19Feb03-Guardian-Where is Monir?
In October 2001, Monir Ali, a waiter from Tipton, vanished on a trip to Pakistan. Three months later, his family was told he was being held at Guantanamo Bay. But the US now says he has never been there. What could have happened to him? Tania Branigan investigates
Thursday February 19, 2004
The Guardian
It was a warm January afternoon and the late sun was sweet on Montaz Ali's face as he walked through the suburbs of Syedpur, Bangladesh, with his bride. He was 26 and had been a husband for four days. The couple chatted happily about the life unspooling before them, and the welcome they would receive on their return to Tipton. As they neared the family home, Montaz's nephew came running out across the empty rice fields and thrust a mobile phone into his hand.
The text message on the screen was just eight words long: "Asif, Rhuhel, Monir held Afghanistan. Shipped Guantanamo Bay."
Like most people in January 2002, Montaz had never heard of the US naval base in Cuba, location of the now notorious detention camp for alleged pro-Taliban fighters arrested after the war in Afghanistan. In any case, his younger brother, Monir, was in Pakistan with his close friends Asif and Rhuhel. The message made no sense at all.
Sure enough, when Montaz rang Tipton in panic, he found that the text message was wrong. Unlike his friends, Monir was not at Guantanamo. But neither was he in Pakistan, or in Tipton. He had vanished.
Two years on, Montaz is no closer to finding his 23-year-old brother. "You are trying to get on with life, but all the time you are thinking, is he alive or is he not? What are we doing? Are we doing enough?" he says.
Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul may hold the answers to their friend's disappearance, but they are thousands of miles away, locked up in Guantanamo Bay and unable to tell their story. Each of their families had been told by the Foreign Office to say their son was in prison with two other men from their town. "At first I was hoping Monir was with them because if not, it could only indicate bad news, that perhaps he had been killed," says Montaz. "After finding out what was happening in Guantanamo Bay, I thought it was better not to be held in those conditions. Now I think that at least we would know he was alive."
The boys grew up on the small estate where many of Tipton's tiny Asian community live and played football together on Sundays. Shafiq was older than the other three and not particularly close to them, hence the initial assumption that Monir was the third Briton held. Their families had arrived in the West Midlands town in the 70s to find work in the factories which at the time were widespread. But by the time Monir left school at 16, much of the manufacturing and engineering industry had gone and he took a series of temporary jobs, briefly working in restaurants in Northern Ireland and London.
"When he had a chance to travel and see the world he would take it - who wouldn't? There's nothing to keep you here," says Montaz, gesturing out of the window at the drab streets of Tipton. The town is one of the poorest in Britain, with few facilities for its 23,000 residents. Unemployment is high, housing and health poor. At 11 o'clock on a Saturday morning, almost every shop in the centre is shuttered.
But Monir seemed happy to return home, says Montaz, and at 21, was already thinking about settling down. "He was more morally responsible, more mature at his age than I was. He would think more about right and wrong."
None the less, it was Montaz, as the elder brother, who first began to study Islam. "It's that question you ask as you start getting older - surely there has to be more to life than getting up every day, doing this and that, going to work and sleeping? I started going into comparative religion, reading bibles and things. I would tell [the younger boys], 'You should do something with your life; you should go to prayer.' You hear about the fights and gangs and drugs. I wanted them to stay away from a bad attitude."
Monir, Asif and Rhuhel began to study with Montaz, discussing everything they read and heard. They were analytical and questioning, eager to understand why different clerics gave them different answers. One speaker particularly impressed them: Hamza Yusuf, who was "very eloquent and to us very impressive, because he was a convert". Yusuf, a white American, has advised President Bush on Islamic issues and told extremists in the west to move to Muslim countries. In short, there is little to suggest that the young men who flew to Pakistan in early October 2001 had fallen prey to fanatics.
Asif travelled with his father to meet a prospective bride. He wanted time to consider the match and said he would give his final decision after visiting a friend. Shortly afterwards, Rhuhel and Monir flew out, telling their families they were going to Asif's wedding. At some point, they must also have met up with Shafiq, who was taking a computer course there, because the next thing we know is that by early January 2002, three months later, they were being held at Guantanamo Bay - minus Monir.
The US insists that all the men held at Camp Delta are hardened terrorists. This seems unlikely: the Tipton men had barely arrived in the region when they were detained. The authorities have also admitted that three young boys who were detained had been kidnapped and forced into combat. In other words, even those found with Taliban troops may not have joined voluntarily.
"They were young men, and perhaps curiosity got the better of them," says Montaz, who concedes that the three may have crossed into Afghanistan to see what was happening there. "Perhaps they were in the wrong place; they had just not realised what trouble they could get themselves into. Maybe they just went a little too far across the border and before they knew it, were in over their heads."
A Red Cross worker is thought to have met the other three in Shibergan prison in northern Afghanistan in late December 2001. But Montaz points out: "We hear about people being picked up by the Pakistani intelligence services and handed over to the warlords. It's possible they weren't in Afghanistan [to begin with] at all."
Monir's family hoped he might resurface in Pakistan or, at worst, in Cuba. But in June 2002 a stranger rang from Karachi and announced that their son was now in Shabergan. The man, calling himself Farooq Ahmed Siddiqui, told them that he was Bangladeshi and had learned that five men of Bangladeshi origin were held at the jail. Through his contacts, he said could help to bribe their way out. He faxed them "proof": a photocopy of Monir's passport.
It was the family's first news for months. But they were immediately suspicious. The letter bore the emblem of the International Committee of the Red Cross but had been faxed from an internet cafe. Several relatives wanted to ask the Foreign Office for help. Montaz was insistent that they should not. By now, the other Tipton men had been in Camp Delta for almost six months.
"I said they would just ship him off to Guantanamo Bay," he explains. "So we tried to keep communications open with this guy. It was our only chance to find out what had happened."
The family offered to send a friend to meet Mr Siddiqui, instead of sending cash. That was the last they heard from him. His mobile had been disconnected when they tried to call and the computer shop, like the ICRC, could not recall anyone of that name. Their sole clue to Monir's fate had vanished as completely as their son.
British officials have subsequently made inquiries at Shibergan prison; the family say they were told that there was no record of Monir, but that frightened prisoners sometimes give other names. The Foreign Office says it has also asked the Guantanamo Bay detainees about Monir and are keeping the family informed. Yet it still refuses to tell them when or where the boys last saw Monir.
The family's only hope now rests with the return of Shafiq, Asif and Rhuhel. But despite mounting speculation, the US has yet to make a concrete commitment to repatriate the Britons. "All we have is uncertainty and that will go with us until we can meet the detainees," says Montaz. "They can tell us, 'This is what happened.' Or at least, 'He has been killed.'
"Or," he falters, "they can tell us that they just don't know."
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