Interview with Abu Omar
Bilal Abul-Jariya, who goes by the nickname of ‘Abu Omar’, is nineteen years old
and of Lebanese descent. Due to his own ‘suspicious’ but untried and non-convicted
contacts, he found himself to draw the ire of airport officials on any foreign travels
he made- including to his homeland in 2007. In 2009, he travelled to Kenya to
allegedly experience the wildlife via a safari, but the friend’s house he was staying in
was surrounded by armed police, who arrested him at gunpoint and threw him
roughly into the back of a van. Abu Omar was held for intensive questioning for
four days, deprived of basic amenities or any legal representation. After a
harrowing ordeal, he was eventually returned to the UK and again questioned- this
time by the MI5. He was left in the airport without money, barefoot and his clothes
in bin liners. He returned home, although his friends have reported being harassed
to provide information about him
Cageprisoners: Could you please introduce yourself?
Abu Omar: My name is Bilal Abul-Jariya, and I was born in Lebanon. I was born in
1990, and my mum came here with myself, my brother and my sister. We’ve lived in
London since 1990…My nationality is Lebanese, but I’ve been brought up in the UK.
And about myself- just some simple things about myself- I work with my family’s stepdad in air condition and refrigeration engineering and plumbing, so I’m just learning that.
I married, alhamdulilaah (praise be to God)- I’ve got one daughter and hopefullyinsha’Allah- one boy coming- insha’Allah bi’ithnillah (hopefully by the permission of
God) I’m going to call him ‘AbdalMajid’. At the moment I try to work and qualify for
my actual job to do plumbing and that insha’Allah. So I’m just doing a work course
trying to get a qualification insha’Allah
CP: You’ve been living in London for a long time now and you’ve got a group of
friends. In 2007, a group of your friends had gone abroad essentially, and they were
studying in Somalia, and war broke out, and they decided to try and flee to the
nearest embassy, which was in Nairobi. That meant they had to cross the border,
and unfortunately they were kidnapped by the anti-terrorist unit and detained
there. Unfortunately they were put through a very long and unnecessary process of
arbitrary detention. During that period, the MI5 were questioning them
intensively; they were harassing them, trying to get information. Essentially, as far
as I believe, your harassment started because of the fact that your friends were
detained in Kenya. Is that correct?
AO: Yeah, that’s correct- that’s when I started to realise that I was being harassed by the
MI5 themselves, and them actually going to general friends of mine, trying to get them to
talk about myself. But they never actually approached me, but they have approached
people very close to me. Also, from amongst my friends was Reza and Mohammed, who
were detained in Kenya- according to them, my picture was brought forward to them by
the MI5 themselves, and they spoke about me to them

 CP: So just to get a clearer picture of what happened- these guys were detained, and
over the three/four weeks that they were being kept in secret detention, they
essentially profiled you from the community?
AO: Yeah, that’s right
CP: So what happened next; when was the next time you got wing that you were
being watched or you were being harassed in one way or another?
AO: When they came back- when my friends came back and I didn’t cut them offbecause a lot of people cut them off, because they’re scared of this and that- I used just
go see them regularly- you know, Mohammed is very close to myself- family friends,
very close. That’s when I realised myself I was starting to be followed, because I would
see someone- the same person- following me, wherever I was; the same car- I actually
even memorised the number plate. So that’s when I realised. When they came back and I
interacted with them- that’s when I realised that there was attention there
CP: And then your next inkling was when you went to Lebanon, right?
AO: Yeah, that’s right
CP: What happened with that?
AO: I went to Lebanon with Mohammed- who is a friend of mine, Mohammed Sakhr,
Egyptian- when we went to Lebanon, when I got there, they actually held me back and
asked me why I was coming into the country- what was my intention, what was the
purpose of travelling- pleasure, business…I explained to them it was nothing but to see
family, because I was originally born in Lebanon, and it was a long while- six/seven
years since I had come to Lebanon. So they asked me where I was staying, and I told
them the area I was staying- as I was not really familiar with the language, they wanted a
number. My uncle was outside the airport and managed to give them the number, so they
phoned and clarified and let me through. But they had a problem with me coming to the
country- it was on their system. Like I wasn’t really treated like other people were
treated- I was the last person to leave the airport that day. So, then…And when I was
leaving the same thing again happened- they would give me problems to leave. They
kept me an hour and twenty minutes- an hour and a half- asking me what I did, where did
I stay, did I meet anyone in particular- all of that problem. I answered what I was doing
there and then I came back to London as normal
CP: Did the Lebanese authorities follow up?
AO: According to my uncle, when I came back- literally three to four days later, I
phoned- you know, you phone, ‘No, I’m alright- no, I’ve settled, I’m back’, and all of
that. My uncle just told me, he asked me what was going on, and I asked him, ‘What do
you mean, what’s going on?’, and he asked, ‘Did you have any problems at the airport?’
I said, ‘Yeah, they just asked me what I was doing in Lebanon. I just told them I was

 with yourself and family, and he goes the anti-terror from Lebanon approached him and
they spoke to him regarding myself. So that was in 2007/8, w’Allahu a’lem (God knows
better), I can’t remember exactly. That was then and…Yeah, that’s the Lebanese antiterror
CP: What happened next then, in terms of you being back in the UK- did they ever
approach you?
AO: They never ever approached me, but they went to friends of me, a lot of friends.
They would go ask them about Bilal himself, y’know, ‘How’s Bilal doing? Tell us about
himself’, you know, they would do that, to random…to a lot of people
CP: Do you have any examples of that?
AO: I’ve got two close people that they did that to myself- they went to speak to him, but
also, I know friends- that they go to their friends, you see- I don’t know the person
himself, but I know his friend and they actually bring up my name and mention it to
themselves, so I have many examples. People that would come forward if I was to ask
them
CP: In early 2009, you said that you decided to go on holiday to Kenya with your
friend
AO: That’s right, yeah
CP: Just tell us about the whole incident
AO: OK…That’s right, just recently, I decided to go on a safari trip in Kenya, as myselfI’m very interested in animals and that, so I decided to go there with my friend
Mohammed- we planned it out, you know- when we had time off work we said we’d go
there. Our original plan was to stay for a couple of weeks- we extended it over there.
When we got there…We left the airport normal, no problems leaving the airport, we
landed in Mombassa, which was a nine hour journey. When we landed there, we checked
out of the airport. Myself, I had a problem when I got to the airport- again, the same
procedure- every time I travel, I get held back- it’s not a coincidence that happens once.
Whenever I travel, since 2006, I’ve always been held back in airports, always told ‘The
system’s broken down, give us one minutes’, someone else will come and talk to me,
‘purpose of journey’, and so and so.
In Mombassa, I was spoken to by a colleague who was working, and he said to me,
‘What’s your interest in coming to the country? Why have come to this country?’ I
explained to him, ‘I’ve come for a safari’, ‘Where are you staying?’ I showed him a
picture of the hotel where I had reserved a place. He told me, ‘If you’d just like to sit
down.’ He disappeared for about twenty minutes, half an hour, came back, gave him my
passport, stamped it, and then I just left the airport as planned. I just left the airport.
During my stay in Mombassa I was being harassed- that’s how I see it- wherever I go to

 eat, I have one Somali man- I knew he was Somali, because you know, you can tell how
they look according to Kenyans- you can tell the difference. Wherever I go to eat,
whatever safari park we go to, he’s always there on his phone- when I stops, he stops;
when I walk, he walks- it was very clear that I was being harassed. So, that was in
Mombassa. When we did a little journey to Nairobi to see a friend of ours- a distant
friend, we stayed with him in his house, went around Nairobi, checking out the scenes
and that, it went on and on. And then, one day, out of the blue- when we were in the
guest house with our friends, we got raided by the anti-terror from Kenya, and that’s
when they detained us for four days. Do you want to know what happened?
CP: In as much detail as possible
AO: I’ll try, yeah. When…We got raided on, I think it was Monday morning- I believe
Monday morning, around twelve noon. What it was, we were in the house near the poolour friend had a pool table and we were playing pool- me and Mohammed were just
playing, and we heard a knock on the door, and in the house there’s…There’s two (…),
so we heard knock knock and shouting- I open the curtain to see who it was- because,
y’know, it’s something very rare to happen- I looked out of the window and come to see
it was Kenyans- a lot of Kenyan police- like soldiers with AKs, a helicopter on top of the
house, many cars, many cars. And outside on the road, from what I can see, was packed
with men with guns, so obviously I got a bit nervous and scared, and I ran out from the
room and I went to the kitchen, where the maid was. She was a bit scared to go and open
the door, so she took a bit long- she was very shaken and frightened- she had a baby with
her. They started to jump over the fences- all of them were jumping- they would take
positions, and that’s how they were coming into the house. So we didn’t know what to
do- it was a bit frightening and that, so we went upstairs- the maid goes, ‘Go upstairs, go
upstairs’, so we were looking at each other, baffled. We were quite nervous, seeing as
we’d never seen guns- we don’t really see guns in London, we’re not really used to these
things, and we didn’t understand what the purpose of the visit was; I didn’t know who
they were until they explained. I didn’t even know it was the anti-terror- the reason I said
that and stated that is that when I came to know they detained me, they arrested us and
they took us and explained to themselves- I’ll come to that.
They came into the house very violently, very viciously, throwing everyone around, and
when they came up, they came up with the guns, and they pointed them at us on the floor.
Myself, I was on the floor, with eight of them on the floor, with guns to the head, to the
back- like all of them, they were very rough people- that’s how they were dealing with
us- very rough. And they shouted at us, screamed, they searched us continuously, took us
to rooms, threw us around, and then they handcuffed us. They took me separately from
Mohammed downstairs, and they threw us outside in the street, but at the same time, I
still always had someone pointing a gun to me. I was a bit terrified, you see, because it’s
not a usual thing- I didn’t know what was going on- I was being shouted at, screamed at.
I was hit a bit on the back with a gun- not too hard, but just hit on the floor- told not to
look up, talk or do anything. They took…They searched the house and realised there
were no threats for them- the helicopter left. Mohammed did not see the helicopter,
because he was kept upstairs, but me myself, I saw the helicopter. The way they came to

 that house from my knowledge, when I spoke to them later- they expected a fight- they
expected there would be people in that house, or…I don’t know, because they came in
very violently- a huge amount of them, for whatever they were doing. They took usstacked there- they took me in a car…
CP: Who did they take from the household?
AO: Myself and Mohammed
CP: They actually came for you then?
AO: According to them, they came for me and the host- the one who was hosting us- he
wasn’t in the house, which I’ll come to later- the contradictions of their story and the
unprofessional…The way they were dealing with us. They arrested us, shouting and
screaming at us, they threw us into the vans very roughly- still with guns pointed, ‘Don’t
look, keep your head down.’ They wanted to put something over our heads, but they
didn’t have it, so we were told to look down whilst the gun was there; the gun was
pointing to my neck, and I was just told to look at the top of the roof of the car- not to
look at Mohammed, not to make any contact so to speak. I was told if I was to speak to
him, the next time I’d be speaking, I’d be, ‘speaking to the angels’- meaning that they’d
kill me, ‘Or to your virgins’, that was what they were saying. So, as we were going to the
car, one of them kept looking at me and violently shouting at me, so then I say, ‘Don’t
look at me’, and he keeps nudging me a bit strong to the neck, and he says, ‘Look at itit’s loaded, any move and I’m going to shoot you.’ So obviously I was very frightened; I
didn’t…Whatever he told me, I did it. So I was very scared; I started to get, you know
flashbacks- because something (like this) is abnormal for us, especially us Londoners- we
don’t see guns, we’re not used to that type of life.
So, they took me to the station, and when we came to the station, the same treatmentthrown around, roughly handled, still at gunpoint; they all come out of the car with their
guns, taking position like someone was going to rescue us- that’s how it was; it was like a
film to me- you know, you watch films, the way they deal with you. I didn’t understand
what was going on, and still nothing was explained to me. I was just told to shut up and
any move and I’d get shot; not to talk, not to look at anyone, keep my head down,
‘Move’, they’ll keep nudging you. They took us into this station and that’s when me and
Mohammed got separated- I didn’t know what was happening to Mohammed- they just
took me into the cell at gunpoint, they just kicked me into the cell- still handcuffed, I fell
on the floor.
About ten minutes later, they actually came and unhandcuffed me, and then they
explained, ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ I said to them, ‘No, I don’t know why I’m
here’, and that was all that was said to myself. I was in the cell, which was a very dark
cell with no light- you can’t see nothing; no blanket, no pillows- y’know you’re treated
like animals, that’s the truth. Y’know cells here, the way you see them described- they
treat you nicely here, the cells are different; in Kenya, completely just a black hole, that’s
what it was- black hole, no pillows, no light, nothing. It’s a very crazy thing to be honest.

 I was left there from the time in…When they told me that they arrested me at two
o’clock. We came to…I just told them everyone that was in the house- they knew that
was right- the two mates, myself, Mohammed, and our friend’s daughter- her name was
Usaybah. I was taken…From two o’clock no-one spoke to me, but they used to come in
every four hours, just to make a check, because I asked to use the toilet. Once I askedthat same day- to use the toilet, and he said, ‘This is the toilet.’ I said, ‘What do you
mean this is the toilet? It’s black all around, I can’t even see anything- just a room of
four walls- it is black, I can’t even see my own self.’ He goes, ‘You eat, you drink, you’,
and being rude to me, he says, ‘You s*** here’, that’s the word he used. I said, ‘I haven’t
eaten.’ He goes, ‘You drink your urine’, that’s what he said to me- he said, ‘That is your
food’, and I thought…I was just baffled. Till then I still wasn’t told why I’m herenothing. That’s how I was dealt with then. Around eleven o’clock at night, I got in- still
no food from when they arrested us, which they’re saying was at two, to eleven, I was
taken for interrogation. I believe they took Mohammed before me, because I heard his
cell open and he went for interrogation and came back- for how long I don’t know, but all
I know is that I was taken at eleven o’clock.
They took me into a long dark corridor, which led to a private room, and when they
opened the room that was the first time that I actually saw light- I didn’t see it before
then. When they opened the room, I looked a bit back because of the light, you knowyou’re not used to that bit of light. I come to realise that there’s literally one, two, three,
four, five men that were sitting there- they were suited, they looked like professional
people, y’know they didn’t look like they belonged there, because you can tell the
difference between them and the guards that were working there. With the guards you
can smell the sweat on them, and some of them were even drunk.
So they told me to sit down; one smiled at me, he goes, ‘How are you Bilal?’ So I goes
to him, ‘I’m ok.’ He goes, ‘Not alhamdulilaah (praise be to God)?’ Like that, so I say,
‘I’m Ok alhamdulilaah. So he goes to me, ‘Sit down’, and then I sat down. So he goes,
‘How’s your journey to Kenya?’ I said to him, y’know I was still a bit shocked to talk- I
had just been in the state of guns being pointed, being thrown around; I couldn’t just sit
there and talk as if everything was ok. I was a bit quiet, so he said, ‘Talk to me’, and I
says to him, ‘It’s ok.’ And he goes, ‘So what do you think about Kenya? Tell us what
you think about Kenya’, and I said to him, ‘Nothing...I can’t. What can I say?’ I just
said it to him like that, so he said, ‘So tell me, my friend Bilal- me myself, my name is
Jeffrey’- he used that name, Jeffrey. ‘This one, his name is…’, and he introduced all of
them to me. Each day they had different names, so I can tell they weren’t giving me their
real names. I asked them, ‘What am I doing here?’ He said, ‘We’ll get to that, just have
a rest. Do you want water?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I haven’t eaten.’ He says, ‘Oh, you haven’t
eaten! No problem, what do you want? Burgers and chips? You like burgers and
chips?’ I said to him, ‘Anything.’ He says, ‘Halal? You want it Halal?’ I said, ‘Yeah,
Halal would be good’, and he goes ‘No problem’, and then he does a phone call and says,
‘Give the boy a burger and chips and a big Coke’, and then he shut the phone.
I’d come to know that they were just playing with me now, so as I was on the seat I was
really expecting a burger and chips! I didn’t know what they were doing- I didn’t realise

 the way they were treating us. I’d come to know that anything they’d say, they’d do the
opposite, so if they said they’d look after you, it meant you were going to be harassed.
So they’d say, ‘Tonight you’ll sleep very good, my friend’, and that night our guard
would be very rough, and you know, you’ll be tested- your patience will be tested, and
they’ll do things that I’ll come to explain. When I was in that seat, according to Mr
Jeffrey, that’s his name, he spoke to me about Kenya- why I came, when I came, who
picked me up- I gave to him the information he needed- whatever was asked of me, I
would just talk to him generally. So, y’know like ten minutes of being nice, interrogating
me, ‘How’s Kenya? What safari did you go to? Describe to me the entrance? How
much was the ticket? How did you get there from your hotel?’ I gave him everything,
and actually he finished the story off for me, which again- when I said I was always being
harassed by a Somali man who was following me everywhere. So before I’d even come
to finish the story, he goes, ‘That’s when you went inside to get a bottle of water’, and I
look at him, and he goes, ‘You look surprised. Why do you look surprised?’ Y’know,
he’s playing games like that. Then I said to him about the Somali man, and he said, ‘Ah,
so you saw him’, like that, ‘So you were aware of him’, like that. I said, ‘I thought he
was some man- I didn’t know what he wanted- I didn’t speak with him, nor did I interact
with him. I just left him as he was. To me, it was a bit shocking that there’s a Somali
man everywhere we are- I have nothing to hide- as you can see, I’m not scared of
anything.’
He goes, ‘I know you’re not scared, big man’, that’s how he was speaking. So anyway,
that’s when he started to change colours- from talking to me about Kenya, that’s when he
started to change colours, so from when he finished my story. He goes, ‘So you came
here to blow yourself up’, that’s what he said to me, so I go, ‘I’m sorry?’ He said, ‘So
you came here to blow yourself up.’ I said, ‘Why would I want to blow myself up?’ And
he goes, ‘Because of your seventy two or seventy three or whatever the f*** they are
virgins’, like that. And I said to him, ‘I’m already married. Why would I want to kill
myself? I’ve got kids; I’ve got family to look after. Why am I here?’ He goes, ‘My
friend, let’s get to the story: you come here, you plan to blow up the Kenyan people.
You’re a terrorist, you’re an Al-Qaeda member’, that’s what he said to me. He said to
me, ‘We believe you’ve been to Afghanistan.’ I said to him, ‘Yeah? I’ve never been to
Afghanistan’, he goes, ‘Listen, we have pictures of you in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in
Iraq, in Somalia’, he kept saying to me. So I said to him, ‘Ok, no problem. Can I see
those pictures?’ Then he told me, ‘Don’t be cheeky. We’re not a joke. Do we look like
a joke?’ That’s how he was speaking to me, so then I realised the situation and stopped
being cheeky- you know, because of the way I was being treated, I didn’t want to be
cheeky, and so I was compromising with them.
I asked them, ‘Can I get some legal advice- can I see a solicitor? Can I tell me embassy?’
He laughed. He goes, ‘My friend, this is Africa. In Africa, the only thing we can give
you is black magic.’ That’s what he said- no solicitors, just black magic. I said to him,
‘That’s ok, innit’, and they all laughed- the ones around. As I was talking to him, there
would be one who’d throw a name at me- for example, they would say ‘Dujana, like thatthat was the name they used a lot. So I’m talking to him, and he says, ‘Dujana, come on,
you know you’re Dujana; you use this kunya (nickname).’ They knew the words- they

 said ‘kunya’, you know, all of this. And I said to them, and I wasn’t paying attention,
then he would say, ‘Omar, Omar’, like as I was talking to the guy.
Y’know, they wanted to…As I looked at him, he kept throwing many names- Dujana,
Omar…What was it? Abu Ahmad, Abu this, Abu that…Lots of names. So I was just
talking, then I asked them, ‘Look, who do you want me to talk to? You’re all talking to
me at the same time.’ And then he goes, ‘We’re not talking to you at the same time.
We’re just telling you all the different names that you go by.’ And I said, ‘Sorry? What
are you talking about?’ He said, ‘We’re telling you- you used this name in Afghanistan,
and you used this name in Iraq, and you used this name in Somalia, this name in Israel…’
And I said to them, ‘I’ve never been, and as you can see I’ve got a tendon injury that
recurs a bit as I got into an incident. They said to me that this was a mortar, and I’d been
involved in a battle in Afghanistan. They said on a mountain- what’s it called?
CP: Tora Bora
AO: That’s it- Tora Bora. They said I was caught up in a mortar attack, that’s what they
said, and I laughed, and that’s how he goes to me, ‘You think this is a big joke?’ I said to
them, ‘No- you can contact my embassy and allow them to know I’m here, and then tell
them to check it and you’ll come to know that I did a tendon repair in UCL Hospital in
King’s Cross’, and he started to laugh. Then that’s when he said, ‘So you want us to tell
your embassy? You’re not scared for your embassy to know?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not
scared for them to know. I want you to tell them now. Why should I be scared?’ And
then he goes, ‘Yeah, you shouldn’t be scared, but let me tell you: your embassy doesn’t
care about you’, that’s what he said to me, ‘They don’t care about you, and they even told
me that I’d be doing a favour for them if you didn’t even come back.’
CP: Did they ever ask you any questions about people in the UK, or about your
activities in the UK?
AO: Erm…Yeah, they asked, they asked; the mosques I attend, if I attend a mosque.
They asked me, ‘What do you do there?’ Yeah, they asked me what my living was- what
do I do; what mosques, who did I listen to, what did I attend, who did I know. They
mentioned some names from this country that I never knew- they only mentioned one- of
my friend that I knew there, so they goes, ‘How is he?’ And they asked about himself, so
that’s what they were doing- they were asking me some names that I knew
CP: So did it seem to you as if some of those questions were coming from the UK?
AO: To be honest, all the questions were coming from the UK. If you were to ask me
about how I would know that, I would know because, for example, as I left this
country…Of course I’ve got a car, a little car. I didn’t want to leave it, because I have a
residency, so I actually gave it to a friend of mine who was driving it. Then they said to
me, ‘So who’s your friend driving the car?’ And the friend that was driving the car was
the actual friend that they were asking me about. So I know the only way that they got
this was through this country

 CP: So you felt all the questions were coming from the UK?
AO: Yeah
CP: Did you ever meet anybody from MI5 or MI6 while you were being detained?
AO: Just…No, according to nothing that was told to me that they actually suggested,
‘I’m from MI5’. I was told that…A woman used to come in and out, and I was told by
the Kenyans that, ‘This is a woman from your embassy that has been sent to see if you’re
ok.’ But she never ever interacted with us or spoke to us
CP: So there were people from the consulate, the embassy?
AO: Yeah, they were definitely there- I saw them, but they never spoke to us
CP: Ok. So what happened after that?
AO: After that, that night after the interrogation- after the way we left it, as he told meeverything that I left behind, in terms of what was going on in my normal…Like, for
example, someone’s driving your car, your wife is ok now, you’re expecting a kid, and
you’ve got a daughter called ‘Summaya’…They knew all of this, so I was thinking, you
know, that’s when I started to get worried, because…You know, to be honest it’s very
shocking- you’re in the room in the middle of a country; you don’t know what your rights
are, you’ve been taken at gunpoint and thrown into a black hole with no food, and they’re
telling you your actual life story. That’s what it is. So, to me, I was very shocked…And
he’s telling me about black magic. So I started to get very scared, and I didn’t understand
this man- I’d never seen him in my life, I’d never met him in my life, and he’s actually
telling me my life story. He’s telling me how many brothers I have, how many sisters
I’ve got, my daughter...He’s telling me, ‘How would your daughter..?’ You know, he’s
telling me…Like indirect threats, y’know? So that night, he asked me questions like I
came to Africa to blow myself up, and who did I meet in Africa. Then, at the end, when I
was speaking to him, he goes to me, ‘You’re lying’, he goes…He asked me if I was gay,
and then he said to me, ‘What would you feel if I was to come over to you now and
squeeze your balls?’ That’s what he said to me- like that. And I said to him, ‘Sir’, I said,
‘Sir, why are you talking to me like this?’ He goes, ‘I can talk to you the way I like.
What is it to you, the way I talk to you? I can do anything that I want to you.’ He goes,
‘You don’t exist- you have to understand this. You know the “War on Terror”; you’ve
heard about this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard it- it’s over the news in London; every day
you hear about this.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, you people- you have no rights.’ He goes, ‘You
don’t exist. In our world, you don’t exist- we can do and take you as we will.’ And he
goes, ‘You will come to see tonight, my friend.’ He goes, ‘No, tonight is ‘Hilton Hotel’’,
that’s what he said to me, and they all started laughing. So then he goes that, ‘You’re
being stubborn and you’re not telling us what we want to know. No problem, we’re sure
you’ll talk tomorrow after you have a ‘good’ sleep’, and he said it like that. They took
me out of the cell, and they took me back…Sorry, they took me back out of the

 investigation room, they took me back along the corridor- that’s when I saw other people
being detained, and I came to realise one was our friend’s wife. She was there. She
looked very…frightened and shaken. She looked very nervous and didn’t know what
was going on
CP: So your friend’s wife was there?
AO: Friend’s wife, yeah, that’s when I came to…She wasn’t at the house of the arrest,
when we were arrested, because we when we were walking around the house we didn’t
see her, but she was in the station at night. So they never mentioned her to myself. So
when I got into the cell, the man, he forgot to lock my cell, so that’s when I actually saw
Mohammed- because I opened it to go to the toilet, because you can open it as you want,
and I left. When I came to go towards the toilet, Mohammed called me- I could see him
through a little hole; I looked up through a little hole and I could just see Mohammed, so
we just spoke to each other just very quickly. I said to him, ‘How are you?’ He said to
me, ‘What’s going on?’ I told him what was going on; he told me what was going on as
well. He was a bit frightened, like myself- he didn’t know what was happening. He
goes, ‘What do you think they’re going to do to us?’ I said to him, ‘I don’t know. But
they threatened me. Did they threaten you?’ He goes, ‘No, they didn’t threaten me.’ I
goes, ‘Well that was all I was getting- I was getting threatened with everything.’ And
then he goes…That was about it- I went to the toilet, I went back to my cell- I didn’t want
to get caught out, because they said if you misbehaved then they would deal with you.
That night, they would come in the middle of the night- loud. Loud noises, they’d come
in shouting your name; they’d open the door, kick you- like this, like that. They’d wake
you up and they would just look at you, and then they’d just go back out. They
interrupted our sleep- they never actually took me back out for interrogation. Errr…It
came to six o’clock- that’s when they came in again violently took us, handcuffed us, and
we were just taken out, at gunpoint. But this time, they never took us- they took us into a
car that transferred us to…They took us to another place that I came to know was a
station. At the station, I met two of the people I that I had met the previous night when I
saw them. It wasn’t Jeffrey- it was another two, and then another four people, so it was
always six that were interrogating- I always counted them. They interrogated me again
and asked me, ‘How was your sleep?’ Obviously they knew it was very uncomfortableit was very cold at night- no blanket, no pillow- you’re just sleeping on the floor. That’s
what it is- a dark hole.
So they go to me, ‘So how was your night? Did you eat?’ I explain to them, ‘I was told
by Mr Jeffrey burgers, chips and a drink would come, and then nothing- I haven’t had
water.’ They said, ‘No problem, we’ll order you food now, and then we’ll talk to you.’
But they started the interrogation without food. Again, they interrogated me- same
questions, nothing new this time. Same questions, but this time more informationsomething that only someone in this country will know, you see, know that they know
where I work, what I do, you see- where I play football, what mosque I go to- they’re
telling me this. And I started to think, ‘Well how would they know all these things
anyway?’ So that’s when I came to know that something coming from this country itself-

 it couldn’t be other than that…Black magic or whatever. I believed it was beyond that,
you see- so whatever they knew, it was coming from here.
Then he goes to me, ‘We’ve contacted your embassy- your embassy know that you’re
here, and they said to us that they’re not interested in you’, that’s what he goes. So he
goes, ‘That phone call you wanted to make to them? You don’t need to make it. Why
don’t you make it to your wife?’ And he threw a mobile at me. And then, that mobile- I
picked it up. There was no battery- there was nothing in it. Like I picked up the mobile,
and then I had the mobile in my hand, and he goes, ‘So you recognise this mobile?’ And
that’s when I got scared, y’know, because I didn’t know what that mobile was- it could
be anything. So when he threw it and I caught it- the fact I had it in my hand- then he
threw a question, ‘Ah, so you know this mobile?’ So there’s no evidence there, no-one
can speak for myself, no-one can represent me- I just grabbed the mobile and I looked at
him. He goes, ‘It’s got your fingerprints’- like that, very funny. Then that’s when my
face went red, because now I thought, ‘They’ve stitched me up, they’ve set me up.’
That’s how I thought it was. Then he goes, ‘This mobile has made calls’- that’s what he
said to me. ‘It’s made calls to Bin Laden’, like that, but then, that’s when my face
actually crawled down, you know? Like from being scared that I’ve actually grabbed
something that I don’t know what it is, to actually, ‘Ah’ – I blew it. He said, ‘You seem
relaxed.’ I said, because I’m like, ‘I’ve never met Bin Laden in my life! I know you’re
playing with me’- I said that. He goes, ‘Relax’, then he started laughing. He goes, ‘Give
it back to me’, then I give it back to him, and they’re all laughing. He goes, ‘That was a
good one, son. Next time it’ll be something else in your hand’- that’s what he said, and
then I thought, ‘What are they talking about?’
Same interrogation, they asked me about a friend of mine in this country, ‘What about
him?’ A lot of questions, you know- the one that actually drove my car; they’re saying to
me, ‘Why did you actually come to this country? Come on, let’s be big men.’ Just really
talking to us, ‘Why are you coming here? What was your intention in coming here?
Who did you meet? Who didn’t you meet?’ And then he started to say, ‘We saw you on
the beach with six Kenyans’, and he started to name me them, show me some picturesI’d never seen them in my life. He goes, ‘You were planning to attack a supermarket’one called Nakona; Nakona is very famous there, and according to them- according to
him, it’s an Israeli supermarket, that’s what he said. ‘You’ve come to hit Israelis and the
Israeli Embassy’, and all of that. And I said to him, ‘I didn’t come to do any of that- why
would I want to do that?’ And he said, ‘Come on, be serious, we found some…We found
things in your house; we found explosives, guns and…’ What’s it called? Errr…I don’t
know what they call it- a belt to commit suicide, all of that stuff, ‘We found it. It’s all got
your fingerprints’, and this and that. ‘The phone here- this phone has phoned Bin Laden
to confirm that the mission is almost accomplished…’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re
talking about- that phone, you gave it to myself.’ He goes, ‘I didn’t give it to you’, and
they all…See, they’re playing games with you now, and then he goes to me, ‘You must
be very hungry’, and this was, like, they took us at six o’clock in the morning, so the next
time I got to see Mohammed was at about one in the afternoon. I wasn’t seeing him- they
would take him separate and take myself separate.

 Then they put us (both) in a chair- they put me and Mohammed facing each other,
handcuffed with our hands on the table, and they put someone along with us, and they
said, ‘Don’t let them speak, don’t let them move. They must stay here until...’ and they
named someone to come back. So me and Mohammed were there from ten o’clock in the
morning, from when…Because they put us in a little office and I saw a clock- at ten in
the morning. I was looking at Mohammed and Mohammed was looking at me, and when
they came back for us it was about nine pm. So from ten am- at six we got taken out the
second day and interrogated, 10am we were put in a room, with myself and Mohammed
handcuffed on a table, all the way to 9pm…Sorry, 10pm, and then they came in. The
group that came in were the actual group that were taking us around, because they had
one Somali driver, three Kenyan men and two Kenyan women. So when they came, I
knew we were getting moved because they took me from the first station to where I was.
They came and asked me, ‘Have you eaten?’ I said, ‘No, I haven’t eaten.’ They said,
Ok’, and they made it out like they were going to get me food, because I hadn’t eaten
since Monday, when I was arrested at two o’clock in the afternoon to the next day, which
is Tuesday, now 10pm and I still haven’t eaten…Been mistreated, and all of that.
They took us…They put us into the car- again handcuffed, told us not to look at each
other; they had us at gunpoint- a little gun pointed at both of us, and one of them said,
‘Any movement, any slight inch and you know what’ll happen’, and this and that. They
took us to the next station, and in that station we slept- again, it was separate cells…We
slept and then they took us- Wednesday morning- we woke up again, six o’clock, and
they took us to the next place, which was an office. The man even said to me, ‘This is
the MI5 in Kenya. You’re going to our offices; this will be better for you, eh? You don’t
like darkness- here you will get water.’ Here, they took us into rooms, and it was a
house- to be honest, it looked like a house- a big house. We went in there- there were
guards, and they opened the gates. They took us up the stairs, down the corridor and into
a room. When they opened the room, it was like a long meeting room- there was a long
table with computers all around it- no-one was in the room at the time. Me and
Mohammed entered that room, then the ones who interrogated me on the first night, with
Jeffrey and so on, they all walked in, and they were like, ‘How are you Bilal? How have
you been? You ate the burger and chips?’ And I still hadn’t eaten now- the third day, no
food- they kept interrupting our sleep, continuously shouting, dragging us, moving us
around- that’s what it was. That was on the Wednesday- we got interrogated right from
the morning to at night- interrogated, interrogated, interrogated.
They gave us…At three o’clock, they gave me an ‘Ogale’- they call it ‘Ogale’ in Kenya,
some food. But in it they put cigarette ashes- I couldn’t eat it anyway- like, just trying to
pick the bit that didn’t have the ashes in, and when they would leave, they had one guy.
This guy was a bit ok to us- he would let us use the water machine, so we were just
drinking as much water as we can- with the Ogale we couldn’t touch it, because they’d
put cigarette ashes in it and all of that, so we couldn’t really eat it. And inside the cells…
When they take us for interrogation, we would miss lunch and dinner, because when we
came back, we could tell the people who we already saw there had already eaten- we
could see empty plates lying around. So that’s how it was- we always missed out our
meals; we actually allowed them to know that, but they didn’t really care, to be honest.

 So that day was the only day when we got some food, which was Ogale- like I said, they
put cigarette ashes in there. That day they were very violent with us- they had had
enough, they had…They’re telling me, ‘Are you gay?’ I said to them, ‘No, I’m married.’
They go to me, ‘No problem. We have someone who…wants to spend some time with
you, so you will see him tonight.’ And then he goes, ‘Tomorrow, you will definitely talk
to us. I’ve had enough of you- I’ve had patience with you. Today I promise you, you’ll
never forget this day.’ So I didn’t know what he was talking about.
So that day, Wednesday, after interrogation, in the evening, the same group came in
again- like I said, the people that we know- Somali man, three Kenyan men and two
women, so I knew we were getting moved again. But this time, the whole thing changedit changed, the rhythm, it changed. Suddenly, big Kenyan, very well-built men came in,
with AKs. They shouted at us, ‘Get your backs to the wall!’ They threw us towards the
wall, they handcuffed us; they just grabbed us by the back of…By the backs of our
clothes, they grabbed us very tight at gunpoint and took us into cars. Then before he
came, one of them said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to be in good hands. They’re going
to treat you very well’ and he just laughed and walked off. That was at night, on
Wednesday night, they took us into cars, and they took us for a long, long drive- hourstwo to three hours, from my knowledge- non-stop. They took us to forest roads- you
know, like they went into a forest, it was all forest roads. They’d stop the car, get off, all
shouting to us to get off, but they never did anything to us- they just threw us on the
floor. That’s when we thought the worst- you know, because you hear stories of what
they do to people- people get found dead in the forest. So they just threw us out the car
in the forest, and we heard ‘tchck-tchk’- you know, the noise was there, and then I’d feel
a gun to the back of my head, like that, but…nothing. Then they’d just all laugh, pick us
back up, throw us back into the car, then they’d drive again. They did this twice or three
times. So I thought…I mean, you’ve got to be beyond thinking with these things- they’re
not practical. You kind of get disturbed- you don’t know…You come to know you’re in
the middle of nowhere, you don’t know if your family know about you, these people
haven’t fed you, y’know they’re mistreating us continuously. So, they did that then, and
I realised they were just playing with us.
They took us back to the cell- this was a prison, another police station. We were kept
there till Thursday morning. We were given breakfast- that day we were given breakfastit was egg, toast and a cup of juice. Then we were told that someone from the British
Embassy was coming to see us. I thought, ‘We’ve heard this since Monday’, so I never
thought of anything- I just stayed in the cell, and that’s when the guard came. He took
me first- Mohammed was…I didn’t see Mohammed; he was in another room. He came;
he came and took me out towards another room.
When I got in there, there was the first white woman I saw- no sorry, the second white
woman, because there was a woman on the Monday and Tuesday- they said that she was
from the British Embassy and she was there to see us, but she never interacted with us.
She was just around; I never really got to get a good look at her, because y’know the
doors were open- you could see someone looking through the room that wasn’t Kenyanwe could see they were white because we saw their white skin colour, but this woman

 actually went into the room, and this is when she said to me, ‘I am from the British
Consulate. I’ve come to see if you’re ok; I apologise much- I never knew you were here
until this morning when I was on my way to work in the taxi, I read the news of two
British Al-Qaeda members arrested in Kenya.’ She said this to me on the Thursday, and I
said to her, ‘No, I was here since Monday; I’ve asked to see you…I asked to see
someone; no-one ever came. There was someone in the station but they never spoke to
me, and so on, so on. She apologised deeply, ‘I’m so sorry- I came as soon as I found out
about you. I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do, but I dropped everything to come to you.
Are you ok?’ I looked at her and said, ‘I’m not ok’- she could see I was very stressed,
y’know, she said, ‘You look very stressed, you look scared.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m very
scared. I don’t know what’s going on- explain to me.’ She said, ‘I’m as lost as you’, and
I said, ‘So you said you’re coming to help me’, she goes, ‘I can’t really help you- I’m just
here to explain your rights.’ She started to give me papers; I got frustrated, so with my
hands, I just threw…I pushed the papers back to her. I said, ‘What is this going to do for
me? I need help. Can you get me…What’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on.’ I
told her how I was being treated, and she told me, ‘I’m sorry. Have they fed you ok’, and
she was writing everything I was saying down, and she goes, ‘Does anyone back home
know that you’re here?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, they do know I’m here’, and she goes, ‘How
is that?’ She looked shocked, as in, ‘Who told them you were here?’ So when she said
that, I smiled at her, yeah, because I thought why is she talking to me? She seemed very
worried about me- now she wants to know how my family knows that I’ve been arrested.
And I said to her clear-cut, because when I was arrested on Monday, they asked me,
which was around two o’clock…It was around the afternoon, midday, and someone came
in- not the interrogator- a guard. He goes, ‘Does anyone know you are here?’ You
know, that’s how they speak, and I said, ‘Yeah’- even though no-one knew. I said yeah,
so at least they’d think twice about whatever they were going to do to me- it’s a
precaution; I’ve got that advice from people before.
So I said ‘Yeah.’ They go, ‘How? How? How do they know?’ I said, ‘I saw the police
car coming into the house, so I got so scared I thought I’d phone my mum- to tell her that
police are coming, because I don’t know the police number in Kenya to tell them, so I
just phoned someone.’ But I never really phoned anyone; I just said that to them. So she
was very interested in that- how my family knew that I was arrested- that was her main
priority now- she wasn’t interested in my health, or what food; ‘Who knows…’ I felt like
I was being interrogated by her. So, that was it- she said to me that she can’t tell me
what’s going to go on; she told me what she is, she goes, ‘Really, I can’t…These are your
rights.’ She gave me papers, and that was the last thing I needed to see- papers- after a
long four days now, tired, hardly any food, mistreated then taken out. Then, that was
about it, really. She asked me, ‘Shall I contact anyone?’ I said, ‘Yeah’, and I gave her
my sister’s number, and she goes, ‘I’ll contact them and let them know you’re here.’
When I came back, I came to know she did phone, but, just to end it in Kenya in the
meantime, that’s when we realised…We were told we were going to go back to
London…Errr, on Thursday- because they asked us to sign for our bags and our property
and everything. That’s when we knew good news…There was some good news- I
thought now I can see my bags; my passport I saw- the fact they has my passport. So

 they came in, and they made us sign for everything that was there- nothing was missing,
everything was there, and that’s when I came to realise the same group that’s always
there- that moves us around, they came. So I knew one way or another I’m going to go
somewhere else now, and that’s when they just drove us to the airport. From the airport
we were kept separate from everybody else, until we were ready to load the plane, and we
loaded the plane. We came to the United Kingdom, which is here
CP: What happened when you arrived in the UK? Were you stopped at all?
AO: Yeah- when I arrived in the UK, we had three Kenyans- four Kenyans- that brought
us- that actually brought us, yeah- three men, one woman. The plane stopped; a tannoy
was made on the plane, ‘Everyone remain in your seats.’ Literally ten to thirteen big
white built men came on the plane with suits. As they were walking towards us, they…
One of them directly looked at me and smiled, and he called me, ‘Bilal, would you like to
stand up?’ And then I stood up, and Mohammed stood up, and then there was another
man- an old Somali man that was actually brought back with us. They escorted us off the
actual aeroplane, they took us down the corridor- we didn’t check nothing was with them,
and they explained themselves, ‘We are the MI5, now you’re free we’re going to have to
speak to you’, they explained themselves. ‘Are you ok?’ Now they’re very friendly, and
they asked me, ‘You look so tired- do you want a drink, a sandwich, a coffee?’ You
know, they were being very polite to us now, so I just took advantage of that- because I
was very hungry- I haven’t eaten for four days- I asked for a drink, a sandwich- for
anything that they were offering. I took it off them. That’s about it really- they put us
into separate…They took Mohammed, I didn’t see Mohammed; they took myself. I
landed in this country, most probably…Was it Friday morning? Yeah, Friday morning,
because we left there Thursday night
CP: Do you remember the date?
AO: No, I don’t remember the date from the back of my head
CP: What month was it?
AO: It was…What are we in? April- it was last month- March. It was March we came
back. Was it 23rd of March, maybe? Yeah, something like that. We landed six o’clock
in the morning- my solicitor that was phoning the embassy was told that we hadn’t
arrived yet, but we were there from six o’clock- they never let me leave the airport till
4pm. So from 6am to 4pm I was amongst the MI5, being interrogated, in terms of, ‘What
were you doing in Kenya? Why did you go? Who did you go with?’ Just the same
questions- they didn’t really ask me…They asked me what happened in Kenya- they said,
‘It’s very important that you tell us what happened, because we’re concerned about the
interests of our British citizens…If you were mistreated.’ I told them everything that
happened to me over there. They asked me, ‘How did you book your ticket? Why did
you decide to go?’ I answered all their questions- I was told, ‘You can’t respond with no
comment’, and I wasn’t…I didn’t have anything to hide

 CP: Who was it?
AO: It was MI5 dealing with myself- they interrogated me, took my fingerprints, took
pictures…Even again I said, ‘Look, why is this happening? The way I see it, I haven’t
done anything. I went on holiday and was being held…’ They said, ‘This is the
procedure- we have to do this. We apologise for any inconvenience’ and all of this and
so on. I said, ‘I’m tired’- I was saying to them, ‘I’m tired’- because I was very tired,
exhausted, as they could see, and still a bit shaken. Still, they had to do it, so I was with
them from 6am to 4pm. It came time to leave the airport; Mohammed had already left
before me, because I met him in the next couple of days and he said he had left before
me. They took all my money off me- that was in the airport- they took all my money off
me. My bags- they gave me my clothes in bin bags, and they didn’t even…They took my
shoes as well. So, I left the airport with a bin bag and no shoes- barefoot, no money.
And I said to them, ‘Can I have the money?’ They said, ‘We’ve got to keep it. You’ll
get it back in seven days.’ I explained, ‘So how am I going to leave? I’ve got no-one
here to pick me up.’ They go, ‘Well, we can let you make a phone call’, and I go, ‘Yeah,
well can you?’ So I picked up the phone to make a call to my sister, but her phone was
engaged, and I said to them, ‘It’s engaged. Can you wait one minute?’ And he goes,
‘Ah, you know what, mate? I have to shoot off- I can’t really wait.’ And I said to him’ I
was with you from 6am to 4pm waiting- I had patience with you. I have no money, I
have nowhere to go. Can you just wait?’ He said, ‘I really have to go- try again.’ I tried
again, but my sister’s number was still engaged, so they just left me like that in the
airport.
So in the airport…The way I looked was very weird- no shoes, a bin bag- in the airport
with a bin bag, you see? I was walking around in the airport with a bin bag. I went up to
the…To look for a phone, but reverse charges, you see. No-one answered my house
number; I went to some people in the airport, asking, ‘Can I use your mobile?’ People
said, ‘I don’t have a mobile’, so I was a bit lost- I had to go upstairs, and then I bumped
into them again, one of them. And they were waiting for…I think this time they were
leaving the airport. He said, ‘Ah, you’re still here Bilal?’ I said to him, ‘Yeah, I’ve got
no money, I don’t know if my family are coming- I need to make a phone call.’ Then he
goes, ‘Ah. I left my phone in the office- I’m sorry about that. I wish you all the best’ and
this and that. So I just went upstairs- where you leave the airport on Terminal three, go
upstairs to the car park. I waited around for literally an hour now- no-one was coming, I
didn’t know what was going on; Mohammed was nowhere to be seen. I asked another
man if I could use his phone and he said he had no credit. I thought, same thing- let me
try and do reverse charges.
As I was going, I saw a Muslim-looking Pakistani man; I asked him, ‘Salaam…’ I
‘Salaamed’ him- I asked him, ‘Brother, can I use your phone; I’ve just got myself…’ He
was a bit scared of me; walking around with no shoes, a bin bag. He knew the way they
put me- the way they put me- this is what they do. So when he heard the ‘Salaam’, that
kind of brought security to him. I said to him, ‘Akhi (brother), a situation happened to
me- I really need to phone to ask my family…’ And he gave me the phone,
alhamdulilaah (thanks be to God). I phoned my sister- this time she picked up; I said to

 her…She was very happy to hear my voice- she goes, ‘Where are you? Where are you?
We’ve been trying to get hold of you.’ I said, ‘I’m in the airport, but I’ve got no phone.
Who’s coming to get me?’ She goes, ‘So they’ve released you?’ I said, ‘Yeah’, so she
goes, ‘Ok. Your step-dad is coming now. Just where are you now?’ So I gave them the
directions of where I was. About an hour and a half later, my step-dad came to pick me
up, and that’s when I went back with the family, and they took me home. They were
happy to see me, and when they saw the state of myself- bin bag, no money, I haven’t
eaten, four days in Kenya- you know; the way I was dealt with was not nice to be honest.
It’s like I felt I was a man with no rights- a British person in the country comes back- at
least they can try and give me a lift home, offer me help and that- they just left me at the
airport like that. They didn’t really care to be honest
CP: After that, did you face any more harassment by MI5?
AO: After that, I feel that I’m being followed, because I see a lot of people being
followed. Like, for example, I was walking the first…The second day I was back, I went
to the local Tesco to get some stuff for my family; I had two white men with Northface
jackets who would follow me wherever I would go; I bumped into a friend of mine- just
random bumping in. I ‘Salaamed’ him, ‘How are you brother?’ This, that and the other.
He looked at me, ‘How are you? Are you ok? I heard something happened…’ Just
normal, just same old.
After I left him, it came to my knowledge a week later- because I don’t really see him, I
don’t really him a lot- when I left him, the two men that were following me caught up
with him, asked him, ‘Can you stay aside?’ A car came, parked next to them, and they
asked him, ‘Can you get into the car?’ And according to his story, they took him to
Paddington Station, and asked him about myself and what the purpose of our meeting
was, how I contacted him…Because they knew my phone never phoned anyone. He
explained, ‘I just bumped into him; I was coming from work…’ His story was the truth,
and they came to realise his story was the truth, and they said, ‘Look, you know your
friend- he’s got himself into trouble’, and my friend didn’t really know I was arrested- he
just said, ‘I heard something happened’, and I go to him, ‘I’ll speak to you later’- because
I don’t want my business to go out to people, you see? So I just said to him, ‘Yeah, I’m
ok, everything happened…’ But they actually exposed everything to him- they were
saying to him, ‘Your friend was in Africa’, ‘arrested’, and this and that; ‘Can you help
us? Do you know anything about him? Do you know what he does or where he goes?
Here’s our number- you know it’s against the law to hold anything back- here’s our
number, we’ll keep in touch with you. Are you looking to travel in the future? It can be
a bit messy for you if you don’t, you know, comply with us.’ I asked him when he told
me this- there were no recorders, nothing- they just took him to a room, spoke to him
generally for an hour and a half and left. And the same thing- they’ve done this to two
other people as well
CP: This is after you’ve come back?
AO: Yeah, this is after I’ve come back

 CP: And also, you effectively received an inverted message from Lebanon?
AO: Yeah, ok, that’s right. I phoned my uncle a week ago- I phoned my brother, sorry,
and my brother goes, ‘Your uncle got visited’, so I phoned my uncle, and he spoke to me
and goes, ‘Listen, did you go to Africa?’ He doesn’t…We don’t really have a close
relationship- I don’t phone him and tell him every step I’m going to do. I said, ‘Yeah, I
went to go on a little break, have a little safari’, and he goes, ‘That explains it.’ I said,
‘Sorry- what do you mean ‘that explains it’?’ He goes, ‘The anti-terror of Lebanon…’
This, that- an Arabic word- they call them ‘Mukhabaraat’- he said, ‘The Mukhabaraat,
they came to me’, and he seemed very worried, he goes, ‘Dear, just keep yourself out of
trouble.’ I said to him, ‘Uncle, I don’t do anything- what’s there to be keeping myself out
of?’ He goes, ‘They looked very serious- they asked about you, they asked when you
were coming again- they knew you were here recently; they wanted to know who you
were staying with, where you were going…’ They said to him that they have inside
information from Britain that I’m involved in Al-Qaeda- that’s what they said- that
Britain has told them I’m Al-Qaeda, and I might be ‘coming to start something off.’ You
know, they were talking to him like this. My uncle was going, ‘No, I know him- he’s my
nephew, he’s not doing anything, he’s a good kid, hardworking family man- he looks
after his mum; he helps us out sometimes. He’s not involved in any of that.’ They go,
‘Well, this is the information that we have’, so that’s what they were doing- they went to
my uncle’s, and they’re hassling my brother on the phone
CP: And what did they say- didn’t they say something along the lines of, that you’re
not allowed to return to Lebanon?
AO: They asked when I was coming…When I was coming back again, and according to
my uncle, from a friend of his, they said to him, ‘Whatever you do, you tell your nephew
never to come back, because if he does come back, then there’s going to be problems’,
because they’ve been told from this country to ‘do what you have to do to him’, so my
uncle’s telling me, because my brother’s getting married…
CP: Your uncle’s contact said to him?
AO: Yeah, my uncle’s contact said to him, ‘Don’t bring him back, because problems will
happen’, and my uncle explained to them- because my uncle’s a general, old man, he
goes, ‘His brother’s getting married this summer’, and his contact said, ‘You must be
crazy if you think he can come and walk here.’ Basically, it was like he was warning
him, ‘Don’t tell your nephew to come back here- there’s problems for him.’
CP: So because of this…
AO: Because of this country telling the Lebanese that I’m an ‘Al-Qaeda operative’ or
suspect- this is what they would say- even my brother used that word
CP: So now you won’t be able to go to your brother’s wedding?

 AO: Yeah, I won’t be able to go to my brother’s wedding or go and see my aunty, whose
very ill- I used to try and go see her; when I went last year, because she said, ‘Please
come and see me’, because she was near enough on her deathbed, so she really wants to
see me. So, basically I won’t be able to go back to Lebanon, which has really affected
me- because I don’t have any family living here; I’ve only got my mum, my sister and
my brother lives in Lebanon- all my family live in Lebanon. So it’s affected me a lotthat I can’t actually go there- I’m worried for my own safety; as I saw in Kenya that they
mistreated me, and no-one got involved for me from here. My family, and solicitors and
Cageprisoners and all of that, they couldn’t have really done anything, and that’s what it
was. I knew they wanted to do more, because they were really, really disturbed as to who
knew I was arrested here- that disturbed them, that ruined their plans. He stressed it out
to me, he was very open, Mr Jeffrey, that’s what he was saying
CP: So how would you like this situation to be resolved?
AO: Me, the way I see it, obviously, I just want to be left alone- I don’t want to be
harassed, followed- I feel intimidated, I’ve got a lot of side effects, you know- I get
worried, I hear noises at night because of the way they came. I’ve been affected- I don’t
feel like I live in peace in this country; any noise, even my wife, when the letter comes
through the letterbox, she sees me jump- I think, ‘What’s going on?’ I just want to be left
alone and live my normal life- I don’t want to be harassed, because I feel in this country
like I’m being harassed, I’m being watched, my privacy’s been interrupted- that’s what it
is, you see? My friends have been scared away from me because they’ve been
approached; I feel isolated, that’s what it is. So it’s becoming a bit too much, that’s what
it is