Jawed Ahmad describes his 10 months in U.S. custody in Afghanistan as "hell." The circumstances of the fixer and TV cameraman's detention and release remain murky.
In the U.S. military cells where he saw daylight only once a week, where he says they broke his ribs with beatings, his captors gave him a nickname: "the Canadian reporter."
His formal designation was a detainee number: 3370. Last night, after almost a year in custody, the 22-year-old settled into a king-sized bed at the best hotel in Kabul with a big smile and started to regain his true names: Javed Yazamy, the name on his business card, or Jawed Ahmad, as he's known to friends. Most importantly, he wants to rebuild his career and the working name that made him famous among Canadian journalists: Jojo, a name synonymous with some of the best coverage of breaking stories during his time as cameraman for CTV News in Kandahar.
It's not clear why U.S. authorities let Mr. Ahmad walk free yesterday.
No explanations are usually given to detainees who are released. Mr. Ahmad was publicly named an "enemy combatant" by the U.S. military in February, but unlike most such prisoners, his case was watched closely by lawyers, journalists and diplomats.
Ahmad first started working as a translator for U.S. Special Forces in 2001.
Mr. Ahmad spent the years after 2001 roaming the country with elite troops, who gave him the nickname Jojo and a rich network of connections in the new regime. He eventually left the military for better pay as a freelance security consultant, and started working full-time as a media translator in 2006, mostly for CTV. He became known for his dogged reporting, once suffering broken bones in a vehicle accident but returning to work the next day to record footage of a bombing scene in Kandahar city.
But his journalistic endeavours may have contributed to his eventual imprisonment, Mr. Ahmad said, because much later his U.S. interrogators seemed interested in his forays into Taliban territory.
"Those people were not my friends," he said, referring to the insurgents. "But they knew I was a good, honest reporter, and every media outlet was starving for Taliban video."
Ahmad's claims about his treatment by U.S. forces during his period of captivity are quite sickening.