by Andy WorthingtonFrom the publisher:
-- The first book to tell the story of every man trapped in Guantanamo --
In 2006, four years after the illegal prison in Guantánamo Bay first opened, the Pentagon finally released the names of the 773 men held there, as well as 7,000 pages of transcripts from tribunals assessing their status as 'enemy combatants'. Andy Worthington is the only person to have analysed every page of these transcripts. Drawing on these documents, as well as news reports and interviews with lawyers and released detainees, this book reveals, for the first time, the stories of all those imprisoned in Guantánamo.
This book does not make for easy reading. Deprived of the safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, and, for the most part, sold to the Americans by their allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the detainees have struggled for five years to have their stories heard. Looking in detail at the circumstances of their capture, and at the coercive interrogations and unsubstantiated allegations that have been used to justify their detention, 'The Guantánamo Files' reveals that the majority of those captured were either Taliban foot soldiers or humanitarian aid workers, religious teachers and economic migrants, who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The book also uncovers stories of torture in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, and contains new information about the process of 'extraordinary rendition' that underpins the US administration's 'war on terror'.
Who will speak for the 773 men who have been held in Guantánamo? This passionate and brilliantly detailed book brings their stories to the world for the first time.
Andy Worthington is a freelance historian. He is the author of two books on modern British social history, and his work has also appeared in the Guardian and the Idler.
