Sandeep Singh Grewal
Staff Reporter
“My cell is the size of a small cubbyhole. There is a toilet and a sink and no loose fixtures. Light comes from a circuit controlled unit outside. My bed is a bunk with a blanket. Some books line the side of one wall.
“The door comprises thick iron bars and there is a dead bolt. Inmates on either side change regularly so there is no real friendship established. Silence is the general standard of conduct with prisoners speaking only briefly during the recreation period. The days tumble crazily into a blur, one week is like the last and next week will be no different.
Sandeep Singh Grewal
Staff Reporter
“My cell is the size of a small cubbyhole. There is a toilet and a sink and no loose fixtures. Light comes from a circuit controlled unit outside. My bed is a bunk with a blanket. Some books line the side of one wall.
“The door comprises thick iron bars and there is a dead bolt. Inmates on either side change regularly so there is no real friendship established. Silence is the general standard of conduct with prisoners speaking only briefly during the recreation period. The days tumble crazily into a blur, one week is like the last and next week will be no different.
5:00 am: Wake up call. A shrill bell. Morning prayer followed by reading of the Holy Quran.
6:30 am: Breakfast food tray is pushed inside the cell by the staff. The meal consists of a bowl of cornflakes, bread with cheese (peanut butter occasionally) and a glass of milk. No talking is allowed.
“The tray is taken away. Time dissolves into a liquid without any meaning, any form, just day and night in monotonous sequence. Like a fading black and white photograph, it finally loses all relevance. Liberation and freedom become concepts impossible to grasp.”
Al Murbati spends his day reading books brought from the library of the camp. He does it to keep his mind alert, alive, some sliver of sanity to hang on to. Alternative days the detainees are allowed to go to the recreational room.
Murbati picks up his favourite football which he plays with against his shadow in his cell.
1:30 pm: The tray is again pushed inside for lunch. The meal consists of chicken and eggs or fish with rice and salad.
It’s been more than nine hours since the day began. Murbati is still in seclusion in his cell playing with his football, writing letters to his family or reading a collection of short stories.
7:45 pm: Dinner is served on the tray. This time it is mutton or fish with bread.
Another day ends for Al Murbati….on his last day he ate fish and bread and then the news came.
Dreary, predictable and mind numbing nothingness one moment, the flaring hope the next.
Six gruelling years of life lost in an 8 by 10 foot cell in Camp- 6 is what Isa Al Murbati remembers as he speaks exclusively to the Bahrain Tribune of his days of ordeal at Guantanamo Bay.
The sheer greyness of it all combined with a consuming homesickness softened only by letters censored and then given through his lawyer, the one tenuous connection with the outside world.
Moments to clutch onto because there is no light at the end of this dark tunnel. The guards occasionally spoke to them but there was no real connection.
Al Murbati looks weak but relaxed sitting at his home with his family in Isa Town. He starts unfolding his story as his kids sit beside him looking at their father after a long time.
“I don’t want anything from anyone, but want to be left alone with my family. I want to regain those moments which I have missed like my children growing up without their father. I just want to know them,” he says.
The diary was only reflective of the last phase of his captivity. At times, in the beginning, the fear of torture was paramount.
The last Bahraini detainee recalling the ‘horrific’ torture by the hands of the officers at the camp says, “They used everything they could from injecting chemicals, playing loud rock music, to physically assaulting me. During our hunger strike, they inserted a tube in my rear and mouth to forcefully feed me. It was like swallowing a sack of sand,” Al Murbati said, his voice choking with emotion.
Asked when was the last time he was tortured, the 42-year-old said, “It’s been a while since they assaulted me. They had these huge yellow fans which sounded like a jet engine and the inmates could not sleep. They were meant to blow our eardrums,” he said, ironically speaking with a slight American accent.
We asked him under which circumstances he was arrested in Pakistan in November 2002, two months after 9/11.
Al Murbati replied, “I travelled to Pakistan for treatment of my back and was arrested at the airport. They took me to a jail, which I do not remember and tortured me till I lost consciousness.
“Then they made me sign papers which I could not read as my eyes were swollen. I found out that the papers stated that I was a Mujahideen man for them now and was then shifted to the Guantanamo Bay.”
Al Murbati said he had no information about his released till three days back, when a US army official told him that he was ready to go. “I had no information on Juma’s release and was informed by the officer two days back that I would be released.
“They blindfolded me and put on a bus from the Camp to the airport. Then they put me in a straitjacket which was removed when I reached Bahrain,” he said.
He was taken to the Public Prosecutor directly from the airport and first met his elder brother Mohammed Al Murbati.
As we speak together and this reporter feels a bit like an interloper, friends start pouring in the family house to meet and hug him.
Some friends said he should be given the same allowances which the Saudi Arabia government has given to Juma Al Dossary. “The government should provide Isa with job, house and car as it will help the family. There was no source of income for the family, there has to be some compensation given by the authorities.”
Will all the former detainee plan to take action against the US authorities?
Al Murbati replied, “I want to be with my family for now and have not thought about anything. I just want to enjoy the chicken majhbooz my wife has cooked.”
We leave him with his family and friends who have waited for many years to see the shift from the orange jump suits to the white thobe which Al Murbati is wearing.