Guantanomo Detainee Fears Home

There was a rather eyebrow-raising article today for those of us who have spent the past eight years haunted by the images of kneeling orange-hooded men in the maze of barbed wire that is the notorious Guantanomo Bay detention center.  According to RFE/RL, for one man there is a fate far worse than Gitmo:

“The mother of the last Russian citizen being held at Guantanamo Bay says he does not want to return to Tatarstan because he fears he will be mistreated in Russian custody, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

Zuhra Waliullina, the mother of Ravil Mingazov, told RFE/RL on May 17 from Tatarstan that her son feared being “tortured” as another Guantanamo detainee who returned to Russia after his release from the U.S. detention center in Cuba alleged.

[…]

Rasul Kudayev, one of the seven other detainees who returned to Russia,was arrested after a militant attack in Nalchik in October 2005.Kudayev, his mother, and his lawyer said after his arrest that he hadbeen beaten and tortured in jail. Security officials denied the charges.”

Ruslan Odizhev, another Guantanamo detainee who returned to Russia in 2004, joined a North Caucasus insurgent group and was killed in 2007.

And ex-Guantanamo detainees Timur Ishmuradov and Ravil Gumarov, both Tatars, were convicted and sentenced in May 2006 to 11-15 years in prison for taking part in a January 2005 attack on an oil pipeline.

Read the whole article here.