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Detained American Says He Was Beaten in Kuwait

By Mark Mazzetti

• Jan. 5, 2011

WASHINGTON — An American teenager detained in Kuwait two weeks ago and placed on an American no-fly list claims that he was severely beaten by his Kuwaiti captors during a weeklong interrogation about possible contacts with terrorism suspects in Yemen.

The teenager, Gulet Mohamed, a Somali-American who turned 19 during his captivity, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday from a Kuwaiti detention cell that he was beaten with sticks, forced to stand for hours, threatened with electric shocks and warned that his mother would be imprisoned if he did not give truthful answers about his travels in Yemen and Somalia in 2009.

American officials have offered few details about the case, except to confirm that Mr. Mohamed is on a no-fly list and, for now at least, cannot return to the United States. Mr. Mohamed, from Alexandria, Va., remains in a Kuwaiti detention center even after Kuwait’s government, according to his brother, determined that he should be released.

Mr. Mohamed said that Kuwaiti interrogators repeatedly asked whether he had ever met Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric now hiding in Yemen who is suspected in terrorist plots by Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate. He said that the Kuwaitis also asked detailed questions about his family in the United States and his family’s clan in Somalia — information he said he assumed that American officials provided to the Kuwaitis.

Mr. Mohamed denies ever meeting with militants. “I am a good Muslim, I despise terrorism,” he said in the interview.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment about the episode, and State Department officials would not answer questions about whether American officials helped engineer Mr. Mohamed’s arrest. A message left at the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington was not returned.

Mr. Mohamed’s case is the latest in a string of episodes over the past year in which Americans have been detained overseas and questioned about their travels to Yemen, where a number of attempted terrorist attacks against the United States have originated. The Obama administration has expanded terrorist watch lists to prevent people who have traveled to Yemen to travel to the United States without additional screening — or detention and questioning.

During the 90-minute telephone interview, Mr. Mohamed was agitated as he recounted his captivity, tripping over his words and breaking into tears. He said he left the United States in March 2009 to “see the world and learn my religion,” and had planned to return to the United States for college.

He said he had traveled to Yemen to study Arabic, but stayed less than a month because his mother worried about his safety. He said that he spent five months later that year living with an aunt and uncle in northern Somalia, before moving to Kuwait in August 2009 to live with an uncle and continue his Arabic studies.

He said that after being taken into custody, he had been visited once by an American Embassy official in Kuwait, and that F.B.I. agents visited a week later to tell him that he could not return to the United States until he gave truthful answers about his travels.

On Tuesday, his lawyer wrote a letter to the Justice Department demanding an investigation into the episode.

“The manner of his detention and the questions asked of Mr. Mohamed indicate to him that he was taken into custody at the behest of the United States,” wrote Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer appointed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Mr. Mohamed said the episode began Dec. 20, when he went to the airport in Kuwait City to renew his Kuwaiti visa, which he had done every three months since he arrived in the country.

He became worried when a normally routine visit lasted several hours, as Kuwaiti officials made him wait in a spartan office. After five hours, he said, two men in civilian clothes entered the office with handcuffs, and soon he was blindfolded and spirited away to a detention site that he estimated was a 15-minute drive from the airport.

Over the next several days, he said, his captors grew increasingly hostile and began beating his feet with sticks and striking him in the face when they asked him about his time in Yemen.

“Are you a terrorist?” they asked, according to his account.

“No,” he replied.

“Do you know Anwar?” his interrogators asked, referring to Mr. Awlaki.

“I’ve never met him,” Mr. Mohamed recalled saying.

“You are from Virginia, you have to know him,” they responded, according to Mr. Mohamed. From 2001 to 2002, Mr. Awlaki was the imam of a prominent mosque in northern Virginia.

Mr. Mohamed said he rarely slept during a week or so at the prison and was able to mark time only by the daily cycle of Islamic prayers.

He said that his interrogators told him they would have American officials detain his mother in Virginia and that “he would never see her again” if he did not tell the truth about his connections to terrorists. During the interrogation sessions, he said, the Kuwaitis also tried to intimidate him by repeatedly barking orders to “bring the electricity.”

Mr. Mohamed said he was eventually transferred to the deportation center in Kuwait, where he is currently detained. He said that the American Embassy officer told him that his travels had raised “red flags.” The officer, he said, told him that the embassy had been unaware of his whereabouts and had been searching hospitals and local jails since his disappearance — an assertion he said he did not believe.

It is unclear how long Mr. Mohamed will remain in limbo. His older brother, Mohed, has traveled to Kuwait, and he said in an interview on Wednesday that the Kuwaitis told him they were pushing for his release, but that the American Embassy had not yet filled out paperwork that would allow Mr. Mohamed to be freed.

Mohed Mohamed said that his family, which fled Somalia in 1995, has always been pro-American and grateful to the United States for its intervention in Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s.

He said that his younger brother was the most adventurous of seven siblings, and the first to travel outside the United States since the family had arrived.

Waiting to learn his fate, Gulet Mohamed said the past two weeks had changed him.

“I cannot sleep,” he said. “I cannot eat. I’m scared to walk to the bathroom because I’m afraid they will hunt me down.”

“I’ve been beaten and tortured, physically and mentally,” he said, choking back tears. “I’m not the same.”

Watch CBS News

No-fly list being challenged by brother of newest most wanted terrorist

January 30, 2015 / 6:11 AM EST / CBS/AP

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A judge is scheduled to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the government's no fly list in a case now embroiled with allegations of terrorism against a one-time northern Virginia resident.

For four years, the government has tried unsuccessfully to get a judge to toss out a lawsuit filed by Gulet Mohamed of Alexandria. He says he was unfairly placed on the no-fly list.

At a hearing Friday, the government will again ask that the case be dismissed, arguing in part that defending the lawsuit would require it to divulge state secrets.

The case took a twist Thursday when the FBI announced that Gulet Mohamed's older brother, Liban, has been placed on the bureau's list of most wanted terrorists .

Gulet Mohamed's lawyer says the timing of that announcement is meant to influence the judge.

The FBI said Thursday that Liban, a former taxi driver, was a recruiter for the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia.

An arrest warrant, originally issued in February, was unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria for Liban Haji Mohamed, 29, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Somalia.

The attorney representing the younger Mohamed, Gadeir Abbas, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Liban aggressively advocated on his younger brother's behalf when Gulet Mohamed was detained in Kuwait several years ago and barred from returning to the U.S., and that the FBI began to harass Liban as a result. He said his family suspects he went into hiding to avoid the harassment.

"Al-Shabab has killed Liban's uncle and imprisoned his cousins," Abbas said. "His family believes the allegations have no basis in fact."

FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Ram said in an email late Thursday that the FBI had no comment on Abbas' allegations.

Liban Mohamed is charged with providing material support to al Qaeda and al-Shabab . Additional court records detailing the charges against him in federal court remained under seal Thursday.

He is now one of 31 people on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists.

The FBI says it believes Liban Mohamed left the U.S. in July 2012 for east Africa. He lived in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County prior to that, working as a taxi driver. The FBI says he is a key target because his knowledge of the nation's capital could help al-Shabab plot an attack here.

"It is important for us to locate Mohamed because he has knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area's infrastructure such as shopping areas, Metro, airports, and government buildings," said Carl Ghattas, special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division at the FBI's Washington Field Office. "This makes him an asset to his terrorist associates who might plot attacks on U.S. soil."

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Liban Mohamed's arrest and conviction.

The agency also said Liban Mohamed is a "close associate" of Zachary Chesser , an American who made online death threats to the creators of "South Park" for mocking the Prophet Muhammad. In 2010, Chesser was arrested and charged with offering himself as a fighter to al Shabaab.

Abbas said the timing of the FBI's announcement about Liban was an attempt to influence a judge to toss out the lawsuit that Gulet Mohamed filed against the government.

"We would question the timing of the FBI's placement of Liban on the most-wanted list on the day before a major hearing on the government's authority to maintain the no-fly list," Abbas said in a telephone interview.

Gulet Mohamed, an Alexandria resident and also naturalized U.S. citizen, was 19 when he was detained by Kuwaiti authorities in 2011. He has said that he was beaten and interrogated at the behest of the U.S. and denied the right to fly home. U.S. authorities allowed Gulet Mohamed to fly home after he filed a federal lawsuit, but Mohamed says he remains on the list without justification.

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APNewsBreak: Suspected terrorist brother of no-fly-list man

• Copy Link copied

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The FBI on Thursday added a former taxi driver from northern Virginia to its list of most-wanted terrorists, saying he was a recruiter for the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia.

An arrest warrant, originally issued in February, was unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria for Liban Haji Mohamed, 29, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Somalia.

He is the older brother of Gulet Mohamed, who for the past four years has been challenging his placement on the government’s no-fly list, the attorney representing the younger Mohamed, Gadeir Abbas, told The Associated Press on Thursday. A hearing on Gulet Mohamed’s case is scheduled in federal court in Alexandria on Friday.

Abbas said Liban Mohamed aggressively advocated on his younger brother’s behalf when Gulet Mohamed was detained in Kuwait several years ago and barred from returning to the U.S., and that the FBI began to harass him as a result. He said his family suspects he went into hiding to avoid the harassment.

“Al-Shabab has killed Liban’s uncle and imprisoned his cousins,” Abbas said. “His family believes the allegations have no basis in fact.”

FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Ram said in an email late Thursday that the FBI had no comment on Abbas’ allegations.

Liban Mohamed is charged with providing material support to al-Qaida and al-Shabab. Additional court records detailing the charges against him in federal court remained under seal Thursday.

He is now one of 31 people on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.

The FBI believes Liban Mohamed left the U.S. in July 2012 for east Africa. He lived in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County prior to that, working as a taxi driver. The FBI says he is a key target because his knowledge of the nation’s capital could help al-Shabab plot an attack here.

“It is important for us to locate Mohamed because he has knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area’s infrastructure such as shopping areas, Metro, airports, and government buildings,” said Carl Ghattas, special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division at the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “This makes him an asset to his terrorist associates who might plot attacks on U.S. soil.”

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Liban Mohamed’s arrest and conviction.

Abbas said the timing of the FBI’s announcement is an attempt to influence a judge to toss out a lawsuit that Gulet Mohamed filed against the government challenging his placement on the no-fly list. The government is seeking to have the case tossed out, in part because it says it would be forced to divulge state secrets if forced to defend the lawsuit.

“We would question the timing of the FBI’s placement of Liban on the most-wanted list on the day before a major hearing on the government’s authority to maintain the no-fly list,” Abbas said in a telephone interview.

Gulet Mohamed, an Alexandria resident and also naturalized U.S. citizen, was 19 when he was detained by Kuwaiti authorities in 2011. He has said that he was beaten and interrogated at the behest of the U.S. and denied the right to fly home. U.S. authorities allowed Mohamed to fly home after he filed a federal lawsuit, but Mohamed says he remains on the list without justification.

Abbas said Liban Mohamed aggressively advocated on his brother’s behalf to get him home, and in return the FBI subjected him to harassment.

“He was constantly being approached by people of dubious backgrounds that bore the hallmark of FBI informants,” Abbas said. “The family believes Liban may have sought to escape that scrutiny.”

Abbas said that in 2012, the Mohamed family lost contact with Liban Mohamed and asked the lawyer to see if the FBI knew of his whereabouts.

The U.S. has long refused to even confirm whether Gulet Mohamed is on the no-fly list. Gulet Mohamed said he went to Somalia and Yemen briefly in 2009 to stay with family and learn Arabic, and investigators questioned him about his travels.

The FBI, in announcing Liban Mohamed’s placement on the most-wanted list, described him as a “close associate” of Zachary Chesser, a northern Virginia man who in 2011 was sentenced to 25 years in prison for trying to join al-Shabab and for making online threats against the creators of the “South Park” cartoon for an episode perceived as an insult to the prophet Muhammad.

• Criminal Justice

Gulet Mohamed Headed Home?

Nick Baumann

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Front page photo of Gulet Mohamed by Mohed Mohamed. Story art by Sarah Baumann.

That was quick.

On Tuesday morning, the lawyer for Gulet Mohamed, an American teen who has been detained in Kuwait for a month, filed suit against the US government , claiming that by placing Mohamed on the no-fly list based only on suspicion, the government is denying him the most basic right of citizenship—the right to live in America. Just over an hour after the papers were filed, a federal district judge in Alexandria, Virginia ordered an emergency hearing. By mid-afternoon, Justice Department lawyers were in court, telling the judge that Mohamed would be on his way back to the States in short order. 

The judge has asked for an update on the case on Thursday and appears ready to order the government to bring Mohamed back to the US if he is not home by then, the 19-year-old’s lawyer, Gadeir Abbas, tells Mother Jones . Abbas thinks the government will do what it told the judge it’s working on and bring Mohamed back.

The extremely unusual fast-tracking of the Mohamed case is a sign of how clear-cut the legal and Constitutional issues involved really are. The judge told lawyers for both sides that the government appears to have committed an obvious breach of Mohamed’s rights. “There’s no such thing as a justification that’s sufficient to exclude a US citizen from the US,” Abbas says. “That’s essentially what the judge said.”

Despite Mohamed’s apparent victory, there is some bad news for civil libertarians in the government’s move. Abbas believes the government’s cave-in is a deliberate tactic to maintain its ability to continue to treat others Muslim Americans the same way it has treated Mohamed. Like a number of other Muslim Americans , Mohamed claims he was subjected to what civil liberties groups refer to as “ proxy detention .”

Mohamed says he was arrested by a US-friendly Arab nation (in this case Kuwait), beaten and abused by unknown tormentors, and then aggressively interrogated by FBI agents . He asserts that he was repeatedly asked about his travels to countries including Yemen and Somalia, two hotbeds of anti-American activity. He also says he was told he could not return home unless he cooperated with their questioning. All of these claims track with the stories other Muslim Americans have told about their “proxy detention” experiences. “The reason I fully expect the government to have Gulet on a plane back by Thursday is that they want to continue this objecitonable, immoral, and patently unconstitutional practice [of ‘proxy detention’],” Abbas says.

There’s a chance, of course, that the government is bluffing. Mohamed has seemed close to coming home before. On Sunday night, Kuwaiti deportation officials took Mohamed to the airport and tried to put him on a United Airlines flight , but he was not allowed to board. Will this be another similar disappointment for Mohamed’s family? We’ll know on Thursday. 

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