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By Carol Rosenberg
Photographs via Natalie Keyssar
Carol Rosenberg has been running at Guantanamo Bay for twenty years, an era that spans Majid Khan’s time there. He never allowed him to be questioned until he arrived in Belize last year.
On the evening of the 15th of Ramadan, in a suburb of Belize City, Majid Khan and his family of four sat down to enjoy a traditional iftar to break the day’s fast. There, a leg of lamb that Majid, a former Guantanamo detainee, ate was shot and brought in by a sister from Maryland, dating back to Saudi Arabia.
The atmosphere is a bit noisy, but not loud enough to disturb the sleep of baby Hamza, born two weeks earlier in a hospital in the Central American city. The discussion was short, about whether the biryani dish was too seasoned and how the lamb was perfectly roasted.
These are mundane things, all the more significant considering that Majid Khan, a former al-Qaeda courier, celebrates with his wife Rabia and daughter Manaal in their first home together, in Belize, their new homeland.
For two decades, this family meal was not possible. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khan joined al Qaeda, accessed a suicide bomber and handed over $50,000 to be used in a fatal bombing of a hotel in Indonesia. For his crimes, he was held prisoner in the United States, tortured through the CIA, then imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. I pleaded guilty and became a cooperator with the government, and in the meantime, his wife was waiting for him in Pakistan.
“I’ve been waiting for it for 20 years,” Rabia Khan said with a satisfied sigh. “Everyone was like, ‘You’re brave. You’re strong. ‘ Circumstances demanded it. ” Now I say to Majid, ‘It’s all up to you, to me. ‘
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