Guantanamo Bay prison guard converts to Islam

because
of the living faith of Muslim detainees.
As a guard in Guantanamo Bay, Terry Holdbrooks
was charged with..
...keeping a careful watch on detainees in the
infamous detention center. But after a series of
extraordinary interactions between the former US
Army specialist and Muslim detainees at the
center, the Phoenix, Arizona-born prison guard
decided to convert to Islam, May 2013.
During his service at Guantanamo, Holdbrooks
says the detainees were often subjected to
sadistic, degrading treatment by interrogators.
In an interview with FRANCE 24’s Guillaume Meyer,
the former prison guard rattled off a list of
sometimes brutal, often humiliating situations the
detainees were subjected to. “Detainees were
punched, kicked, knee-butted, things like that
would occur,” he said. “Detainees would be doused
in cold water…be subjected to very loud music…
investigators would come in and sometimes rough
up a detainee…”
Through it all, Holdbrooks said, a number of
detainees continued to practice their faith. And
that left an indelible mark on the US prison guard.
“Seeing people who were practicing Muslims,
practicing Islam in a horrible place like that…it was
an interesting experience for me to see somebody
take their faith so seriously, so devoutly,” he told
FRANCE 24.
‘Wrong place at the wrong time’
While prison guards often develop a hostile
relationship with detainees, there have been recent
cases of former Guantanamo guards developing
sympathetic relations with the detainees.
According to Holdbrooks, it was easy to
differentiate between those who had “ill will toward
the US” and those who were simply “at the wrong
place at the wrong time”.
“I can think back to an old man and a child,”
recalled Holdbrooks. “I don’t think they knew of a
world outside Afghanistan. I don’t think they knew
there were oceans or that the world was round or
that there was the Internet, computers or cell
phones or any of these things. They just knew their
village. How can somebody like that be a co-
conspirator of the 9/11 attacks?” he asked.
Holdbrooks himself has had a troubled history of
substance addiction, according to media reports.
Following his conversion to Islam at Guantanamo,
Holdbrooks was honourably discharged from
service. No reasons were supplied for his release
from the military two years before the end of his
commitment.
When he returned home to Phoenix, Holdbrooks
took to heavy drinking and a cocaine addiction, he
told the French daily Le Figaro, before his serious
addiction problem landed him in hospital. This
time, it was a local imam at a Phoenix mosque
that led him back to Islam.
But defense attorneys have criticized the US
administration for dragging their feet over the
cases of some 240 current detainees who were
allowed to take their cases to federal courts
following a US Supreme Court ruling.