Russian mother loses hope of seeing detained son again
Summary of story from Radio Free Europe, January 13, 2012
Ravil Mingazov was supposed to be a free man by now. Instead, he remains at Guantanamo Bay, the last Russian citizen in US custody in the detention centre.
In May 2010, a US federal court ordered him released within six weeks, ruling that the government no longer had any reason to detain the 42 year-old Tatar.
That decision has since been reversed in what some critics say was a politically motivated legal challenge.
More than nine years ago, Mingazov was classified as a terrorist-in-training for Al-Qaeda after US military forces picked him up at a house in Pakistan they said belonged to suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah.
His protests that it was a guest house for refugees, and his denials of any ties to Zubaydah or Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden fell on deaf ears.
Now his mother, 75 year-old Zuhra Waliullina, says she has lost hope of ever seeing her son again.
“I last spoke to him on December 22. He’s doing well there. They get good food. They have TV and sports facilities. They’re not drowning in tuberculosis like all the inmates here,” she said.
“But I’ve lost my hope [of ever seeing him again]. I don’t trust Obama. I don’t have the strength to write any more letters asking for help. This is how I am now.”