Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

Another said:
One of the guys with the FBI, he said so you go and play soccer in the
morning and stuff like this. I said yes we go play. But you go play early,
at six in the morning. I said well that’s the only time that all of us can be
together. Because we work first shift second shift and third shift. So
that’s the only time we have. Because he asked me why we go in the
morning and work out. I said first we go work out and then we play
soccer. I felt like I had to be very clear about every word I say. So
whenever he said work out, I said you mean soccer, and he said yeah. 284
In questioning the witnesses, federal agents asked each of the Evansville material
witnesses about why they used the word “uncle” to refer to Adel Khalil, the uncle of
material witness Tarek Albasti. Khalil, who also arrested as a material witness, was
almost twenty years older than the other men. During interrogations, the men explained
that the word “uncle” in Egypt was commonly used to refer to older people out of
respect. As Khalil told HRW/ACLU:
Then they ask me why do people call you uncle? I laugh, I say because I
have white hair. They say is your name Uncle? I say, no, Adel. It’s like
this for forty-five minutes. They don’t understand. Why Uncle? They
thought I was the mafia or something. 285
The FBI had questioned Tarek Albasti a month before they arrested him as a material
witness. Albasti is a U.S. citizen, married to a U.S. citizen, with a young U.S. citizen child.
He came under government suspicion, however, because he had come to the United
States from Egypt, was a Muslim, and had taken flying lessons. A few days after
September 11, FBI agents had visited him at his house to question him about his flying
lessons. During that interview, he explained that his father-in-law, a former U.S. State
Department official, had given him the flying lessons as a gift, and he took lessons only
for small planes, not commercial airliners. The agents were nonetheless suspicious and
interwove their questions about his flying capability with questions about his knowledge
of bin Laden:
[T]hey came in, and asked, “When did you start flying, why did you start
flying?” Then they asked me what I thought of Osama bin Laden. And I
284
Interview with Tarek Albasti.
285
Interview with Adel Khalil.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 88