GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Guantanamo Kid: The True Story of Mohammed El-Gharani
Obscenity of the US hell camp exposed in graphic story of a child's imprisonment
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
MOHAMMED EL-GHARANI, aged 14 and of Chadian parentage, went to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia in 2001 to learn English. Travelling on a Chadian passport with faked personal data facilitated by a sympathetic consular official — he was a minor — he stayed in Karachi with relatives.
His life was organised around English classes, football and prayers until one day, three months after 9/11, he was detained outside a mosque because of his Saudi accent. After a period of incarceration, interrogation and torture by Pakistani security officials he and dozens of others were each sold as “confirmed” terrorists to the US for $5,000.
Naively, El-Gharani believed that US officials would soon realise that he was innocent, release him and allow his return to Saudi Arabia. He had a rude awakening in store.
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