Harrowing tales from a Yemen prison

Kitty Caparella

Apr. 27, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- First of two parts.

SAYFULLAAH Al-Amriykiy was reeling after he read a Daily News story last August about Nasir Daymar Gould, a 30-year-old West Philadelphia native, and five other U.S. citizens locked up for two months in a Yemeni prison.

"I knew exactly what he was going through," said Al-Amriykiy, 53, a world-renowned jujitsu grand master.

Al-Amriykiy himself had been imprisoned in Yemen. The story about Gould prompted unspeakable flashbacks.

That's when Al-Amriykiy and two of his martial-arts students -- Anwar Whittaker, 25, of West Philadelphia, and Abdul Kareem Wright, 31, of Frankford -- felt compelled to warn fellow Muslims of the perils of studying Islam in Yemen.

This two-part story of their harsh experience is based on interviews with all three of the men.

The trio had -- like Gould -- traveled to Yemen to study Arabic and the Quran. They made their trip in 2001, shortly after 9/11.

They were unexpectedly thrown into Yemen's Central Prison without charges. They were made to eat putrid food. They feared they would be killed, and that each day would be their last. Finally, their families raised money to free them.

While Yemen officially condemns terrorism, it remains a terrorist hotspot in the Middle East -- and one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, with a per capita income of $400 a year.

Last year, Gould was one of 21 Americans locked inside Yemeni prisons, part of the 3,500 U.S. citizens jailed in foreign countries each year.

Christoph Wilcke, a Middle East expert at Human Rights Watch, said that it is not unusual for students of religious studies to be at risk for arrest.

The State Department warns U.S. citizens "to defer nonessential travel" in Yemen.

Al-Amriykiy's journey to Yemen began in early 2001 with a simple desire to learn more about Islam.

He had been an imam -- a Muslim cleric -- for five years at Al-Dirr-Wat-Taqwa Masjid, a mosque at 52nd Street near Market, just below his third-floor martial-arts studio.

Like many American Muslims, he wanted to know more. He wanted to speak Arabic fluently and to study under one of the most revered Islamic scholars in the Middle East.

His friend, Jauhar Ahmad, a Bangladeshi imam who ran a mosque in Jamaica, Queens, recommended studying under Shaykh Muhammad Al-Imaan, an Islamic scholar at a rural religious camp in Yemen.

Ahmad offered his home in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, as a place for Al-Amriykiy to stay.

Al-Amriykiy didn't expect problems. He followed the news, but understood that Yemen and the U.S. were cooperating in a joint investigation of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors.

Al-Amrikiy's excitement about his trip was so contagious that Whittaker and Wright, two of his martial-arts students at Warrior Within Dojo Studio, wanted to go, too. For months, they saved money and planned the trip.

By early September, the trio had obtained 30-day visas to Yemen.

Whittaker, an 18-year-old graduate of West Philly High, had quit his $600-a-week job selling cars in the suburbs. And 24-year-old Wright, a 1995 grad of Kensington High, had left his job cleaning movie theaters.

Then, fate intervened -- 9/11. Three days before their flight, terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Shanksville, Pa., killing nearly 3,000 people.

The trio were distraught over the incident. Their dream was on hold. But they were so excited about their trip, they ignored official and friends' warnings to delay it further.

On Sept. 22, 2001, they landed at Sana'a International Airport. In customs, Yemeni authorities tried to send them back. However, Ahmad, who was already in Yemen, paid a $750 bribe to admit them into the country, said Al-Amriykiy.

The culture and living conditions were a shock to the three Philadelphians.

Whittaker felt so uncomfortable that he wanted to return home immediately, but no flights were available.

His braided-corn row hairstyle stunned locals, who called him a girl, he said. Whittaker said a child pointed at him, and yelled: "Anta Yahud" -- "You're a Jew."

On the morning of Oct. 13, 2001, Al-Amriykiy and Whittaker decided to hike a nearby mountain. They set off at 6:30 a.m. to get a panoramic view of Sana'a. Wright, a North Philadelphia native, was too sick to go.

While climbing, the two saw a shepherd pass them and an elderly woman tending a flock of animals. Then they noticed a bunker on top of the mountain.

An old man called for them to come down. At the foot of the mountain, three men pointed AK-47s at the Americans and pushed the petrified men to the middle of a field.

"I thought they were going to shoot us with the AK-47s," said Al-Amriykiy.

The jujitsu master calculated how to take on two gunmen so Whittaker could escape, even though he knew he'd be killed by the third.

Suddenly, the old man shouted Arabic at the gunmen, who relaxed. The gunmen took the Americans to two locations where they were repeatedly interrogated. At the second stop, a colonel tried unsuccessfully to reach Ahmad, their Bangladeshi friend, to vouch for them.

Four armed guards then drove them to Yemen's intelligence agency, the Political Security Organization (PSO), described recently by the Fund for Peace as "a haven for Islamic militants associated with al Qaeda." The agency answers directly to Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih.

Inside the PSO, Al-Amriykiy passed a room with blood-splattered walls, where cables attached to batteries sat on a bloody floor.

"I thought they were going to torture us," he said.

Instead, the men were led, one at a time, to the nearby Central Prison. A gunman repeatedly poked Al-Amriykiy with a rifle, told him not to turn around, and struck him with his weapon when he did.

In a huge yard separating the PSO from the prison, Al-Amriykiy was blindfolded and ordered to stand against the prison wall. He feared he was about to die.

An official, sitting at a desk in the courtyard, ordered him to remove his blindfold and stare at a camera videotaping him.

Then the official shouted the same questions repeatedly:

Who are you? What agency sent you? Your occupation? What are your parents' names? When did you arrive?

Hours after standing and answering the same questions, he was taken below ground to what looked like a dungeon. Al-Amriykiy was questioned again, by a colonel. He even offered the prisoner hard bread, but when the colonel bit into it, one of his teeth fell out.

Al-Amriykiy had no idea what had happened to Whittaker, and the colonel wouldn't tell him.

"No one knew where we were," said Al-Amriykiy. "I thought, 'I'm going to be here for the rest of my life,'" I was worried about my pregnant wife. I thought I was never going to see my family again."

Silently, Al-Amriykiy prayed: "Oh God, if that's what you have for me, I accept it."

The next morning, Whittaker, imprisoned in another section of the dungeon, asked to use the bathroom. A guard gave him an assigned time, 8 a.m. Prisoners could only use the toilet three times a day and shower once.

"I can't live like this," he thought. He had never been arrested, let alone jailed. Yet the 6-foot-1 teen began plotting how to overtake the much-shorter guards.

"A guard grabbed my arm, I snatched it back. That's when I lost it," said Whittaker, recalling his frenzied raving and crying.

Suddenly, a guard showed up at Al-Amriykiy's cell as he lay on a thin mattress on the stone floor.

"Come," urged the guard in Arabic.

"I'm thinking, 'Oh my gosh, something happened to Anwar,' " said Al-Amriykiy. "I see six guys with sticks. Anwar's frantic, screaming, he's not going into the cell. He was scared. He broke down crying. The guards didn't know what to do."

Al-Amriykiy looked into Whittaker's windowless cell. It was the size of a small closet with a single bulb. The wall was smeared with feces and "stuff written in blood, like somebody was counting," he added.

He asked a guard if he could get the other guards with sticks to back off, so he could talk to Whittaker, who feared he was about to be killed.

Then, Al-Amriykiy asked the guards if Whittaker could stay with him. His cell, at least, had a window.

Al-Amriykiy wanted to keep the worried teen's mind occupied. They recited the Quran. They practiced jujitsu.

The next morning, the two were fed the same kind of hard bread that cost the colonel a tooth. They called it "rock" bread. Later that day, they were given slimy rice and okra, a menu that was repeated daily.

"We had nothing to drink but stagnant water" in a filthy soda bottle, said Whittaker.

The teen became sick, bent over in pain with severe dysentery. Once in the bathroom, he wouldn't leave. A guard asked Al-Amriykiy to get his friend.

"He probably needed a doctor," said Al-Amriykiy.

He asked the guard to allow Whittaker the time he needed because he was ill.

Whittaker stopped eating for days.

They feared this was it. They would die in the dungeon, and their families would never know.

Tomorrow: A surprise visit; and inside an Islamic camp.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0156-34443688