[Phone interview with Aiham Alsammarae]

Elizabeth Brackett interviews Aiham Alsammarae over the phone about his conviction and jail time in Iraq. Audio only.

0:02Copy video clip URL Alsammarae shares his location in Iraq, and talks about his personal security. “… since the place is running by combined bodies, American and Iraqi. Which is good, but Iraqis outnumber the Americans by 10 to 1, and this makes me feel a little scary about the situation here.”

1:00Copy video clip URL Brackett asks about his fear of being taken outside the Green Zone. Alsammarae is very worried, and would rather be in the American Embassy. He mentions rumors of plans to kidnap him and take him out of the Green Zone.

2:12Copy video clip URL Brackett asks about the possible consequences of being taken to an Iraqi prison. “Well if I move to the Iraqi prison I can tell you I will be history, really… I think, in that time, I will feel so abandoned, more than now, by America…”

3:35Copy video clip URL “If the American Embassy gives me up and says ‘okay, you can take him,’ they will take me tomorrow and they will put me outside… I am in the hands of the American Embassy.” More discussion about his relationship with the embassy, and his wishes to be brought back home.

4:50Copy video clip URL “I would like to use your program to say that I filed the appeal today and the appeal court, they had it. They had it today, in the morning.” He explains what the appeal can do for him.

5:50Copy video clip URL Alsammarae explains what he was convicted of, and that he is innocent. He repeats details of his case.

7:22Copy video clip URL He explains why he feels he was targeted. “We need to talk with the insurgents. We cannot lead them away of the politics here in Iraq. They are fighting us, so we need to sit down with them.”

8:33Copy video clip URL “… last government and this government, they feel different about that. And as a result of that I have to pay the price for that one. I have to shut up or get out from the country. This is the way of telling me ‘get out from here and don’t come back’.”

9:04Copy video clip URL Alsammarae shares why he returned to Baghdad and the injustices of the legal system. “They have nothing against me. I know I am clean.”

11:16Copy video clip URL “I did whatever I felt was right, and I did it according to the book, according to the standards and laws of Iraq.”

11:44Copy video clip URL Brackett asks if he thinks he will ever see his family again. “I never give them the chance to prevent me from that.”