On Sunday night, CNN ran part of an interview with a Uighur named Khalil Abdul Nasser. Until just a few days ago, Nasser was detained at Guantanamo. Nasser's transfer to Bermuda, along with three of his fellow Uighurs, has caused a storm of controversy on the tiny resort island. So, Nasser wanted to quell any doubts about his innocence.
Regarding allegations that he attended a terrorist training camp, Nasser (speaking through a translator) said: "This is not true, because I have never been in any kind of training camp."
Nasser added, "The U.S. courts confirmed this that I have never been a terrorist or trained for a terrorist, so this is just [an] accusation against me."
Neither Nasser's denials, nor Willett's statement, are true. And while it is easy to demonstrate that their words are false, requiring only a few minutes of research to do so, CNN did not provide any alternative view.
Take Nasser's denial of the allegation that he received training at a terrorist camp. He did not always dispute this. During his combatant status review tribunal (CSRT) at Gitmo, Nasser freely admitted that he once trained at the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement's (ETIM's) Tora Bora training camp:
"Correct. I was there. I don't know if it was the AK-47. It was an old rifle, and I trained for a couple of days. I went to the camp to train because the Chinese government was torturing my country, my people, and they could not do anything. I was trying to protect my country, my country's independence and my freedom. From international law, training is not illegal in order to protect your freedom and independence. I did it for my country."
Nasser was likely trained at the ETIM camp for more than a "couple of days." He conceded that he arrived at the camp during the first couple of weeks in June 2001. Nasser was there when the American-led bombing of Tora Bora began months later, after the September 11 attacks. So, he was there for a matter of months.
The tribunal claimed: "The Detainee was at the Uighur Tora Bora training camp when it was bombed by US/Coalition forces in October."
Nasser replied:
"Correct. I went there before the things happened in the U.S. One night while we were sleeping, bombing started. There was fire everywhere. We started to escape. Should we have stayed and been killed by the bombs? We stayed there since before 9/11, and then they came and bombed us. We did not have any problems with the U.S. Economically, socially, culturally, they are not [our] enemy. We have nothing against the U.S."
Statements such as this one have been used by the Uighur detainees' proponents to suggest that they never posed a threat to America, or the West, because they are only interested in attacking the Chinese government. But this is false, despite the claims of ETIM trainees such as Nasser.
The ETIM (otherwise known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, "TIP"), is a known jihadist organization dedicated to building a radical Islamist state in Central and South Asia.
The organization openly proclaims its allegiance to al Qaeda in its propaganda videos, which can be
found on YouTube.
At least eight of the seventeen Uighurs who were detained at Gitmo at the start of the Obama administration have admitted that the Tora Bora camp was run by a terrorist named Abdul Haq. The Obama administration's Treasury Department has designated Haq an al Qaeda terrorist, citing his role in al Qaeda's Shura (consultation) council since 2005.
Nasser did not say who ran the Tora Bora training camp during his CSRT session. But it is clear, based on the testimony of at least eight other Uighurs, including Hozaifa Parhat, that Abdul Haq ran the camp.
There is no real material dispute, then, that the camp was run by an al Qaeda terrorist. And Nasser lived and was trained at this camp.
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