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The man who sold me into the hands of the US military has been sentenced to death.
12-18-2019
The man who sold me and hundreds of other prisoners into the hands of the US military to be tortured and detained without trial for years on end has been sentenced to death.
I can't say I welcome the news of any death sentence but, it was under his leadership that Pakistan was used as a base by the CIA to kidnap people from their homes in the middle of the night, in front of their families. I will never forget the night Pakistani ISI and US CIA agents stormed into my house in the middle of the night and shut out my life for the next three years. Musharraf boasted in his book - published by the same people who published my book - that he received "millions of dollars in bounty money" for all those he handed over.
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It was under Musharraf that Pakistani airspace was used to allow bombing missions into Afghanistan that killed thousands. It was under this man that war flared up in the KPK (NWFP) region and armed UAV (drones) began targeted assassinations and brutal internal conflict. It was under this military leader that Aafia Siddiqui and her children were disappeared for 5 years inexplicably which led to her imprisonment by the US and her subsequent abandonment by Pakistan. It was under this man that hundreds disappeared from their families, never to return, like the husband of Amina Masood Janjua who has fought ever since to find out what happened to him.
It is a sad indictment in itself that Musharraf has not been charged with any of the crimes listed above - most of which occurred before the period he has been convicted for. But that's fine. Most of the people he handed over to the US without any legal process are now free. He on the other-hand is a convicted traitor.
In truth, this man has hidden in London in the past and is currently in the Emirates where I'm sure he'll remain, fighting his case in absentia all the way to the Supreme Court. Even then I doubt he's ever returning to Pakistan.
All I have to say, Mr Musharraf, is that I still remember the prayers brothers used to make against you in the middle of the night, when nothing stirred except the sounds of crickets and the soft Caribbean breeze rubbing the barbed wired against the razor wire.
The noble Prophet said:
"Fear the prayer of the oppressed for between it and Allah there is no barrier."
Those prayers are being made - and answered - even now.
Moazzam Begg is Cage's outreach director, from Birmingham Briton who was held for three years by the United States government in extrajudicial detention as a suspected enemy combatant at Bagram in Afghanistan, and the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. He was released without charge in 2005.
Footnotes: Footnotes: https://www.facebook.com/CageUK/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARCBkbpY_naSBssx9-Rg5Hf4JHNYgLAvmlP3SBLlpurVPqi1LMmAlifkJSUNf0gKOPjU0elOIxI1VADd
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