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Omar Deghayes

Omar’s story starts back in Libya. His father, Amer, was a leading Libyan trade unionist and lawyer. He was asked by the Gaddafi government to spy on people he knew who had been politically active in the past. He refused to cooperate, knowing that he could be killed for it. He was given a period of time to think about it. He still refused, and was picked up by the Libyan secret police. After three days, his family was told he had committed suicide in prison. Amnesty International investigated his death and produced a report with evidence showing he had been tortured and murdered.

After his death, Amer’s wife Zohra and her sons Abubakr, Omar, Tahir, and daughter Amani were terrified. People who had been friends of the family were frightened to associate with them. As soon as they could they fled the country and settled in Sussex, near Brighton. They were granted refugee status in 1987 and settled into life in Britain.

Omar studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and his ambition was to become a human rights lawyer. He sat his exams, but because he didn’t pass them all first time he decided to take a bit of time off to go travelling before returning to study. On his travels, Omar visited Malaysia, India, Pakistan and finally Afghanistan. Whilst there he fell in love, got married and they had a baby. Towards the end of 2001, when Suleiman was just a few months old, the US-led bombing of Afghanistan began, and Omar and his wife fled to Lahore in Pakistan to safety. They planned to return to the UK as soon as possible.

He was arrested in Pakistan having been tipped off by local bounty hunters and taken to the detention centre at Bagram in Afghanistan. Omar has said that the abuse and torture he suffered there was the worst of all the places he has been held. He likened it to footage he had seen of Nazi concentration camps. He was locked in a box with very little air for prolonged periods, and guards had forced petrol and benzene up the anuses of prisoners, causing horrible burns.

In September 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

Early on, the British Government washed it’s hands of Omar and the other British residents still held in Guantanamo. The government has argued that since they are not British citizens, there is nothing they can do.

Though he has been interrogated many times by the CIA, FBI and MI5, the most worrying development was when the CIA flew in the Libyan secret police from Tripoli to pile on the pressure. In 2004 Libyan intelligence officials interrogated and threatened Omar. Amani learned that “these Libyan officials told him that, ‘Your problem is not with the Americans; your problem is with us, and if you return to us we’ll torture you and kill you.’

Omar is still in Guantanamo. Please watch the film Taking Liberties and the accompanying book for information about him and people like him.

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