All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
Uh, so it's anti-war radio.
Our next guest is Jason Leopold of truthout.org.
And, uh, boy, has he got something else for you today?
Exclusive from hopeful immigrant to FBI informant, the inside story of the other Abu Zubaydah.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Hey, Scott.
Great to be back with you.
Good, good.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Uh, very interesting story.
Uh, I think you say it took you a year or more to write because of, uh, waiting on documents and all these kinds of things.
So lots of time to, uh, flesh out the narrative here.
Uh, this is the story of the brother of Abu Zubaydah and you and I've discussed him on the show before.
Yes.
Uh, he's the guy that Bush said was the reason why torture was justified was because of people like him.
And then it turned out that actually he was more of a travel agent and less of a terrorist mastermind, uh, I'll let you address that if you want, but then here's his brother who doesn't even really know this guy hasn't seen him.
And I'm not sure how long he's living the American dream has his own life.
Everything's fine over here until September 11th happens.
And then the government's just been treating him unfairly ever since is basically the narrative, uh, that just been here and I'll go ahead and be as quiet as I can all and jump in when I think I need to, as you tell the story here, Jason.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, this is a, you pretty much captured it and, you know, in, in terms of, uh, to address your first question, yes, I mean, the government claimed that, uh, Abu Zubaydah was, uh, uh, you know, uh, was involved in the nine 11 attacks.
It was, uh, you know, the torture program was built around him.
He makes an appearance in the, uh, August 6th, 2001 presidential daily brief been lot in determined to strike in the U S and, uh, he's also in yet Abu Zubaydah kind of remains somewhat of a mystery.
Uh, I mean, people are not as familiar with his name and how important of a figure he is as they are with, uh, say Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, you know, the self-professed mastermind of nine 11.
So it was during the course of research into Abu Zubaydah that, uh, you know, I was conducting that I stumbled across a comment and it was a comment on the blog of, uh, on Andy Worthington, a Guantanamo reporter, uh, his blog that was left by someone named Hesham Abu Zubaydah, and basically the comment said, uh, you know, uh, I have been jailed.
Uh, do you think it's fair that I've been jailed for two years for, uh, in Oregon for crimes, uh, that my brother committed, uh, I was stunned.
Uh, first of all, I was stunned because it said Oregon.
So that obviously, uh, meant that, uh, if, if this was the person who he said he was that he was here in the United States, so I had originally tried to track him down because I wanted to, uh, put a profile together on Abu Zubaydah to basically address the same questions that, uh, you know, that, that you raised about what the Bush administration said.
I mean, everything that we know about Abu Zubaydah basically comes from some government source.
That's it.
We, the, whether it's the FBI, the CIA, uh, that's, that's, that's as far, uh, as, as we've gotten.
So I was hoping that Hesham could provide a bit more insight.
Maybe he, maybe he knew about his brother's alleged terrorist activities, you know, and, and perhaps you could tell me, you know, what, uh, uh, you know, what kind of person he is.
I mean, I was just curious, you know, to find that out and certainly, you know, what, what is this about him being in jail?
So I tracked him down and he lives in Florida.
And, uh, after speaking with him for about a week, uh, it certainly, you know, it occurred to me that this, this guy, this, this person, uh, the younger brother of Abu Zubaydah has his own, uh, uh, remarkable, what I found it to be a remarkable story to tell.
And so for the past year, I have been working on that and he not only, uh, faced issues with regard to being collateral damage as a result of 9-11 who his brother is, but then he was later recruited by the FBI to work as an informant, uh, and to spy on, uh, mosques in Portland, Oregon, where he was living at the time, one particular mosque that has been, uh, under surveillance by the FBI for at least a decade, uh, Masjid al-Sabr, I'm probably mangling the name, but that is the mosque, uh, that is where the Portland seven, uh, uh, that's the mosque of Portland seven attended.
These were, uh, individuals who, uh, you know, went to Afghanistan, uh, to, uh, you know, fight against, uh, US military, uh, and, uh, uh, federal prosecutors and the FBI claimed they were funded by the Imam at the mosque.
So, uh, you know, it, it was, it, it, it's a remarkable story about two brothers, one who was allegedly, you know, trying to destroy America and the other who is, you know, dead set on pursuing the American dream and that's Hisham.
And he apparently hates his, uh, brother's guts for, uh, all the grief he's had to put up with.
Yeah, he gets, I mean, he has mixed emotions about his brother and, you know, first, let me just say this.
He has not seen his brother by the time the FBI agents knocked on his door, presented him with a set of photographs and said, do you know this person?
The person in the photographs was his brother.
He hadn't seen him for more than a decade.
Okay.
His brother, who is referred to in my story as honey, honey being the alleged terrorist, that's the nickname his father gave him.
Uh, it's also the name that, uh, Ali Soufan used when he was interrogating him.
He, he hadn't seen him the last time he saw him.
Uh, Hisham was about, uh, you know, 12 or 13 years old.
Uh, he was going through, um, chemotherapy at the time he was, uh, uh, he had testicular cancer as a child and honey had, uh, had already left, you know, left, left home was, uh, you know, supposed to be attending college in, in India.
So the FBI agents knocked on his door, presented him with these photographs.
He had no idea who this person was.
And, uh, cause his memory, the last memory he has of his brother, uh, it's certainly not the, uh, first of all, it's, it's not the, you know, alleged terrorist and the person looked far different than, you know, the individual in the photograph.
So, well, you know, that comes up time and again in this article.
And I was going to ask you anyway, so I'll go ahead and ask it now.
Was there any doubt to you?
Does, is there significant doubt cast on whether the Abu Zubaydah that the Americans have is who they say he is or that there's any actual discrepancy here?
Or is it just that, um, uh, the brother just hasn't seen him in so long that he might as well not be his brother kind of thing.
Yeah.
I don't think there's any doubt at all that, uh, that, that, that we have the person known as Abu Zubaydah, the last memory that he has of him is of, uh, a teenager who wore jeans, who shaved, uh, who, uh, was someone who used to play keyboards.
He doesn't have a memory of someone who, um, has a beard or mustache.
Uh, it, it, it just didn't look like his brother.
And keep this in mind, Scott, that the person in the photograph, this is, this is the photograph that was widely distributed.
It's his, it's his passport photograph.
The person in the photograph looks far different than the person who was captured on March 28, 2002 in Pakistan.
So even CIA, when they captured him, uh, that evening, uh, they were unsure that they had the right guy because he looked different.
Uh, so yeah.
But you even say in here that they got DNA from the brother to compare and make sure that's right.
Yeah.
They had the same doubts.
They swabbed his mouth.
All right.
I'm sorry that we got to take this break here, Jason, and, uh, come back on the other side with this great story.
It's the story of Hesham Zubeda, the brother of Abu Zubeda.
Oh no.
What an unfortunate thing to happen to somebody.
What an unfortunate thing to be.
We'll be right back with Jason Leopold after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Jason Leopold from truthout.org.
His, uh, exclusive from hopeful immigrant to FBI informant.
The inside story of the other Abu Zubeda is right there on the front page at truthout.org, uh, an incredible story, very, uh, long and well-written and worth it.
Um, all right.
So now, uh, we're talking about Abu Zubeda's brother.
He lived in the United States.
He had some trouble with his first wife, I guess.
And then they used that against him to, um, to thwart his attempt to get citizenship and all these things.
So then they promised him if he would become a snitch, they would help him get his green card and then his citizenship.
But then that never happened.
Something like this.
Where'd we leave off?
What are we talking about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's, uh, I mean, he, yes, he came to the U S in 1998 trying to pursue the American dream.
He came here on a student visa, uh, supposed to attend a school in Florida, but he never did.
Um, so he was after nine 11, you know, picked up and charged with violating his student visa.
And if you recall, right after nine 11, Scott, you know, Ashcroft, uh, rounded up thousands of people to week.
Yeah.
And one of the individuals who was, who was caught up in that was actually a cousin of, uh, uh, of Hesham and his, uh, his family, his mother's Zubeda, which nobody knew about.
And he was one that, you know, that was, uh, Arrested.
He's actually someone that was in the photographs that the FBI showed his Shannon said, do you recognize any of these individuals?
And he said, oh, that's my cousin.
Uh, so, you know, the issues with his first wife, uh, uh, came into play and then, and they were serious because, uh, it involved domestic violence.
They got into a, an altercation.
He hit her, she hit him.
She called the cops.
He was arrested.
Uh, and it wasn't until after he was, uh, arrested after nine 11, where you started to really see how the, you know, the FBI, uh, and even, you know, us attorneys were sort of micromanaging his case, uh, they wanted to keep him locked up, uh, and in, you know, in federal custody and immigration where he wasn't in solitary and basically mine him for as much information as possible.
Uh, when, when we, when we left off, it was, uh, we were talking about whether yeah, they eventually, you know, FBI interrogators eventually went in, you know, and said, you are lying to us.
That is your brother in the photograph.
And we caught him in Pakistan.
And, uh, you know, would you object to, uh, doing a DNA test?
So they swabbed his mouth and then, you know, it's another new detail.
And, uh, you could see how they might be angry and assume that he didn't mean well, when he said, I can't identify the man in the picture, you know, being the cops that they are and everything.
Yeah, no, you could, uh, absolutely see that and, and, and certainly understand it, but he was, uh, interrogated for months and months and months and, um, eventually, uh, you know, what's I'll look at this as simply a coincidence.
The same day that his brother was captured, uh, in Pakistan, an immigration judge ordered Hisham to be deported.
And, uh, you know, he's a citizen of Saudi Arabia, but he's not, uh, I mean, he he's resident of Saudi Arabia, but he's not a, you know, a citizen, uh, he's of Palestinian descent.
Uh, so he can never be a citizen.
So deporting him to Saudi Arabia was just, even though that's what the judge ordered, it wasn't an option.
They tried to deport him to Yemen, to Morocco, to Egypt.
No country would take him because of the, you know, the fact that, uh, he, he was stateless.
And so he ended up staying in immigration jail for, uh, uh, an ice custody for another two years.
And then after he was released, uh, you know, he's trying to basically get on with his life, uh, and, uh, still really, you know, trying to obtain these, uh, citizenship papers.
And he started a business.
He met a new woman, got married.
They had a kid, uh, and, uh, uh, one of his business partners, uh, said, there's someone I'd like to introduce you to.
And it was, uh, an FBI agent.
And, uh, this FBI agent basically recruited him, uh, with the promise of, you know, working on his case or working on his, you know, uh, helping him, uh, obtain citizenship in the United States.
And he worked for the FBI for two years.
Uh, but it became clear that, you know, I shouldn't say it became clear.
You know, the FBI certainly wanted to get as much info as they possibly could from, I'm sure many of their informants about one particular mosque in Portland, which I mentioned earlier, Mosque Tidab Sabr.
Uh, but they kept mining him for information about his brother.
And he said, look, I don't know anything about my brother.
Well, I haven't seen the guy, you know, at this point for, you know, 15 years, I don't know anything about him.
Uh, at this point, he's been in custody for years, tortured in Poland and God knows, uh, Thailand, everywhere else.
Exactly.
And, uh, you know, he wasn't, uh, transferred to Guantanamo yet.
So, and I need to point out that, you know, one of the other new revelations here is that there were three phone calls.
I mean, that does seem strange, right?
I mean, that does seem strange, right?
That they're still questioning him about him as though they're looking for him.
And this is going to help them find him or something like that.
It does seem strange.
You know, what's really curious.
One of the questions that I asked Scott was, you know, why didn't the FBI speak to Hisham before nine 11?
Uh, yeah, you mentioned nine 11, first of all, and all the, you know, I'm not trying to, uh, it gets into, you know, P people, you know, use it for whatever reason, I'm simply just, it's a legitimate question.
Why didn't they question him before nine 11?
Why didn't they, you know, if, if the beta was under surveillance, uh, which our government says he was, why didn't they question him instead of questioning him, Hisham, they actually questioned his wife three weeks before nine 11, two FBI agents show up at his house and, uh, as you mentioned previously, his name was in the PDB, uh, the, the daily brief of George Bush from August the 6th, 2001.
Right.
And two weeks after that, you know, the FBI is questioning, you know, Hisham, a U S official tells me that, oh, we were, you know, we were trying to make attempts to call, uh, to contact him.
Uh, but nine 11 happened.
You know, the reason I bring this up, Scott is because another new detail in the story is that there were three telephone calls that, uh, Hisham's brother, honey, you know, the alleged terrorist made to the U S in April of 2000, those phone calls, um, have, have never been revealed before.
And at that time he was already under surveillance due to this failed millennium plot to, you know, blow up, uh, sites in Jordan and the U S, uh, LAX, so he was already under surveillance.
So these phone calls, uh, it was known to, it was supposedly known, obviously to the FBI, at least immediately after nine 11, but it was not shared with the nine 11 commission or the nine 11, uh, you know, congressional inquiry.
So it doesn't appear anywhere.
Uh, and, and again, the reason I bring that up is because, you know, if they were monitoring him, why, why didn't they make those calls and, uh, or make that visit to him?
So, you know, so basically he has been living and paying a high price for his brother's crimes for more than a decade.
It got to the point where in 2010, you know, FBI agents, he stopped working for the FBI.
He moves to Florida and they continue to visit him.
They crack him down.
Finally, they hand him a subpoena.
They want him to testify against his brother.
There's a propaganda type videotape that's out there, uh, where his brother, you know, appears in it and they wanted him to travel to a grand jury in Richmond, Virginia, and, uh, testify and tell the grand jury that, uh, that is my brother in that videotape, which he was unsure of.
And he said that, uh, you know, I, I don't think that's him.
Uh, and, uh, that testimony, you know, he kept saying that that was what they were telling him.
This was the trial of his brother, but the videotape was actually used in the war crimes trial of nor Usman Mohammed, uh, who pled guilty.
He was captured on the same night, uh, honey that, you know, alleged terrorists was, so it, it really seemed that they were grooming him for this testimony.
They were, you know, stringing him along.
They had him doing some work for the FBI.
Uh, and, uh, the past decade, you know, this guy has been, you know, paying a high price, uh, totally mistreated.
And, uh, you know, we haven't, unfortunately didn't get into the whole point of the, you know, uh, I think you're going to say there, he, he failed to do what they wanted in front of the grand jury.
They ignored his history of failing to be able to identify his brother from pictures these days.
And so now they're angry at him and now his chances for citizenship are all, but scotch completely.
Right.
Is that the point?
That's pretty much the point.
And, you know, I asked for his case files and when I asked the FBI for his case files under a freedom of information request, the FBI responded by sending an agent, a field agent out to his house to talk to him about it, to find out what he told me, whether I coerced him, whether that's the whole sidebar article there at truthout.org.
Yes.
Uh, that's not the kind of thing that happens very much.
Right.
They, they came, they said, are you sure you want this journalist to have your FBI file?
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
And he says, yeah, of course I am.
Sure.
Yeah.
And I have a copy of that report posted on the story where people could, you know, download it, read it.
Certainly see my name in there.
And, uh, you know, uh, open government experts said this is unprecedented.
So, you know, in a nutshell, it's, it's a, you know, the story of two brothers, you know, one, uh, you know, waging violent Jihad allegedly and the other, you know, pursuing the American dream, but, uh, you know, paid a, a terrible price as a result of, of nine 11 and, and became collateral damage.
Yep.
All right.
Well, it's all there.
It's, uh, some great journalism, uh, congratulates you on it.
It's truthout.org Jason Leopold with an exclusive from hopeful immigrant to FBI informant, the inside story of the other Abu Zubaydah, that is Hesham Abu Zubaydah, a brother of the world renowned tortured terrorist.
Uh, acquaintance anyway.
Uh, thanks very much, Jason.
Really appreciate it as always.
I appreciate it, Scott.
Thank you.
Take care.
