This NYT profile of Moazzam Begg, recently released from Guantanamo, doesn’t lack ironic moments:
With a new book about his experiences and a small blizzard of media attention, Mr. Begg, a 37-year-old Briton of Pakistani descent, has emerged over the last few months as a minor celebrity in his home country.
Human rights groups have hailed his courage. University students have invited him to speak. Journalists have generally taken at face value his claim that he is an innocent man, unlawfully seized and arbitrarily held. After the three suicides at Guantánamo last Saturday, Mr. Begg instantly became a sought-after commentator for British newspaper and television reporters.
The respectful reception for Mr. Begg — whom the Pentagon still portrays as a terrorist — is one of many markers of the waning credibility of Washington’s detention policies overseas, and particularly in European countries that are closely allied with the United States in fighting terrorists.
Begg has written a memoir called, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram and Kandahar.
It comes out in the United States on Sept. 11th.