4 Years in Prison

Babar Ahmad

Babar Ahmad is a 34 year old British Muslim and the longest detained-without-charge British detainee held as part of the global ‘war on terror’. In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his London home under anti-terror legislation. By the time he reached the police station Babar had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine. Six days later he was released without charge.

Babar then filed a formal complaint that he had been subjected to horrific physical, sexual and religious abuse by the arresting police officers. An IPCC supervised investigation later dismissed his complaint and even “commended” one of these officers for his “great bravery” in arresting him. Babar is currently suing the Metropolitan Police for assault.

In August 2004 Babar was re-arrested in London and taken to prison pursuant to an extradition request from the US under the controversial, no-evidence-required, Extradition Act 2003. The US has alleged that in the 1990s Babar was a supporter of “terrorism”. Babar denies any involvement in terrorism. He has now been in prison for four years even though he has not been charged in the UK.

Babar’s family, friends and campaigners have mounted a high profile campaign for his release. He recently appeared in the news when it was revealed that the police had bugged his prison visits with his MP, Sadiq Khan (Labour-Tooting). His final appeal against extradition is at The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is due to decide on it shortly. If extradited he faces the rest of his natural life in solitary confinement in a maximum security US ‘Supermax’ prison. Further details on his case are at www.freebabarahmad.com. He reflects on his four years in captivity.

I have now spent nearly an eighth of my life in prison. Life in prison is a journey into the unknown. Unlike other journeys it is one of those things that you can never plan ahead for. You don’t plan to have a car accident. You don’t plan to get cancer. You don’t plan to die. And you don’t plan to go to prison. Prison is just one of the many tests that you must pass in order to succeed in life.

The Prophet (saw) said, “There is some magic in words.” Tyrants use the magic in words to control people’s thoughts and deeds by making evil appear acceptable to them. So kidnap is known as “arrest”, brutality becomes “reasonable force” and torture is nothing more than “enhanced interrogation.” When an innocent man is kidnapped from his home by bearded Arab gunmen and locked indefinitely in a room he is a “hostage.” But when an innocent man is kidnapped from his home by uniformed white gunmen and locked indefinitely in a room he is a “terrorist.” The world causes uproar over the former but is silent over the latter. “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” observed Martin Luther King.

Fear is a disease that consumes the soul of the one who embraces it. Man’s total capacity to fear is fixed: the more he fears one thing the less he fears another. People fear standing up to a tyrant because they are afraid of some harm that he ‘may’ cause them, even though that harm is limited to the life of this world. Such people have little or no fear for any harm that Allah will cause them in the Hereafter. However, if these same people were to fear the Day when they shall return to stand before the Lord of the Worlds, they would not fear any tyrant on the face of the Earth. “Do they fear them? Allah is more worthy for you to fear if you are indeed believers.” (Quran 9:13)

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