couple of panic attacks and behave in a way that i was never a custom to screaming and shouting swearing and carl punching the world simply because i couldn't take being in that environment it was. corrosive. eventually i was moved from the solitary blocks to the main blocks. i was held in come papa with five other prisoners one of them was australian one of those was british or to yemeni and also to loose one of the yemeni guys was very charismatic man also very influential. his premise was that everybody in the west is not innocent because they're part of

a democratic nation and therefore they all play a part in empowering the government to carry out its strikes not to patients of muslim land but of course my response to him was that actually there's a entire antiwar movement in britain and the rest of the world so would you discriminate or would you simply see the more the collateral damage. of course he'd had back and say well their bombs don't discriminate they bomb us and they if you look at what took place in iraq and the sanctions against iraq people that led to the deaths of thousands of people every month or so he had a response for it but i still didn't make sense to me from what i understand what i've always believed that i've always believed that the concept of jihad these guys were using is a noble one is one in which you are taught we are taught it's civilians are not

targeted the women children old people are not to be targeted and this was specifically laid down in the rules of engagement by early most and by the prophet and his companions so what you say. is just as bad as america or outcry this behavior is somehow justified why are you not just saying straight up that this is the worst kind of hypocrisy because it's hypocrisy in the name of this long. it's not islamic because i think there are there are various layers to all of this and al qaeda is a muslim organization they're not hindus or jews or christians and muslims so we have to talk about them in islamic terms. of or. at the but i may disagree with them in terms of this concept that they're not muslims that's completely false and i'm not going to say something false just to please people the

foreign secretary jack straw is expected to announce that the four remaining britons being held without charge at ground telling my ballet are to be released feroz abbasi bag richard belmont lot in bangor have been held at the u.s. naval base for nearly three and could now be home within weeks i think it was on the twenty fifth of general two thousand and five. when eventually soldiers came to my cell. shackled me up once again. and took on to this coach where there were three other british prisoners. we arrived in our f. north halt and on the plane while i was still on the plane one came along and said you're under arrest of the potential terrorist not. they drove a police vehicle onto the onto the airplane and then put in the back of a can to crew to paddington green police station where i was taken to to see i think that the duty sergeant and he offered me something really strange he said

would you like to make a phone call. just dawned on me this is going to be the first opportunity i could get to speak to my family three years. i said no i don't remember the number. and eventually we were taken in a police vehicle to the house of mine and. i walked in and there was my father my brothers. standing there were tears and i was crying. and then shortly after that my wife arrived with the children. it was hard enough to see the children but there was an addition to the family i'd never seen before and he was three years old that. my other younger children didn't really remember too much and i'm kind of sleepy cruise late but my daughter my oldest daughter she was very emotional she cried

a lot she remembers everything she remember the night i was taken to remembered every detail she got really terribly affected by it. and my wife well i think that between me and us. the sixteen year old when they was. returning home to a family. to a community that i think was still suffering the trauma effects of what i'd gone through so by the end of this experience in bosnia herzegovina. the son of this conservative bank manager. had been radicalized i'd say to a degree i'm in not radicalized in the sense and of course it's very important to understand that when we talk about radicalization it wasn't that i believed in the concept of what they claimed or some of the night misstating or al qaeda or anything like that at all i just believed in the right of these people to defend

themselves i believe in the right that if somebody is getting raped if a child is getting his throat cut just because somebody doesn't want to waste a bullet on him then he has to be protected if the world community is not doing it and it's the people of the of the country have to be helped in the thing themselves did you take up arms that i didn't. want when it's minding your own business and banging with i want why it is well you can bring in the everything dead bodies on the tracks train blown open. all. time and again over the past few weeks i've been asked to deal firmly with those prepared to engage in such extremism and most particularly those who incite it i started hearing voices from people and people reaching out to me saying muslim we understand that you just come from a terrible ordeal but there are things happening here that you might not appreciate

fully. where laws are beginning to change and affect the muslim community in particular i did speak out against the bombings the july the seventh bombings and i think somebody from m i five heard me. and there was a woman who had visited me in guantanamo. as an m i five agent and she called me and they wanted to know my views about who might be responsible who might have been. behind the july the seventh bombings and this was now the opportunity for me to ask them a few questions do you realize that you were part of a process that involved torture and abuse and you've took full advantage of it let's just remember that all the the former guantanamo to you tony of claim that they were completely in a so that any wrongdoing ever and you know we have to take this truth. and there's. always these same people have now managed to maneuver themselves into

position where they're making sure as a negotiator i don't serving officers who are charged with protecting us in very difficult circumstances i have always said that m i five were present at every leg of the journey during my incarceration and that it was in pakistan in kandahar in belgrade and in kuantan i'm ok and in the last instances of me being met by an m i five in fact the foreign office were present so there's no denying that m i five were involved in the interrogation not just of not of british residents but in fact of british citizens of whom i am one. of. the arab spring opened doors into countries and places where i'd never thought i would have the people to go. for want on a prison

a. place where the americans had threatened to send me if i didn't cooperate. i had to fight for the next three years to get my passport back to be able to travel and this time around my travel i've been directed by my experience. to go. two countries seeking. the role of the british government the american government and in the room their role in torture. the first place i went to out of all these places was egypt and tried to make links with those who'd been imprisoned and try to find out who had come across the case of it while shaikh al libbi. documents had been destroyed it was very difficult to find anybody who could link this to that but then i went into tunisia. and then into libya crucially and in libya i went to abu salim prison that's where it now shaikh libby.