Habib makes first call to family

By Martin Chulov

ACCUSED Sydney terrorist Mamdouh Habib said yesterday his life at Guantanamo Bay had become like the Hollywood prison film Lock Up.

In his first conversation with his wife, Maha, and four children since his arrest in September 2001, Habib begged her not to send him any family photographs and broke down when his daughter asked when he would return home.

During a 30-minute phone call yesterday to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade office in Sydney, Habib said: "I am very tired and I can’t take it any more."

He described Guantanamo Bay as like "Noah’s Ark", a metaphor his wife understood to mean an isolated selection of disparate groups of men.

"Do you remember that movie Lock Up," he told his wife. "It is like that here - sleep deprivation and torture."

Mrs Habib said last night that an American military officer had twice threatened to cut short the phone call, after the reference to the 1989 movie starring Sylvester Stallone and again after the couple spoke briefly in Arabic.

She said it had taken her five minutes to convince Habib that it was her on the line. His confidence was won only after she offered details of where they went on their wedding night.

British detainees released earlier this year from Camp Delta claimed Habib was at that stage convinced his family had been killed. They also alleged he had been tortured, had a severe tropical rash and was chronically depressed.

"He was very slow in answering questions," Mrs Habib said. "It sounded as though he was drugged. He doesn’t trust anybody and he told me not to trust anybody either.

"I had to assure him that we were still in Australia and weren’t going to move from our home until he came back."

Habib’s Sydney lawyer Stephen Hopper alleged that his client’s wish not to be sent family photos was to prevent interrogators using them during psychological torture sessions.

"The same complaints were made by the released British detainees," Mr Hopper said.

A proviso for the strictly monitored conversation was that Habib not speak about his conditions or other prisoners. He was also forbidden from going into any detail about Camp Delta, or the circumstances of his arrest.

Habib spoke to all four of his children but broke down when his four-year-old daughter Hajar asked: "Are you coming home, Bubba?"

"Soon darling," he replied.

Habib’s lawyers expect to learn within days when their client will appear before a military tribunal to challenge the validity of his detention.

The other Australian at Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, will face a military commission for the first time on August 23.

The Australian

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