McClatchy News Service Interview
On 15 June 2008 the McClatchy News Service published a series of article based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. Ilkham Batayev was one of the men they interviewed. The McClatchy report stated that Ilkham Batayev said he couldn't bring himself to talk about his Guantanamo experiences, or how he came to be in Afghanistan.
But the McClatchy report characterized previous reports Ilkham Batayev had offered earlier—to a journalist in 2001, to his Tribunal, and to his lawyer—as inconsistent.
The McClatchy article quoted Ilkham Batayev's lawyer, Thomas R. Johnson Jr., about the credibility of his assertion that fighters in the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement could have kidnapped him, and press-ganged him, into involuntary service in Afghanistan. Johnson thought that the Tribunal officers discounted this part of his story as incredible, because it was outside their experience, and they simply couldn't imagine it was credible, in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Afghanistan:
"He was kept at Guantanamo because U.S. officers at (his tribunal hearing) or the interrogators found this to be an outlandish account. Of course this doesn't happen: People aren't kidnapped and taken to other countries to fight wars."
Read more about this topic: Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev
Famous quotes containing the words news, service and/or interview:
“Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“The masochist: “I send my tormentor hurrying hither and thither in the service of my suffering and desire.””
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The desire of most parents is first and foremost to do what is best for their children. Every interview with a mother or father confirms this, every letter written by a parent breathes this deep-seated wish, “I hope I am doing the right thing for my child.” This is real and honest, and at the very base of parenthood.”
—Irma Simonton Black (20th century)