When I recently met up in Beirut with James Connell, the defence attorney for 9/11 suspect Ammar al-Baluchi, he recalled his August 2013 visit to Guantanamo Bay's clandestine Camp Seven as follows: "In the most secret picnic of all time, Ammar was our host."
Connell is the only lawyer to have ever been permitted to meet with a client in the facility, which houses five 9/11 suspects in addition to 10 other "high-value" detainees. The "picnic" came about when the detainees learned that Connell and two colleagues were going to be without food for the duration of their 12-hour incursion.
The prisoners promptly donated their own meals, and Baluchi advised Connell on which components were more edible than others and which could be improved with lemon.
It's nothing short of remarkable, of course, that someone subjected to intensely dehumanising treatment over a long period of time hasn't had every ounce of humanity leached out of him. Abducted by the United States in 2003 in Pakistan, Baluchi was held at one or more "black sites" abroad, where he underwent torture by the CIA prior to being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.