Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

objections to being transferred, and each said, “Yes.” The men found the experience to
be confusing and harrowing:
No one said anything about why we are witnesses. The next day they
took us from the Henderson [Detention Center] to the federal building.
We saw the judge around 5 or 6 [p.m.]. We were waiting all the day in a
cell—in jail. No one was telling us anything. We asked: “What is going
on? We are material witness for what?” No one knew what was going
on. It felt like we would not see our family ever again, we don’t know
why we are here. We were thinking, who will send our families money?
What’s going on? What happened?
Before we went into court, we saw the lawyer for myself and Tarek
Albasti. Tarek asked what’s going on. The lawyer said, “I can’t tell you.”
I said, “What do you mean you can’t tell us?” The lawyer says it’s
something so so so big, and I can’t tell you. It made me crazy. Here is
my lawyer, how can he not tell me what is going on? 163
Another Evansville witness recounted:
This lawyer came to me, and he told me that we had to appear before a
federal court and that we need to waive our rights; that’s why they are
holding court. … And he told us that if we didn’t waive our rights, it’s
going to take a long time, and they are still going to detain us for who
knows how long. But if we waive our rights, the thing will be quick and
we’ll go on.
I asked, “What are we accused of, what’s going on? What is this material
witness thing?” He said: “I have a gag order; I can’t tell you anything.”
That’s my lawyer telling me that. So of course I said: “[If] you can’t tell
me, do whatever you want to do, why are you asking me anything.”
… It was just crazy. You feel useless and hopeless and just there is
nothing you can do. There was nothing I can do. I didn’t understand
what was going on. We had no idea. 164
163
Interview with Tarek Omar.
164
Interview with Tarek Albasti.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 52