by Mahvish Khan
I wish we could have just handed most of them the freedom they so desperately craved.
Epilogue
Tehran, October 12, 2006
The phone rang at a little after 3 PM. Waheeda knew at once that it was good news. Her brother-in-law, Ismael, was calling from Gardez, giddy with excitement.
“Doctor Sahib is coming home today, inshallah!” he exclaimed. He’d just heard a public announcement: a group of Afghan prisoners would be arriving from Guantánamo later that day. Among the sixteen names was that of her husband, Ali Shah Mousovi.
Even as Ismael’s message echoed through Mousovi’s Tehran home, the doctor was aboard a plane headed east, toward home. Blindfolded and shackled, he pictured his family in his mind and wondered what it would be like to see them after so long. The minutes seemed endless.
Then, at last came the vibrations of wheels descending and locking into place and the aircraft gliding down the tarmac of Bagram Air Force Base. Mousovi heard the cabin doors being opened.
One by one, the men were led off the windowless plane, loaded into vehicles, and driven about thirty miles south to Kabul. There, American soldiers handed them over to the Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Committee, a Kabul-based organization headed by formerAfghan president Sibghatullah Mujadidi. Their blindfolds and shackles were removed. The men said a prayer together, and afterward, some spoke with journalists and Afghan officials. When it was Mousovi’s turn, he stood up but found himself at a loss for words.
“Someone who has spent four years only speaking to walls—it is difficult for him to talk in the presence of leaders,” he began. “You must be assured that all those sitting here and most of those still in Cuba, none of them have done anything to deserve [what happened to them in] Cuba.” Most had nothing to do with terrorism, he said. They had been turned over, because of tribal, ethnic, religious, and political animosities, to the American military who “without any investigation, arrested people and put them in jail.”1
After a short ceremony, the former detainees were reunited with family and friends who stood waiting outside. Still wearing their Gitmo prison garb, the weary but contented men walked quickly into the arms of their loved ones.
Ali Shah Mousovi scanned the crowd for his brothers’ faces. When he spotted them, they began to cry.
“Those were the hardest years of our lives,” one brother who lives in Washington, D.C., told me later. “I will never forget that day. I cried like a baby when I saw him there.”
From Kabul, Mousovi was whisked to Gardez, where he was given a hero’s welcome by crowds of well-wishers who had flocked from neighboring towns for his homecoming.
“There weren’t any gift shops at Guantánamo Bay,” Mousovi joked. “All I have is this prison uniform, if you want it!”
In fact, Mousovi said he would probably keep the uniform for the rest of his life. His brothers, however, urged him to trim the beard he had grown in Cuba and dye it black again. Mousovi was hesitant, but his brothers knew that it would be good for him, particularly before he saw his wife and children in Iran. He finally agreed, and with his beard shorn close and dyed black, he instantly looked decades younger.
Ali Shah Mousovi at his Gardez home.
That evening though, his brothers watched with concern as he lay down to rest and curled his body into a defensive, almost fetal position. It was very unlike the relaxed way he had always slept before.
Once arrangements were made, Mousovi was off to see his family in Iran. His homecoming was not a small family affair. Dressed in a tan suit, he was greeted at Tehran International Airport by hundreds of well-wishers and journalists. The crowds flocked around him; friends, neighbors, and locals placed flower garlands around his neck and congratulated him.
Crowd of well-wishers greeting Ali Shah Mousovi at Tehran International Airport. Courtesy of Dr. Ali Shah’s family.
Ali Shah Mousovi with daughter, Hajar, at Tehran International Airport. Courtesy of Dr. Ali Shah’s family.
Dr. Ali Shah with his mother at Tehran International Airport. Courtesy of Dr. Ali Shah’s family.
Abu-Zar cut through the crowds and reached out for his father. Mousovi did a double-take, looking at his eldest boy, now a tall lanky teenager with a beard. After that initial look-over, Abu-Zar remained glued to his father’s side. And then, one by one, the doctor and his teary-eyed family embraced.
Mousovi’s younger son, Kumail, ran around with a camcorder, recording the end of a bitter chapter in the family’s history. Paparazzi followed as the family slowly made its way out of the airport and Mousovi stopped in front of a waiting car to speak to the crowd of onlookers and local news reporters who had gathered around him.
Ali Shah with his two sons, Kumail and Abu-Zar, and his wife, Waheeda, at their Tehran home a few months after his release. Courtesy of Dr. Ali Shah’s family.
“I am returning from prison. I don’t have stories of adventures or vacation. I have nothing exciting to speak of. I was a prisoner. There are many more just like me. Unfortunately, we all saw only hardship,” he said.
Then, he and his family got into the car and drove off.
When I visited Afghanistan in the winter of 2006, Mousovi was still in Iran, but we spoke once in a while by telephone. “It’s so great that I can pick up a phone and call you now, Doctor Sahib,” I told him in one of those calls, addressing him with a term of high regard and admiration.
“I will never forget the love you showed me while I was a prisoner,” he said. “I hope to see you one day soon in Afghanistan.”
When I went back to Afghanistan a year later to collect affidavits and exonerating evidence for my client, Hamidullah al-Razak, I was happy to learn that Ali Shah Mousovi was there too. He’d come from Iran to house-hunt in Kabul, to finally set up his clinic and build a life for his family in their war-torn country.
“I want my children to have a love, to have meena—affection— for Afghanistan,” he explained. “I want them to see to their homeland while it is free.”
When I called his brother Ismael hoping to get together, I learned that Mousovi and his family had gone to Gardez for a wedding. So, I decided to hitch a ride to southern Afghanistan with a local aid worker. The drive was beautiful, with stunning mountains and the changing colors of autumn drenching the landscape.
Our car pulled up to Mousovi’s house, and he came out to greet us, Ismael following close behind.
“Mahvish-jaan, I can’t explain how happy you’ve just made me,” Mousovi said, clutching my hand.
I was itching to give him a big bear hug, the kind I’d give my friend Georges from Miami. Georges would show me just how happy he was to see me by giving me a monster squeeze and picking me straight up off the floor. I think I fantasized a dramatic reunion like that with Dr. Ali Shah. But Afghan culture and society throws up so many intricate barriers between men and women that I had to settle for the tight grip of his hand and his carefully chosen words. It was the same at Guantánamo. There were many, many times when I wanted to console prisoners with a hug. But other than with Haji Nusrat, it never happened; the culture inhibits it.
I smiled at the doctor and chose my words as carefully as he had. “Dr. Sahib,” I began, “I’m so glad to finally see you here in your home. It means more to me than I can explain to you.”
“May Allah always keep you happy,” he said and then, “Raza, raza—Come, come,” as he ushered me into the house, where I met his mother, a little old lady who immediately embraced me tightly and proceeded to plant kisses all over my face and head. She held my hand for the next several hours. “I feel like my daughter has come to visit,” she announced. I channeled the affection I felt for Ali Shah toward his kind mother.
The doctor told the story of the moment we first met, when both of us were nervous about whom we would be meeting. I expected a terrorist; he, perhaps an abusive interrogator. I walked in and saw a nervous pediatrician standing at the back of the room. He saw me under an Afghan shawl and mistook me for his sis
ter. “I really thought it was Parveen, that she had come to see me somehow,” he said.
The sight of Dr. Mousovi at his house was slightly surreal. I had only known him as a gentle, white-bearded man with chains around his feet. Seeing him at home with his family, just as I’d always prayed he would be again, allowed me to feel the weight of everything I’d held back during our Camp Echo meetings. He’d been the first prisoner I met, and the impact of that initial meeting was greater than most of my meetings with other prisoners. He was the first to break down my biases and to show me what sort of injustice my country had committed against good, kind people. I realized that I hadn’t allowed myself fully to feel all the effects of that until now, when I saw Dr. Ali Shah safe and free.
Being at his house was like being at the home of an uncle. I poured green tea for the doctor and his mother into small, clear tea glasses, and they filled bowls with red pomegranate seeds. I helped his mother carry in dishes of rice, yogurt, meat, and eggs. They were wonderful hosts; there were no formalities. We talked, walked in and out freely, sometimes sat on the couch, sometimes on the floor. And following custom, everyone encouraged everyone else to eat.
I couldn’t stay late because I’d been told that it wasn’t safe to drive through the south at night, but I ended up lingering anyway. It was hard to leave. Mousovi and his mother kept pressing me to stay for the wedding of a relative from the extended family. His nieces presented me with sparkly orange wedding bangles, and his mother gave me a pretty embroidered white shawl.
When I had to go, his mother embraced me tightly, while Dr. Ali Shah sat on the floor on his knees looking on. “Our hearts don’t want you to leave,” he said. “This is your home too.”
I wasn’t good at this impromptu poetic word game, and I was a bit overwhelmed at seeing him so happy, so I simply said, “I’ll see you again soon, and we’ll stay in touch.” As he walked me out, he told me how much our friendship meant to him.
Dr. Ali Shah, his mother, and I at his Gardez home. Photo by Lal Gul.
“We’ll have this special thing forever, though it started in the most unlikely of places,” he said.
“I know what you mean,” I replied. “You’re like family.”
I wished him fun at the wedding that night. “Weddings are happy occasions,” he said. “You coming to my house today was like the happiness of two weddings for us.”
I think that made up for the bear hug.
Some of the men I met at Guantánamo have been released, but many have not. Haji Nusrat’s captivity had a bittersweet ending.
In August 2006, the eighty-year-old was released as unexpectedly as he’d been arrested. Like Ali Shah Mousovi, he was given a hero’s welcome in Yakhdan, his native village in Sarobi, by hundreds of visitors who had streamed in for the homecoming.
Nusrat’s family immediately began to entertain well-wishers, including a few Americans—U.S. military officers stationed at a Sarobi base who dropped by to see what all the commotion at his home was about. The American soldiers were treated just as warmly as the Afghan guests, invited in and offered green tea.
“They greeted me and said they were sorry for what had happened to me,” Nusrat told me later. “I told them I had forgiven them.”
I trekked to Sarobi in November 2006. I was greeted by Abdul Wahid, Nusrat’s son, a tall man with light brown eyes, who led me into a guesthouse room lined with red cushions. I took my shoes off and sat down as someone brought in pastries and nuts and Abdul Wahid poured tea.
I could hear the sound of Haji Nusrat’s voice outside. He was speaking to some visitors, who continued to stream in four months after his release. He didn’t know I was coming, so when he stuck his head through the window to see who his next visitor was, his face lit up in surprise. His sons helped him into the room, and he sat next to me on the cushioned floor.
Haji Nusrat. Author photo.
“Bachai, you kept your promise. I knew you would,” he said.
“I’m so happy to see you here,” I told him. He was so different from the way he’d been at Gitmo, much calmer and more peaceful.
“Bachai, what happened to me was cruel,” he said. “I suffered a big injustice. It was not a small injustice.”
I asked him about his release.
“My release,” he said leaning back into the pillows, “left me ne khushala, ne khapa—not happy, not sad. I didn’t want to leave my son behind.”
When he was led out of Camp 4, Nusrat said, “Izatullah came up to the edge of the fencing and said, ‘Khudai-pa-aman—May God’s peace be with you.’ I gave him my hand, and then I had to leave him.”
“He must have been happy for you, but also sad,” I said.
“No, my son was happy. He was happy that his father was being released. I was sad.”
I spent the day at Nusrat’s because Afghans are so insistent that a guest stay as long as possible. An Afghan guest is typically offended if tea is not offered. Then, the host usually insists that the guest par- take of the next meal. So, when lunchtime came around, there was no question that I would be staying. We went into another room, where I was surprised to see a satellite TV, and had an elaborate communal meal. Nusrat sat next to me on the floor. I was a little surprised, again, to see him drink Nestle bottled water instead of tap or boiled water. He handed me a can of Pepsi, and his sons and grandsons brought in two-foot pieces of fluffy bread. They laid out chicken, lamb, rice, spinach, soup, and potatoes on a floor mat.
As people bustled about, I talked quietly to Haji. Then, he remembered something and started yelling for his son, who had stepped out of the room.
“Waa Abdul Wahiddaa!” he yelled. “Come in here and bring that box.”
I was amused at the way he ordered his son about. Abdul Wahid waited on his father hand and foot and never complained.
“Waa Abdul Wahiddaa!”
Finally, the twenty-seven-year-old came in holding a box wrapped in sparkly blue-and-white paper and tied with long, colorful ribbons. As he walked toward us, holding the box out to me, Nusrat stopped him.
“Give it to me. I want to give it to her,” he grumbled.
Abdul Wahid passed him the box, and Nusrat passed it to me.
“As I have said before, you are like my own child,” he said. “Our friendship will be strong and will last forever. Don’t ever let it go.”
“Of course not, I wouldn’t,” I responded. I thanked him for the gift. I opened it, careful not to rip the shiny wrapping. It was a thick brown embroidered shawl. I knew I would treasure it for years to come.
Nusrat introduced me to his extended family and other guests who had stopped by for lunch and told them the story of how we met. Then, we ate out of assorted plates and bowls of food, using the bread in place of utensils. Haji placed small saucers of salt and pepper in front of me and put pinches of both on my chicken and spinach. As we ate, I asked Baba, as he now insisted I call him, about his health. He paused between slurps of brothy soup and asked a favor.
Haji Nusrat and his son Abdul Wahid having lunch in Sarobi. Author photo.
“Can you take me to America with you so that I can have an operation on my neck?” he asked.
I thought it was a joke. “What? You want to go to America?” I asked, not believing that he would ever want to go to the United States after his experience. “Why not England, France, or Germany?” There was silence as all heads turned toward us. But the old man really wanted to go to the United States, despite everything.
“Why not? I never had disliked America or Americans. I never considered them my enemy, and I didn’t do anything to them,” he said, opening up one of his tirades. “It was my own Afghans who betrayed me. Not the Americans. The Americans were foolish to believe lies and not to investigate, but they came to Afghanistan not knowing anything or who they could trust. My real enemy was some dishonorable lying Afghan who probably sold me to the Americans.”
Abdul Wahid joined in. “We have never been against the Americans. We support the
current government. I work with the new democracy,” he said. “My father would like to go to America for medical treatment, that’s all.” He explained that his father’s paralysis could be cured with surgery. They had taken him to Islamabad, Pakistan, many years before for an operation, but it had been unsuccessful, and the surgeons said that the old man needed to go to Europe or America for treatment.
Nusrat showed me the surgical scars on the back of his neck.
“Bachai, if you can help me get a visa, maybe I will be able to walk again,” he said. “But I need permission to be a guest in America to get the treatment first.”
I told him that it might be difficult for him to get a U.S. visa because his classification as an enemy combatant hadn’t been rescinded upon his release. If there was any possibility of getting a visa for the purposes of seeking medical treatment, he would need some medical documentation from his doctors stating that treatment for his paralysis was not available in Afghanistan. I told him I’d look into it when I got home. He seemed happy with that and encouraged me to eat more.
“Why are you eating like a bird? You need to gain some weight,” he said.
A few hours later, I was ready to head back to Kabul, but the family insisted that I stay for dinner, spend the night, and leave in the morning. Nusrat said he wanted me to spend a few months with him. I said everything I could think of to convince them to let me go, promising that I’d stay longer the next time I visited, but after some back-and-forth, Haji finally relented. “Next time you come, you spend at least one month with my family,” he said. “If I find out you ever came to Afghanistan and didn’t visit, I will be upset with you.”