My Team

The Bolt Report 31 March 2013

Video now on line : Brian Wilshire and David Kilgour on China's organ harvesting of political prisoners.

                                                            David Kilgour

The Xinjiang Procedure

Beijing’s ‘New Frontier’ is ground zero for the organ harvesting of political prisoners.

The Weekly Standard
DEC 5, 2011, 

To figure out what is taking place today in a closed society such as northwest China, sometimes you have to go back a decade, sometimes more. 

One clue might be found on a hilltop near southern Guangzhou, on a partly cloudy autumn day in 1991. A small medical team and a young doctor starting a practice in internal medicine had driven up from Sun Yat-sen Medical University in a van modified for surgery. Pulling in on bulldozed earth, they found a small fleet of similar vehicles—clean, white, with smoked glass windows and prominent red crosses on the side. The police had ordered the medical team to stay inside for their safety. Indeed, the view from the side window of lines of ditches—some filled in, others freshly dug—suggested that the hilltop had served as a killing ground for years. 

Thirty-six scheduled executions would translate into 72 kidneys and corneas divided among the regional hospitals. Every van contained surgeons who could work fast: 15-30 minutes to extract. Drive back to the hospital. Transplant within six hours. Nothing fancy or experimental; execution would probably ruin the heart. 

With the acceleration of Chinese medical expertise over the last decade, organs once considered scraps no longer went to waste. It wasn’t public knowledge exactly, but Chinese medical schools taught that many otherwise wicked criminals volunteered their organs as a final penance. 

Right after the first shots the van door was thrust open and two men with white surgical coats thrown over their uniforms carried a body in, the head and feet still twitching slightly. The young doctor noted that the wound was on the right side of the chest as he had expected. When body #3 was laid down, he went to work. 
 Male, 40-ish, Han Chinese. While the other retail organs in the van were slated for the profitable foreigner market, the doctor had seen the paperwork indicating this kidney was tissue-matched for transplant into a 50-year-old Chinese man. Without the transplant, that man would die. With it, the same man would rise miraculously from his hospital bed and go on to have a normal life for 25 years or so. By 2016, given all the anti-tissue-rejection drug advances in China, they could theoretically replace the liver, lungs, or heart—maybe buy that man another 10 to 15 years. 

Body #3 had no special characteristics save an angry purple line on the neck. The doctor recognized the forensics. Sometimes the police would twist a wire around a prisoner’s throat to prevent him from speaking up in court. The doctor thought it through methodically. Maybe the police didn’t want this prisoner to talk because he had been a deranged killer, a thug, or mentally unstable. After all, the Chinese penal system was a daily sausage grinder, executing hardcore criminals on a massive scale. Yes, the young doctor knew the harvesting was wrong. Whatever crime had been committed, it would be nice if the prisoner’s body were allowed to rest forever. Yet was his surgical task that different from an obstetrician’s? Harvesting was rebirth, harvesting was life, as revolutionary an advance as antibiotics or steroids. Or maybe, he thought, they didn’t want this man to talk because he was a political prisoner.

Nineteen years later, in a secure European location, the doctor laid out the puzzle. He asked that I keep his identity a secret. Chinese medical authorities admit that the lion’s share of transplant organs originate with executions, but no mainland Chinese doctors, even in exile, will normally speak of performing such surgery. To do so would remind international medical authorities of an issue they would rather avoid—not China’s soaring execution rate or the exploitation of criminal organs, but rather the systematic elimination of China’s religious and political prisoners. Yet even if this doctor feared consequences to his family and his career, he did not fear embarrassing China, for he was born into an indigenous minority group, the Uighurs. 

Every Uighur witness I approached over the course of two years—police, medical, and security personnel scattered across two continents—related compartmentalized fragments of information to me, often through halting translation. They acknowledged the risk to their careers, their families, and, in several cases, their lives. Their testimony reveals not just a procedure evolving to meet the lucrative medical demand for living organs, but the genesis of a wider atrocity.

Behind closed doors, the Uighurs call their vast region in China’s northwest corner (bordering on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia) East Turkestan. The Uighurs are ethnically Turkic, not East Asian. They are Muslims with a smattering of Christians, and their language is more readily understood in Tashkent than in Beijing. By contrast, Beijing’s name for the so-called Autonomous Region, Xinjiang, literally translates as “new frontier.” When Mao invaded in 1949, Han Chinese constituted only 7 percent of the regional population. Following the flood of Communist party administrators, soldiers, shopkeepers, and construction corps, Han Chinese now constitute the majority. The party calculates that Xinjiang will be its top oil and natural gas production center by the end of this century. 

To protect this investment, Beijing traditionally depicted all Uighur nationalists—violent rebels and non-violent activists alike—as CIA proxies. Shortly after 9/11, that conspiracy theory was tossed down the memory hole. Suddenly China was, and always has been, at war with al Qaeda-led Uighur terrorists. No matter how transparently opportunistic the switch, the American intelligence community saw an opening for Chinese cooperation in the war on terror, and signaled their acquiescence by allowing Chinese state security personnel into Guantánamo to interrogate Uighur detainees. 

While it is difficult to know the strength of the claims of the detainees’ actual connections to al Qaeda, the basic facts are these: During the 1990s, when the Chinese drove the Uighur rebel training camps from neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan and Pakistan, some Uighurs fled to Afghanistan where a portion became Taliban soldiers. And yet, if the Chinese government claims that the Uighurs constitute their own Islamic fundamentalist problem, the fact is that I’ve never met a Uighur woman who won’t shake hands or a man who won’t have a drink with me. Nor does my Jewish-sounding name appear to make anyone flinch. In one of those vino veritas sessions, I asked a local Uighur leader if he was able to get any sort of assistance from groups such as the Islamic Human Rights Commission (where, as I found during a brief visit to their London offices, veiled women flinch from an extended male hand, drinks are forbidden, and my Jewish surname is a very big deal indeed). “Useless!” he snorted, returning to the vodka bottle. 

So if Washington’s goal is to promote a reformed China, then taking Beijing’s word for who is a terrorist is to play into the party’s hands. 

Xinjiang has long served as the party’s illicit laboratory: from the atmospheric nuclear testing in Lop Nur in the mid-sixties (resulting in a significant rise in cancers in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital) to the more recent creation in the Tarim Desert of what could well be the world’s largest labor camp, estimated to hold 50,000 Uighurs, hardcore criminals, and practitioners of Falun Gong. And when it comes to the first organ harvesting of political prisoners, Xinjiang was ground zero.

 In 1989, not long after Nijat Abdureyimu turned 20, he graduated from Xinjiang Police School and was assigned to a special police force, Regiment No. 1 of the Urumqi Public Security Bureau. As one of the first Uighurs in a Chinese unit that specialized in “social security”—essentially squelching threats to the party—Nijat was employed as the good cop in Uighur interrogations, particularly the high-profile cases. I first met Nijat—thin, depressed, and watchful—in a crowded refugee camp on the outskirts of Rome.

Nijat explained to me that he was well aware that his Chinese colleagues kept him under constant surveillance. But Nijat presented the image they liked: the little brother with the guileless smile. By 1994 he had penetrated all of the government’s secret bastions: the detention center, its interrogation rooms, and the killing grounds. Along the way, he had witnessed his fair share of torture, executions, even a rape. So his curiosity was in the nature of professional interest when he questioned one of the Chinese cops who came back from an execution shaking his head. According to his colleague, it had been a normal procedure—the unwanted bodies kicked into a trench, the useful corpses hoisted into the harvesting vans, but then he heard something coming from a van, like a man screaming.   

“Like someone was still alive?” Nijat remembers asking. “What kind of screams?”

“Like from hell.”

Nijat shrugged. The regiment had more than enough sloppiness to go around. 

A few months later, three death row prisoners were being transported from detention to execution. Nijat had become friendly with one in particular, a very young man. As Nijat walked alongside, the young man turned to Nijat with eyes like saucers: “Why did you inject me?”

Nijat hadn’t injected him; the medical director had. But the director and some legal officials were watching the exchange, so Nijat lied smoothly: “It’s so you won’t feel much pain when they shoot you.” 

The young man smiled faintly, and Nijat, sensing that he would never quite forget that look, waited until the execution was over to ask the medical director: “Why did you inject him?”

“Nijat, if you can transfer to some other section, then go as soon as possible.”

“What do you mean? Doctor, exactly what kind of medicine did you inject him with?”

“Nijat, do you have any beliefs?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“It was an anticoagulant, Nijat. And maybe we are all going to hell.”

I first met Enver Tohti—a soft-spoken, husky, Buddha of a man—through the informal Uighur network of London. I confess that my first impression was that he was just another emigré living in public housing. But Enver had a secret.

His story began on a Tuesday in June 1995, when he was a general surgeon in an Urumqi hospital. Enver recalled an unusual conversation with his immediate superior, the chief surgeon: “Enver, we are going to do something exciting. Have you ever done an operation in the field?”

“Not really. What do you want me to do?”

“Get a mobile team together and request an ambulance. Have everyone out front at nine tomorrow.”

On a cloudless Wednesday morning, Enver led two assistants and an anaesthesiologist into an ambulance and followed the chief surgeon’s car out of Urumqi going west. The ambulance had a picnic atmosphere until they realized they were entering the Western Mountain police district, which specialized in executing political dissidents. On a dirt road by a steep hill the chief surgeon pulled off, and came back to talk to Enver: “When you hear a gunshot, drive around the hill.”

“Can you tell us why we are here?”

“Enver, if you don’t want to know, don’t ask.”

“I want to know.”

“No. You don’t want to know.” 

The chief surgeon gave him a quick, hard look as he returned to the car. Enver saw that beyond the hill there appeared to be some sort of armed police facility. People were milling about—civilians. Enver half-satirically suggested to the team that perhaps they were family members waiting to collect the body and pay for the bullet, and the team responded with increasingly sick jokes to break the tension. Then they heard a gunshot, possibly a volley, and drove around to the execution field.

Focusing on not making any sudden moves as he followed the chief surgeon’s car, Enver never really did get a good look. He briefly registered that there were 10, maybe 20 bodies lying at the base of the hill, but the armed police saw the ambulance and waved him over.

“This one. It’s this one.”

Sprawled on the blood-soaked ground was a man, around 30, dressed in navy blue overalls. All convicts were shaved, but this one had long hair.

“That’s him. We’ll operate on him.”

“Why are we operating?” Enver protested, feeling for the artery in the man’s neck. “Come on. This man is dead.” 

Enver stiffened and corrected himself. “No. He’s not dead.” 

“Operate then. Remove the liver and the kidneys. Now! Quick! Be quick!”

Following the chief surgeon’s directive, the team loaded the body into the ambulance. Enver felt himself going numb: Just cut the clothes off. Just strap the limbs to the table. Just open the body. He kept making attempts to follow normal procedure—sterilize, minimal exposure, sketch the cut. Enver glanced questioningly at the chief surgeon. “No anaesthesia,” said the chief surgeon. “No life support.”

The anaesthesiologist just stood there, arms folded—like some sort of ignorant peasant, Enver thought. Enver barked at him. “Why don’t you do something?”

“What exactly should I do, Enver? He’s already unconscious. If you cut, he’s not going to respond.”

But there was a response. As Enver’s scalpel went in, the man’s chest heaved spasmodically and then curled back again. Enver, a little frantic now, turned to the chief surgeon. “How far in should I cut?”

“You cut as wide and deep as possible. We are working against time.” 

Enver worked fast, not bothering with clamps, cutting with his right hand, moving muscle and soft tissue aside with his left, slowing down only to make sure he excised the kidneys and liver cleanly. Even as Enver stitched the man back up—not internally, there was no point to that anymore, just so the body might look presentable—he sensed the man was still alive. I am a killer, Enver screamed inwardly. He did not dare to look at the face again, just as he imagined a killer would avoid looking at his victim.

The team drove back to Urumqi in silence. 

On Thursday, the chief surgeon confronted Enver: “So. Yesterday. Did anything happen? Yesterday was a usual, normal day. Yes?”

Enver said yes, and it took years for him to understand that live organs had lower rejection rates in the new host, or that the bullet to the chest had—other than that first sickening lurch—acted like some sort of magical anaesthesia. He had done what he could; he had stitched the body back neatly for the family. And 15 years would elapse before Enver revealed what had happened that Wednesday.

As for Nijat, it wasn’t until 1996 that he put it together. 

It happened just about midnight, well after the cell block lights were turned off. Nijat found himself hanging out in the detention compound’s administrative office with the medical director. Following a pause in the conversation, the director, in an odd voice, asked Nijat if he thought the place was haunted. 

“Maybe it feels a little weird at night,” Nijat answered. “Why do you think that?”

“Because too many people have been killed here. And for all the wrong reasons.” 

Nijat finally understood. The anticoagulant. The expensive “execution meals” for the regiment following a trip to the killing ground. The plainclothes agents in the cells who persuaded the prisoners to sign statements donating their organs to the state. And now the medical director was confirming it all: Those statements were real. They just didn’t take account of the fact that the prisoners would still be alive when they were cut up.

“Nijat, we really are going to hell.”

Nijat nodded, pulled on his beer, and didn’t bother to smile.

On February 2, 1997, Bahtiyar Shemshidin began wondering whether he was a policeman in name only. Two years before, the Chinese Public Security Bureau of the Western city of Ghulja recruited Bahtiyar for the drug enforcement division. It was a natural fit because Bahtiyar was tall, good-looking, and exuded effortless Uighur authority. Bahtiyar would ultimately make his way to Canada and freedom, but he had no trouble recalling his initial idealism; back then, Bahtiyar did not see himself as a Chinese collaborator but as an emergency responder. 

For several years, heroin addiction had been creeping through the neighborhoods of Ghulja, striking down young Uighurs like a medieval plague. Yet inside the force, Bahtiyar quickly grasped that the Chinese heroin cartel was quietly protected, if not encouraged, by the authorities. Even his recruitment was a bait-and-switch. Instead of sending him after drug dealers, his Chinese superiors ordered him to investigate the Meshrep—a traditional Muslim get-together promoting clean living, sports, and Uighur music and dance. If the Meshrep had flowered like a traditional herbal remedy against the opiate invader, the Chinese authorities read it as a disguised attack on the Chinese state. 

In early January 1997, on the eve of Ramadan, the entire Ghulja police force—Uighurs and Chinese alike—were suddenly ordered to surrender their guns “for inspection.” Now, almost a month later, the weapons were being released. But Bahtiyar’s gun was held back. Bahtiyar went to the Chinese bureaucrat who controlled supplies and asked after it. “Your gun has a problem,” Bahtiyar was told.

“When will you fix the problem?”

The bureaucrat shrugged, glanced at his list, and looked up at Bahtiyar with an unblinking stare that said: It is time for you to go. By the end of the day, Bahtiyar got it: Every Chinese officer had a gun. Every Uighur officer’s gun had a problem. 

Three days later, Bahtiyar understood why. On February 5, approximately 1,000 Uighurs gathered in the center of Ghulja. The day before, the Chinese authorities arrested (and, it was claimed, severely abused) six women, all Muslim teachers, all participants in the Meshrep. The young men came without their winter coats to show they were unarmed, but, planned or unplanned, the Chinese police fired on the demonstrators. 

Casualty counts of what is known as the Ghulja incident remain shaky. Bahtiyar recalls internal police estimates of 400 dead, but he didn’t see it; all Uighur policemen had been sent to the local jail “to interrogate prisoners” and were locked in the compound throughout the crisis. However, Bahtiyar did see Uighurs herded into the compound and thrown naked onto the snow—some bleeding, others with internal injuries. Ghulja’s main Uighur clinic was effectively shut down when a squad of Chinese special police arrested 10 of the doctors and destroyed the clinic’s ambulance. As the arrests mounted by late April, the jail became hopelessly overcrowded, and Uighur political prisoners were selected for daily executions. On April 24, Bahtiyar’s colleagues witnessed the killing of eight political prisoners; what struck them was the presence of doctors in “special vans for harvesting organs.”

In Europe I spoke with a nurse who worked in a major Ghulja hospital following the incident. Nervously requesting that I provide no personal details, she told me that the hospitals were forbidden to treat Uighur protesters. A doctor who bandaged an arm received a 15-year sentence, while another got 20 years, and hospital staff were told, “If you treat someone, you will get the same result.” The separation between the Uighur and Chinese medical personnel deepened: Chinese doctors would stockpile prescriptions rather than allow Uighur medical staff a key to the pharmacy, while Uighur patients were receiving 50 percent of their usual doses. If a Uighur couple had a second child, even if the birth was legally sanctioned, Chinese maternity doctors, she observed, administered an injection (described as an antibiotic) to the infant. The nurse could not recall a single instance of the same injection given to a Chinese baby. Within three days the infant would turn blue and die. Chinese staffers offered a rote explanation to Uighur mothers: Your baby was too weak, your baby could not handle the drug. 

Shortly after the Ghulja incident, a young Uighur protester’s body returned home from a military hospital. Perhaps the fact that the abdomen was stitched up was just evidence of an autopsy, but it sparked another round of riots. After that, the corpses were wrapped, buried at gunpoint, and Chinese soldiers patrolled the cemeteries (one is not far from the current Urumqi airport). By June, the nurse was pulled into a new case: A young Uighur protester had been arrested and beaten severely. His family paid for his release, only to discover that their son had kidney damage. The family was told to visit a Chinese military hospital in Urumqi where the hospital staff laid it out: One kidney, 30,000 RMB (roughly $4,700). The kidney will be healthy, they were assured, because the transplant was to come from a 21-year-old Uighur male—the same profile as their son. The nurse learned that the “donor” was, in fact, a protester. 

In the early autumn of 1997, fresh out of a blood-work tour in rural Xinjiang, a young Uighur doctor—let’s call him Murat—was pursuing a promising medical career in a large Urumqi hospital. Two years later he was planning his escape to Europe, where I met him some years after. 

One day Murat’s instructor quietly informed him that five Chinese government officials—big guys, party members—had checked into the hospital with organ problems. Now he had a job for Murat: “Go to the Urumqi prison. The political wing, not the criminal side. Take blood samples. Small ones. Just to map out the different blood types. That’s all you have to do.”   

“What about tissue matching?”

“Don’t worry about any of that, Murat. We’ll handle that later. Just map out the blood types.”

Clutching the authorization, and accompanied by an assistant from the hospital, Murat, slight and bookish, found himself facing approximately 15 prisoners, mostly tough-guy Uighurs in their late twenties. As the first prisoner sat down and saw the needle, the pleading began. 

“You are a Uighur like me. Why are you going to hurt me?” 

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just taking blood.”

At the word “blood,” everything collapsed. The men howled and stampeded, the guards screaming and shoving them back into line. The prisoner shrieked that he was innocent. The Chinese guards grabbed his neck and squeezed it hard. 

“It’s just for your health,” Murat said evenly, suddenly aware the hospital functionary was probably watching to make sure that Murat wasn’t too sympathetic. “It’s just for your health,” Murat said again and again as he drew blood. 

When Murat returned to the hospital, he asked the instructor, “Were all those prisoners sentenced to death?”

“That’s right, Murat, that’s right. Yes. Just don’t ask any more questions. They are bad people—enemies of the country.”

But Murat kept asking questions, and over time, he learned the drill. Once they found a matching blood type, they would move to tissue matching. Then the political prisoner would get a bullet to the right side of the chest. Murat’s instructor would visit the execution site to match up blood samples. The officials would get their organs, rise from their beds, and check out. 

Six months later, around the first anniversary of Ghulja, five new officials checked in. The instructor told Murat to go back to the political wing for fresh blood. This time, Murat was told that harvesting political prisoners was normal. A growing export. High volume. The military hospitals are leading the way. 

By early 1999, Murat stopped hearing about harvesting political prisoners. Perhaps it was over, he thought.

Yet the Xinjiang procedure spread. By the end of 1999, the Uighur crackdown would be eclipsed by Chinese security’s largest-scale action since Mao: the elimination of Falun Gong. By my estimate up to three million Falun Gong practitioners would pass through the Chinese corrections system. Approximately 65,000 would be harvested, hearts still beating, before the 2008 Olympics. An unspecified, significantly smaller, number of House Christians and Tibetans likely met the same fate. 

By Holocaust standards these are piddling numbers, so let’s be clear: China is not the land of the final solution. But it is the land of the expedient solution. Some will point to recent statements from the Chinese medical establishment admitting the obvious—China’s medical environment is not fully ethical—and see progress. Foreign investors suspect that eventually the Chinese might someday—or perhaps have already—abandon organ harvesting in favor of the much more lucrative pharmaceutical and clinical testing industries. The problem with these soothing narratives is that reports, some as recent as one year ago, suggest that the Chinese have not abandoned the Xinjiang procedure. 

In July 2009, Urumqi exploded in bloody street riots between Uighurs and Han Chinese. The authorities massed troops in the regional capital, kicked out the Western journalists, shut down the Internet, and, over the next six months, quietly, mostly at night, rounded up Uighur males by the thousands. According to information leaked by Uighurs held in captivity, some prisoners were given physical examinations aimed solely at assessing the health of their retail organs. The signals may be faint, but they are consistent, and the conclusion is inescapable: China, a state rapidly approaching superpower status, has not just committed human rights abuses—that’s old news—but has, for over a decade, perverted the most trusted area of human expertise into performing what is, in the legal parlance of human rights, targeted elimination of a specific group. 

Yet Nijat sits in refugee limbo in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, waiting for a country to offer him asylum. He confessed to me. He confessed to others. But in a world eager not to offend China, no state wants his confession. Enver made his way to an obscure seminar hosted by the House of Commons on Chinese human rights. When the MPs opened the floor to questions, Enver found himself standing up and speaking, for the first time, of killing a man. I took notes, but no British MP or their staffers could be bothered to take Enver’s number. 

The implications are clear enough. Nothing but self-determination for the Uighurs can suffice. The Uighurs, numbering 13 million, are few, but they are also desperate. They may fight. War may come. On that day, as diplomats across the globe call for dialogue with Beijing, may every nation look to its origins and its conscience. For my part, if my Jewish-sounding name tells me anything, it is this: The dead may never be fully avenged, but no people can accept being fatally exploited forever.

Ethan Gutmann, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wishes to thank Jaya Gibson for research assistance and the Peder Wallenberg family for research support. 

Lord Christopher Moncton Agenda 21 Anthropogenic Global Warming SCAM

Brian Wilshire speaks with Lord Christopher Monckton about climate change,world 

government and Agenda 21.

Australia's Finest: Commando Sergeant Paul Cale

Diggers defend killer Commando Sergeant Paul Cale

By Kristin Shorten
March 08, 2013 11:32AM

Commando who strangled Taliban commander defends his actions
"I fought alongside Muslims and we were great friends"
Paul Cale poached to train US Special Forces

Sergeant Paul Cale, an elite soldier from Sydney's 2 Commando Regiment, was forced to kill an enemy fighter with his bare hands when his platoon was ambushed while on a mission in the restive Chora region.
  
The Commando, known as "JJ" to his army mates, yesterday spoke out for the first time about the fated night-mission which motivated him to develop a world-leading close-quarter fighting course.

Interview with Sgt. Paul Cale

As readers expressed mixed responses to the story online, Sgt Cale and his fellow Commandos strongly defended his actions.
"I have to live with my actions every moment of every day," Sgt Cale told news.com.au today.
"It's my life. It's something that happened to me.
"These are the facts of war.
"When countries go to war this is what happens – there's nothing pretty about it."  

After the incident, during his 2007 deployment, the 44-year-old martial artist dedicated himself to developing the Australian Commando Integrated Combat package, which is now being used to train US Special Forces.

News.com.au yesterday revealed that Sgt Cale, one of Australia's toughest men, had been poached by the US military after showing his program to US army chiefs at an international skills symposium.
One Special Forces operative, who fought alongside Sgt Cale throughout his 2007 deployment, today spoke out about losing a mate who was fatally shot in a similar ambush.

"JJ had already begun instructing CQC (close quarter combat) before his '07 deployment. I was on one of his first courses," he said.
"A real warrior who lives and breathes his art and one of the nicest blokes I've met.
"For all you bleeding hearts out there that think these Taliban are pleasant, gentle souls, in a very similar scenario on that same deployment JJ and Australia lost a warrior when he was shot and killed making entry into a compound."

Another Commando, who served alongside Sgt Cale in 2010, said he had been "instrumental" to his platoon's survival during the protracted battle of Zabat Kalay.
That mission saw two Commandos wounded and nine valuable Taliban targets killed. Five Commandos also received Gallantry awards for their actions.

Former Yankee Platoon Commander with Delta Company, Major Bram Connolly – who was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal before leaving the defence force – said Sgt Cale had taught his men "critical skills".
"He was instrumental in the platoon being able to use both lethal and less than lethal force while engaged in room combat," he said.

"The techniques taught by Paul to disarm enemy combatants and retain our own weapons was a critical skill that enhanced our strategy of working within the local population in support of the Afghan partner force.

"Paul was a great Platoon Sergeant and his guidance to the young soldiers kept them grounded during our deployment.
"He ran CQF training every second night for both our platoon and the American SF."
Sgt Cale said that while the response to his story was overwhelmingly positive, he said too many Australians misunderstood our country's role in the conflict.

"I fought alongside Muslims and we were great friends," he said.
"We were there supporting them in establishing the rule of law.
"The only thing we're fighting is extremism and people who believe they have the right to harm others for the sake of their beliefs.
"We're there protecting them and helping the Afghans who have stayed in their country and are fighting for the peace and security of their country."

Since its 2010 implementation, the course created by Sgt Cale at Sydney's Holsworthy Barracks has changed the way our top troops train for modern warfare.
"Out of that (2007) event I realised that what we're teaching is north compared to south ... so I reconstructed the entire CQF (close-quarter fighting) program," he said.

"They were basically looking at what we do and when one of their Navy Seals saw our program … he said it was 18 months ahead of anything they'd ever seen in the world.
"The US Special Forces guys sent their instructors over here to work with me through our entire package and went back to the States and introduced it into their package."

The father of two, who used his civilian martial arts training to develop the program, will soon split his time between the US and Australia as he delivers it to the Green Berets with business partner, former Western Australian police detective, Bleddyn 'Taff' Davies.
Email kristin.shorten@news.com.au or follow @itsKShort on Twitter

Former Guantanamo Bay Inmate, and Islam's favourite "Rat with a Gold Tooth", Mamdouh Habib,to sue NSW Police.

Mamdouh Habib sues 'racist' police over discrimination

Vanda Carson
The Daily Telegraph
March 29, 201312:00AM

FORMER Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mamdouh Habib has won the right to make a claim of racial discrimination against the NSW police.

Mr Habib, who spent four years in Guantanamo Bay between 2001 and 2005, claims that since his return to Australia police have called him an "Arab terrorist" and a "Muslim terrorist".

He has taken action in the state's Administrative Decisions Tribunal to continue with his complaint after it was rejected by the president of the Anti-Discrimination Board.

Mr Habib, who was born in Egypt, claims there were five incidents of discrimination by police between 2006 and 2011.

He has told the tribunal he has been treated unfavourably because the NSW Police database has a record of him being a "terrorist".

The first of the five alleged incidents occurred in March 2006 when Mr Habib was arrested by police after witnessing a shooting at Granville, in Sydney's west.

As he was escorted to the police paddy wagon, Mr Habib claims one police officer said to another: "Put this terrorist in the wagon."

When he appeared at the tribunal, Mr Habib's recollection of the event changed, and he claimed police said: "Put this bloody Arab terrorist in the wagon."

Mr Habib won $9000 for psychiatric harm from the Victims Compensation Tribunal over the incident.

The second alleged incident involved an unnamed female police officer referring to him as a "terrorist" a year later when Mr Habib was outside Bankstown Local Court.

He was at the court to enter a plea on charges of offensive behaviour and offensive language at a Bankstown McDonald's. He was convicted of the charges but this was overturned on appeal. Police investigated the incident and found the officer had acted unprofessionally - she was counselled.

Mr Habib also claims two incidents where police refused to charge drivers who collided with his car showed police were discriminating against him because he was Middle Eastern. The final alleged incident of racial discrimination occurred in 2011 at St George Police Station where he went to report a claim that he was assaulted by three men in an ice cream shop. Mr Habib says he was "scanned" by Senior-Constable Joe Zammit.

This was found to have been an improper search. No date for the hearing has been set.



So what IS the Habib story? this is part of it.
FOUR CORNERS

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Worst of the Worst?
In "Worst of the Worst?" Four Corners looks at the most revealing and comprehensive account so far about Egyptian-born Habib, and what he did before he was detained at Guantanamo Bay and deprived of his legal rights.
Date: 20/07/2004

SALLY NEIGHBOUR, REPORTER: In November 2001 in Hamburg, German police interrogators went to work on two suspected al-Qaeda recruits arrested in Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on America. The two suspects were linked with the now-infamous Hamburg cell, headed by the September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. The pair had been captured after leaving a training camp in Afghanistan in the days after the attacks. The two suspects were grilled for days about their al-Qaeda links and their training and about an Australian man who had been arrested with them.

INTERROGATING OFFICER (TRANSLATION): What can you say about the Australian? What was his name and what did he tell you?

BEKIM ADEMI (TRANSLATION): He came from Sydney. He's married with four children.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Sydney man named by the two Germans was well known to the Australian authorities. He had been watched by ASIO for years in a long saga leading up to his capture.

IBRAHIM DIAB (TRANSLATION): He planned to move to Pakistan with his family. Later in prison, I found out his name. It was Mamdouh Habib.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Almost three years later, Mamdouh Habib's family is still waiting for him to come home. Habib is one of two Australians incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, reportedly beaten, abused and tormented, and until two weeks ago denied any legal rights. The two Germans who named him have long since been released. And exactly why Habib is still being held remains largely a mystery.
Tonight on Four Corners, we piece together the troubled story of Mamdouh Habib, the cleaner turned coffee shop owner and father of four from suburban Sydney who somehow ended up in the prison camp America reserves for the men it calls "the worst of the worst".
In 1995, caught on home video playing at the beach with his children, Mamdouh Habib looks like a man without a worry in the world. Habib had moved to Australia from Egypt in 1984, married a local Lebanese-Australian girl, Maha, and had two sons and a daughter, with a second girl to follow.

IBRAHIM FRASER, FRIEND: Mamdouh is a great guy. He's really family-oriented and very dedicated to his family.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Habib family settled in Sydney's south-west. Habib ran a cleaning company and later opened a coffee shop in Haldon Street, Lakemba.

IBRAHIM FRASER: Well, this is Haldon Street. I go up and down Haldon Street all the time. Just up here, next to the National Bank here, is the coffee shop that Mamdouh owned. It's really funny coming back.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: One of his regular customers was a local taxi driver Ibrahim Fraser, an Australian-born Muslim convert who lived nearby.
IBRAHIM FRASER: Mamdouh, to me, is friendly and outgoing and, uh, very interested in people and, you know, the welfare of people.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib's cafe in Lakemba's main shopping strip was a popular meeting place for the Lebanese and Egyptian-born communities. His friend Khalil Chami, who runs a bookshop in Haldon Street, says Habib threw himself into community life.

SHEIK KHALIL CHAMI, ISLAMIC WELFARE CENTRE: I mean, he's active and he was working hard with the community and he invited people and he's not selfish. I mean, he's a person... I mean, he will invite you to coffee and he will never take money for the coffee. He is very generous in this line.

MAHA HABIB: He's always said to the kids, you know, he said, "No matter what, if anyone ever asks you for any help and you can help, don't hesitate to do it, because one day you will need someone."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib's wife Maha would not be interviewed for this program. This interview was filmed by 'The 7:30 Report' in late May.

MAHA HABIB: And he's always told them, "Never be afraid of the truth, because if you've done anything wrong, alright, you have to face your problem, OK?"

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib prayed at the Lakemba mosque and taught Islamic scripture at a local high school. His friends say he was not an extremist but took his faith seriously.

IBRAHIM FRASER: He told me that, you know, to be a good Muslim you had to live Islam, and that's what he did. He lived Islam and to me he was a great inspiration, Islamically.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib was a follower of Australia's most senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj, a man whose views have been called extreme. Sheik Taj was almost deported in the '80s for comments like this.

(HOME VIDEO FOOTAGE FROM 1988 PLAYS)

SHEIK TAJ ON VIDEO (TRANSLATION): The Jews try to control the world through sex, then sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, treachery and economic hoarding.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Sheik Taj has mellowed over the years, although he was condemned again more recently for calling the September 11 attacks "God's work against oppressors." Habib too was a man of strong views.

SHEIK TAJ ALDIN AL-HILALY (TRANSLATION): He was always trying to put his nose into everything, to poke his nose into a lot of things. He was a talkative man. Always interfering in matters regardless of whether they interested him or not. That was part of his personality. He was sharp and aggressive. He would get angry quickly and then calm down quickly. Mamdouh is like that - he always brings problems upon himself.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In 1991 Mamdouh Habib took his family on a holiday to his native Egypt and then to see his sisters in New York. It was on this journey that his problems began.
While Habib was in New York, a celebrated court case was under way. It was the trial of an Islamic militant El Sayyid Nosair, who was charged with shooting dead an extremist rabbi, Meir Kahana, during a function at a New York hotel. Every day during the trial, rival camps of Muslim and Jewish protesters gathered outside the court. Mamdouh Habib was invited by an old school friend to join the crowd who rallied to yell support for the accused killer.

MAHA HABIB: Someone has said that, um, there was a person who'd been accused of killing some, I don't know, um, Jewish... What do you call them? Um, 'rab...'
INTERVIEWER: Rabbi.
MAHA HABIB: Rabbi, yeah. And his case is running. "Just for out of support, do you want to come?" I went to court too.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The man who invited Habib to join the protest was an old friend from his school days in Egypt, Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, a cousin of the accused killer. Also at the court was another friend of Habib's, Mahmud Abouhalima. The men were all followers of the militant Egyptian-born cleric Omar Abdul Rahman, known as the 'blind sheik', who urged his flock to "kill the enemies of God" and rid the world of the descendants of "apes and pigs fed at the table of Zionism, communism and imperialism".
The blind sheik's followers were jubilant when Nosair was acquitted of the murder despite having been arrested with the gun still in his hand. He was convicted on gun charges instead. Mamdouh Habib joined in the celebrations.

MAHA HABIB: What's wrong with going to court? I can go to any court now and see any...hear any hearings. Is that wrong?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: 15 months after Habib's trip to America, the World Trade Center in New York was bombed, leaving six people dead and more than 1,000 injured. The blind sheik Omar Abdul Rahman and Habib's friends El-Gabrowny and Abouhalima were arrested and later convicted over the attack and plans to bomb other New York landmarks.
MAHA HABIB: Put it this way - say if your friends from school...you had your friends from school, OK? And you used to go with them to school and afterwards, you know, um, you'd met them after you got married and, you know, long time ago, and whatever they've done wrong, would that blame you too?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Back home in Sydney, Habib took up the blind sheik's cause, organising a protest to support the jailed cleric whom he described as his teacher.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN, NATIONAL EMIR, AHLUS SUNNAH WAL JAMA'AH: I heard him say, "I was one of the students of this man." This is from his mouth to the brothers - not to me in particular, but to everyone.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He said he was a student of the blind sheik?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Yep. That's what he said.

SHEIK TAJ ALDIN AL-HILALY, MUFTI, AUSTRALIAN ISLAMIC COMMUNITY (TRANSLATION): He used to come and argue with me in my office many, many times. I used to listen to him. "Should be, do something, should be. We have to support the case of Dr Omar Abdul Rahman, he's innocent." I would say, "OK, God willing." He would get angry and leave my office, very upset. The same thing happened many times. He would come to see me, we would disagree, then he would come back after a few months and try again.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: From his home in Sydney's west, Habib stayed in contact with his friends in New York. Phone records produced in the US court case revealed a series of calls between Habib's house and the men on trial for the bombing. Habib later claimed he was discussing a business deal with his friend El-Gabrowny and fundraising for the blind sheik.

INTERVIEWER: There is some evidence that he had connections with terrorists, though, isn't there? For example, the phone calls with...

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper refused to be interviewed for this program. This interview was filmed by Four Corners last year.

STEPHEN HOPPER, LAWYER FOR HABIB: It was about $500, which was raised by Mamdouh from the community, and the reason why that money was raised is there seemed to be a debate over whether the US authorities were giving the sheik his diabetes medication. And this has been documented in the press.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib's contacts with the World Trade Center bombers and his support for the blind sheik aroused the interest of ASIO, which paid him a call. The knock on the door - in late '93 by his wife's account - would be the first of many.

STEPHEN HOPPER: We know from about 1996 until the time he left to Pakistan in July 2001, ASIO had put him under scrutiny. And that's quite a number of years. But during all that time there were no charges ever laid and in the latter part of it, ASIO asked him to be an informer for them and offered to put him on a payroll. And Mamdouh Habib refused to do that. He didn't want to spy for anybody.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: While the home videos continued to show the same old smiling Mamdouh, beneath the happy exterior was a man under mounting pressure. The attention from ASIO was not his main worry. Business was going badly. Habib's cleaning company had a contract with the Defence Housing Authority cleaning defence homes. After a series of complaints that his work was substandard, Habib lost the job.

IBRAHIM FRASER, FRIEND: He said that he was cheated and that the Government owed him all this money and that he was victimised on grounds...on the basis that he was Muslim and Egyptian.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After Habib made a series of angry phone calls, the Defence Housing Authority took out an apprehended violence order against him. In court, witnesses told of abuse and threats by Habib.

(EXTRACTS FROM WITNESS EVIDENCE PLAY)
WOMAN: He became very angry. He said it was unfair what we had done to him and his company and he was going to get us for that.
WOMAN 2: He said to me, "I'll tell you what happened to a woman who was working for some people. She had acid thrown in her face and she was badly damaged by that." I said, "So what has that got to do with me?" And he said, "Nothing, but people have to be very careful."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: His psychiatrist testified that Habib was suffering from major depression and was being treated with Prozac, but that he was not prone to violence.
(WITNESS EVIDENCE CONTINUES)

MAN: He is irritable. He has been preoccupied with a sense of hopelessness about his future. He has become withdrawn and he has been very agitated at home and he has been crying excessively as well. There is no evidence to suggest that he is aggressive or about to become aggressive or violent. He is not dangerous at this point.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: During the court case, police searched Habib's home and found a gun and ammunition that he held under licence. The magistrate ordered the gun destroyed and Habib's shooter's licence was cancelled. The Defence Housing Authority got an AVO for five years.

IBRAHIM FRASER: He felt that because it was the Government, the Government always wins - the Government's on the side of the Government and that's it.

SHEIK TAJ ALDIN AL-HILALY, MUFTI, AUSTRALIAN ISLAMIC COMMUNITY (TRANSLATION): He used to imagine that... He used to think that he was a victim, that he was being discriminated against and that everyone was against him. He felt that there were hidden forces watching him - that was a delusion. I used to try and make things easier for him and give him psychological support, but he had those delusions.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After falling out with Sheik Taj, Habib began attending a more radical mosque just up the road in Lakemba. The prayer room in the arcade off Haldon Street is well known to ASIO for the sometimes extreme views that are preached there. Its spiritual leader is Sheik Abu Ayman. The sheik remembers Habib well from the day Habib trooped up the stairs to the prayer room dressed in a karate suit.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN, NATIONAL EMIR, AHLUS SUNNAH WAL JAMA'AH: Usually I don't recognise people, but when he came to talk to me and he had special hat, this ninja hat or something like that, and white suit and black belt. And I know these kind of people. I've been across so many people in my life. And I saw him that night with these clothes on, just I gave him a big smile.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What did you think about that?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Better not... (Laughs) Sorry about that, but... (Laughs) Better not to say what I was thinking about.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: According to Abu Ayman, Habib became even more conspicuous for the argumentative ways he brought with him.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: I would say he is an attention seeker. I would say he loves the people to give their ears to him. And again, I could say he's a disturbed man. If you don't agree with him, he will accuse you of every name under the sun, and again, this is not a normal thing from a normal person to do.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What would he argue about?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: The hot issues that people argue about these days. It started with Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, then Osama bin Laden, then jihad - this is the issues that people argue about these days.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And what would he say about Osama bin Laden and jihad?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Now, he's in trouble already. I don't want to make him in a worse situation, but it's been recorded and I'm sure the Government knew about it. He used to wear the photo of Osama bin Laden, his T-shirt. As I said, this is a childish thing. A man doesn't do that. Even if you love someone, you don't wear a shirt like... This is for the children.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib was certainly not the only one in the prayer room to support Bin Laden and advocate jihad or holy struggle. Abu Ayman and his congregation have been under close watch for years because of the extreme views expressed by some of his followers. The man who runs the prayer room, Abdul Salam Zoud, was named in a French court dossier as a recruiter for jihad - a claim he denies. Several men who have attended the prayer room are currently facing terrorism-related charges.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Most of it is ill talk based on no evidence whatsoever. And that's the fact. They have to blame someone. There is always...in any agenda, there is a scapegoat. It has to be all the time someone to put the blame on. And this is why you find us sometimes, yes, saying something the public doesn't like, for example, or the Government doesn't like.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The reason the Government doesn't like what's preached in the prayer room is apparent from the sermons available on video in the bookshop up the road.
(FOOTAGE FROM 'THE ENEMY'S PLOT' PLAYS)

SHEIK FEIZ: What is really meant by the term, by the wording, by the so-called war on terrorism? Does it leave any doubt in anyone's mind that it is nothing but a war on Islam and the Muslims to ensure the Zionist - those pigs - the Zionist-American domination in every corner of this earth?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: This is one offering from Abu Ayman's star protege, a young firebrand from Liverpool known as Sheik Feiz, whose weekly lectures in the prayer room Mamdouh Habib used to attend.

(VIDEO FOOTAGE CONTINUES)
SHEIK FEIZ: Go to Iraq today and see your brothers and sisters! See them! See what is happening there! It's gonna happen to you one day! Their heads are being blown off, their legs are being amputated, their arms, their bodies. Their meat is being just thrown off their bodies. Look! And we are too comfortable with cultivation! We're too scared to go to jihad! What are you living for?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The call to jihad was like a magnet for Habib. He was so enthused he began signing people up, according to Abu Ayman.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: So they give their names. Then they find out after that he's collecting these names for so-called jihad or something like that.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What do you mean by that? What do you mean "collecting names for jihad"?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Who wants to go to jihad, or something like that.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So was he trying to get people to go overseas to fight, do you mean?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: I would say that, yes.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Do you know where?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: No, but it's obvious. That time was Chechnya and Chechnya was the main area, the hot area in that time.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: It wouldn't have been the first time someone from the prayer room headed off to jihad. Other followers of Abu Ayman are known to have trained and fought with militant Islamic groups overseas. But for a group already under suspicion, Habib's overt lobbying and collecting of names was dangerous. He was told to stop.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: This is the problem. Loud mouth is a big problem. To go and do whatever you want. The Government want to blame us for that. It's your problem and it's your personal issues. We cannot stop anyone to do what he wants to do, except in the area we are authorised to stop. And this is what we did.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In March 2000, Habib packed his bags and headed off overseas. His destination was not Chechnya but Pakistan. He was away for just under two months. Habib's exact movements are unclear but he spoke to his friend Ibrahim Fraser before he left.

IBRAHIM FRASER: I met him at a cafe in Lakemba and he discussed to me that he had plans to go to Afghanistan to live an Islamic life in the Bin Laden camp. He felt that that was a good life to lead. He thought that would be good for his children. He thought that his children would have an Islamic upbringing and that they would also be able to study the Koran and everything Islamic. So he told me that. I said to him, "So do you mean that you would go for jihad?" And he said, "Well, if that's...if that was necessary, because..." He said, "But I really only want to live there. I'm not really interested in jihad, but I really want to live with Bin Laden."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: According to Australian authorities, Habib travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Four Corners has been told that on this trip he did military training with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has since been listed as a banned terrorist group in Australia. The authorities say that notes from an L-e-T weapons course were later found in Habib's home. Several months later, back in Lakemba, Ibrahim Fraser spotted his friend again in Haldon Street.

IBRAHIM FRASER: I said, "Oh, well, so how was Afghanistan?" He said "Great." He said, "This is truly a great place."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Did he tell you what he'd done there?

IBRAHIM FRASER: No, he didn't tell me whether he'd done anything in Afghanistan. He didn't tell me...he didn't say that he'd been on jihad. He hadn't said that he had done any training. He just told me that he'd been looking for a...that he'd been to...met Bin Laden and been there and found it to be a really great place and...

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He said he'd met Bin Laden?

IBRAHIM FRASER: I think so. I think he had. I think that's what he said.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, the police and ASIO stepped up their interest in Habib. The authorities didn't know at this stage of his movements overseas but they were keen to pump him for information on the prayer room, which was now under close surveillance.
Habib wrote to the Inspector-General of Intelligence, the first of many written complaints to a range of authorities.

LETTER FROM MAMDOUH HABIB TO THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL: "Dear Sir, I would like to lodge a formal complaint against the ASIO. I have been harassed by them for over 5 years. I am facing a lot of problems and I request help from your department to seek for my rights. If I do not have the help from your department, I will consider to seek for my rights in a different country."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Inspector-General later wrote back to inform Habib that ASIO did not intend to interview him again, except in the unlikely event that new information came to hand. But by this time, Habib's contacts with ASIO were an open secret in Haldon Street. Rumours swirled around Lakemba that Habib was a spy.

IBRAHIM FRASER: I remember once somebody said to me, "Just be careful about this guy." And I said "Why?" I mean, "What's wrong with Mamdouh?" you know. And they said, "No, you've got to be careful because he...he's got connections."

SHEIK ABU AYMAN, NATIONAL EMIR, AHLUS SUNNAH WAL JAMA'AH: We are under scrutiny from the Government and from everyone. Then someone come to say to us, "Let's go to jihad. Let's do that. Let's do this." And first thing comes to your mind - "That man wants to put us in trouble." That's why he wants to say, "Yes, yeah, let's go." Then he will go and report us. This is what...a normal thing to think about these people. And you don't blame anyone. This doesn't mean he is.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: But you thought he was working for ASIO or the Government trying to make trouble for you?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Doesn't mean he is, but it's normal to think he is.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: As the rumours escalated, Habib started complaining to his local MP, the Labor Member for East Hills, Alan Ashton.

ALAN ASHTON, MEMBER FOR EAST HILLS: He told me that the problem he had there was that the mosque authorities were accusing him of being, essentially, either an ASIO agent or a CIA agent. And that they had declared him at one stage... He used this word to me - 'halal'. And there are various definitions of that term, but the impression I got from him was that this meant that he could be killed - or sacrificed, if you like - if at any time he came into the Lakemba area and attempted to go to that mosque.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The bad blood between Habib and the men of the prayer room came to a head when a stranger from an Islamic group in Holland showed up collecting funds for the Chechen mujahadeen. The Dutchman, known as Abu Zer, was befriended by Habib. Abu Ayman and his colleagues became angry when they learned the visitor was using their group's name to raise funds. The sheiks confiscated the Dutchman's passport and demanded he give the money back.

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: We never heard of this man. We didn't know anything about him. Now, we don't give anyone the authority to collect any money for any reason whatsoever.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib described the argument with the man who runs the prayer room in a letter to his MP, Alan Ashton.

EXTRACT FROM MAMDOUH HABIB'S LETTER TO ALAN ASHTON: "He also said in front of many people that if I ever do come back to this mosque, he will break my head and cut my legs and hands into pieces."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib claims that you said to him that you would break his head and cut his legs and hands into pieces and that you said - you asked, and I quote, "every Muslim to have him killed because his blood is halal".

SHEIK ABDUL SALAM, NSW EMIRE, AHLUS SUNNAH WAL JAMA'AH: I didn't say like this. I didn't say this. And I was surprised first when I heard from you now I said this. I deny it. And I challenge if I did say these words.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What did you say to him?

SHEIK ABDUL SALAM: Just, "Please, Mamdouh, please don't come to this prayer room." He said, "Why?" I said, "You know why. Because you're making trouble with the...some people and I want...I don't want any trouble to be in my place here or in the prayer room."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The dispute at the prayer room ended in blows when Habib showed up again with a video camera and began filming people as they left through the arcade.
Why was he doing that? Why was he filming people?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: For so many reasons. A disturbed man, or a man wants to make trouble, they can, for teasing us enough...to create a problem. Maybe he's not shooting at all, he just putting the camera like this and letting the people feel they are being recorded, so they go and make a fight. 

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Two men were charged with assaulting Habib. One was the former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal, currently facing charges of making documents likely to facilitate terrorism. The assault charges were eventually dropped for lack of a complainant after Habib's arrest. The Bankstown police investigated Habib's complaints to Alan Ashton of threats to himself and his family. The police concluded that the sole issue was Habib having been barred from the mosque and that his accusations were "grossly exaggerated and fictional". But in Habib's mind it all remained very real.

ALAN ASHTON, MEMBER FOR EAST HILLS: I think he was very frightened. He wrote one letter that just virtually headlined the letter, "It was a cold-blooded murder attempt," and he's underlined it. And then he goes on to describe having guns pointed at him and other things that happened. So by this stage he was very fearful, I think, for his life and his wife and his children.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib also complained to Alan Ashton's office that he'd been abused at his children's school and that rumours were being spread there that he was a spy.
ALLAN WINTERBOTTOM, ASHTON'S ELECTORATE ASSISTANT: He rang late one evening and he said about the problems with the children and, er, various people at the school were making it very uncomfortable for his children to attend. And he mentioned about the mosque where he was allegedly assaulted. And I suggested why doesn't he go to another school and another mosque and he raised his voice and said that he'd rather kill his own children than to change his place of worship.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: By early 2001, behind the familiar smiling face of Mamdouh Habib there was clearly a man on the edge. At a meeting with Bankstown police, Habib was described as showing "signs of hostility towards government organisations and the community generally". The Protective Services Group was asked to do "a detailed threat assessment" of Mr Habib. The final conclusion was that there was no information to support concerns that Habib might carry out an act of violence. The police decided Habib was "a repetitious and vexatious complainant" and that "little credibility could be attributed to any threats or allegations he may make".

ALAN ASHTON: While he never made any threats and never said anything that you would take to be a threat, it was just all the contacts he had and all the letters and that frustration. And occasionally his conversation with me would be along the lines of, "Do I have to leave the country?" And that's what he did.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: On July 29, 2001, Mamdouh Habib headed overseas again. His destination was Pakistan. He told several people he was going to find a religious school for his children.

MAHA HABIB: Believe it or not, we were going to go all together. All of us, you know, to see... We've heard that Pakistan has a very good reputation in teaching the kids the Koran, memorising the Koran, alright? And I guarantee you, whoever memorise the Koran and understand it, there won't be any problem. There won't be any, um, you know... Because knowing the Koran is a way of life, OK?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib's exact movements after he arrived in Pakistan are once again unclear. His wife, Maha, claims he travelled only within Pakistan. The Australian Government claims Habib was in Afghanistan when the attacks on America took place on September 11 that year.
All that the Government has said publicly is that Habib is alleged to have trained with al-Qaeda. Four Corners has been given a more detailed account. We're told that while he was in Afghanistan, Habib did an advanced al-Qaeda training course in a camp near Kabul. It's claimed the course included surveillance and photographing facilities, the establishment and use of safe houses, covert travel and writing secret reports. Australian authorities say that several other men who took part in the course identified Habib as having been there. Evidence to support these claims is still to be produced.

IBRAHIM FRASER, FRIEND: I don't believe he's a terrorist. I just believe he's Mamdouh Habib looking for a place for his children to study. I mean, to do training doesn't mean to say that you actually participated in any war. People join the army but they don't all go to war. They do the training and not all people go to war.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the wake of September 11, ASIO raided and searched Habib's home. It was just after this that Maha Habib spoke to her husband for the last time.

MAHA HABIB: I told him. He said, "Have we got anything to hide?" I said, "No." He said, "Then don't worry about it." That's what he said and he was so calm about it. He said, "Just don't worry. Just relax." I was really upset. I asked him, actually, "Have you found a school?" And he didn't... Actually he didn't sound too good. He said, "Don't worry. I'll tell you when I come. Everything's upside down." That's after September 11. So he said, "I'll tell you all about it when I come home."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib called again a few days later when no-one was home and left a message.

MAHA HABIB: Last thing we've heard was on the answering machine. He was saying, "I'm on my way back home." So we felt happy, you know, and I said, "That's it. He's coming!"

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib was in Quetta, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on his way home. It was there he met the two Germans, Ibrahim Diab and Bekim Ademi, who were also heading home from Afghanistan.

IBRAHIM DIAB (TRANSLATION): When we arrived at the bus stop, we met an Australian. He told us he was going to look for a school for his children, but that he didn't like Pakistan. Like us, he was planning to go back home as quickly as possible. We went with him by taxi to the town centre because we planned to buy presents for our families there. The Australian bought shoes for his daughter.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib and the Germans took a bus for Karachi. But five hours into their journey, the bus was stopped by Pakistani police and the two Germans were hauled off. It apparently wasn't Habib they were after. Four Corners has been told that it was only when Habib piped up and protested in his usual fashion about the treatment of his companions that the Pakistanis said, "Well, if you're travelling with them, you can come too," and arrested Habib as well.

INTERROGATING OFFICER (TRANSLATION): I'm asking you again when and where you met the Australian, Habib.

IBRAHIM DIAB (TRANSLATION): I met him at the bus stop in Quetta.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The two Germans were released after their government intervened on their behalf. Under lengthy interrogation, they said nothing that incriminated Habib.

INTERROGATING OFFICER (TRANSLATION): We have information that the Australian, Habib, was also in a training camp near Kabul. Did you see him there? Did he tell you about that?

BEKIM ADEMI (TRANSLATION): No. I didn't see him in the camps I was in. Nor did he tell us that he had been into a training camp.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Unlike the Germans, the Australian Government has made no effort to have its citizen brought home.

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: If people go abroad to train with terrorist organisations, to learn how to use weapons against civilian populations, uh, they do pose a significant risk to your society.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Since his capture in Pakistan, the Government has seemed quite happy to have someone else deal with Mamdouh Habib. The Government is even less keen to have Habib brought home after advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions that neither he nor the other Australian in Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, has committed any offence under Australian law at the time.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: The United States sought advice from us as to whether we could successfully prosecute Hicks and Habib and the advice they received from us is they could not be. Um, so our view has always been that if there were serious issues to be tried and the United States believed they were in a position to pursue those matters, it would be foolish for us to be seeking their return to Australia in the knowledge that they would have to be released.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: From Pakistan, Habib was sent to Egypt, where he was kept blindfolded and reportedly tortured for several months.

EXTRACT FROM LETTER FROM MAMDOUH HABIB TO MAHA HABIB: "I've been in too many different places - I never know where I am... I've been blindfolded for eight months - I never see the sun, but I see you and our kids every minute. I never forget you or forget my children."

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Habib was then sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he's been held now for more than two years, beaten and abused, according to the accounts of former detainees. The label "worst of the worst" used for the men held here has now been exposed as a fiction.

TORIN NELSON, FORMER GUANTANAMO BAY INTERROGATOR: Almost everybody that has come down to Guantanamo Bay to work there has usually gotten off the plane thinking that they're going to be working with 600-plus al-Qaeda and hard-core Taliban members. And then after not too long a period when they actually interact with them, they find that the majority of these individuals are...distantly removed from that type of idea. And you can see this evident in the fact that so few charges have been brought up against the detainees that are actually there.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Mamdouh Habib's family has heard nothing from him since March last year. His wife can only imagine the state he might be in. She's heard reports that can't be confirmed that he's dazed and confused, has refused his medication for depression, believes his family is dead.

MAHA HABIB: There's no correspondence, there's no letters. And he is... The Red Cross actually has said that he is refusing to write back. But why would he refuse to write back, you know? Doesn't... There's no explanation. I can't understand it.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: It may be many more years before Habib's family sees him again, because even after his trial by a US military commission, there is no guarantee he'll be released as long as the so-called 'war on terror' continues.

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The argument that the United States has taken is that, in this war in which they're engaged, they don't wish to release people that they believe are likely to go back and resume hostilities.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: But that would blow away one of the most fundamental principles of the rule of law, would it not, if they were to do their time and still not be released?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: As I understand it, one of the...one of the accepted principles in the conduct of war under Geneva Conventions is that prisoners of war are held until the end of hostilities.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And in this case, that could be 50 years?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, we don't know, do we?

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What we do know is that there's no happy ending in sight to the long and sorry story of Mamdouh Habib.
What was your reaction when you learned he was in Guantanamo Bay?

SHEIK ABU AYMAN: Somehow, I wasn't surprised, because a man with a big mouth like this, he will end up there. In another way I was really shocked, because the assessment of the Government should be better than anyone else. They know he's a disturbed man, they know his background. He never did a real threat or a real problem for the Government or for outsiders. But the Government didn't do anything to let the American understand "This is not the right man in your hand. He is not what he claims he is." He is a disturbed man. He doesn't deserve that punishment for his big mouth.