Film Festival film #4: The Prisoner or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

[bcholmes]

I'm not sure what spoilers means in this context, but I've spoiler-marked this anyway.

Here's a story. In September of 2003, Michael Tucker was a cameraman working with an army unit in Baghdad. He would tell us, during the Q&A that he wasn't really "embedded" -- that involved contracts with the U.S. Army that let them have access to all footage. He was a freelancer who was liked by the commanders of a particular unit.

One night, Michael Tucker went along on a raid. The Army had intel that four brothers named Abbas were part of a bomb-building cell. What's more, their intel suggested that they were going to try to assassinate Tony Blair when the British leader was going to make a visit to Iraq.

Michael Tucker told us that he has a particularly vivid memory of this terrorist sitting, hands secured behind his back, on the ground saying "I'm a journalist; I'm a journalist." Footage of this event would find its way into Tucker's documentary, Gunner Palace.

Two years later, Tucker found that man and interviewed him. His name is Yunis Khatayer Abbas. In this documentary, he tells his story. Yunis wanted to an important person. And in his mind, that meant one thing: he wanted to be a journalist. He was born and raised in Iraq, and, once old enough, he started working as a journalist in Baghdad. In 1997, he wrote an article about the embargoes on Iraq; the article was critical of the Saddam Hussein regime. He was arrested and tortured for three months and two days by Uday Hussein's thugs. He explained about the electrocutions, describing a lead attached to his finger. You could see a scar, there.

Before being released, he says that he was taken to a palace compound where he briefly met Saddam Hussein who stressed to him the importance of not criticizing the government. He was offered money and told to go home.

In 2002, the U.S. invaded Iraq, and Yunis took a camera and a bicycle out into the city to try to document the invasion. We see many of his photos. Wreckage. Explosions. After the invasion, he does work for CNN, BBC and the Spanish news.

And in September, 2003, he and his three brothers go to a party. Yunis has film footage of people dancing. That night, after returning home, the U.S. Army (with cameraman Michael Tucker) raided his home and arrested the four brothers. There's fishy stuff. There are two weapons in the house. Also, apparently Yunis owns a camera, and he photographs. It becomes clear that Yunis travels a lot to other cities. Why would a regular citizen have a camera? And travel?

The four brothers were taken into custody. Yunis describes the various thoughts he had: that it must be some case of mistaken identity. In a day or two, it'll all be sorted out. He talks about interrogation techniques that were used on him. About the man with the bat, and the soldier who pushed his face to the ground and pinned him with a boot on his cheek. He's asked, repeatedly, where the plan is. At some point, he's they tell him that they know he's planning to kill Tony Blair. Yunis laughs. In his mind, he thinks it has to be a joke.

He says this in broken English. He's very open in describing the experiences, and what he was thinking, but the emotions are all sort of suppressed. At one point in the filming he says that he has to stop because his chest is tight.

At some time while Yunis was in custody, Michael Tucker was interviewing someone in the Army. Army guy is talking about big missions that they conducted. They like to feel good about the missions. They give them "fun names". Tucker asks him about the "Grab-ass" mission. "Grab-ass" is the fun name for the Abbas mission. The army guy talks about four brothers who were part of a bomb-making cell, extremely sophisticated terrorists who, intel revealed, had an elaborate plot to attack a major target. "I can't really go into too many details," the army guy says.

Yunis and two of his brothers (the third, a doctor, was released) are taken to Abu Ghraib prison. On arriving in a cell, he describes seeing marks on the wall. Other prisoners, before him, counted out the days with marks on the walls. One of the people before him was there for nine days. Another for almost twenty. He says he became very upset by seeing that.

Shortly, Yunis is declared to be of no intelligence value and moved to camp Ganci, still part of the prison, but in an outdoor area. Prisoners live in tents. He describes counting off every day. He talks to other prisoners. One has been there for a month. Another for three. He gets a small bowl of rice each day. And bread. He says that the bread is so hard you have to have strong teeth to eat it.

Sometimes the prisoners riot over the miserable living conditions, or the prison is attacked. Prisoners die. Yunis, a journalist to the end, gets access to a pen, and starts recording names and prisoner numbers on his underwear. He show these. White boxer shorts with writing on the inside. The guards never think to check the inside of his underwear. He describes various prisoners and what happened to them. Tucker interweaves documents, prison reports. The people are real, their fates documented.

After nine months, Yunis was taken to an official's office. The official tells him: "We can't figure out what you're doing in here. We're letting you go. It must be some mistake. Sorry." Yunis says, "That's it? Sorry?"

Yunis and his brothers return home. His family had been given very little information about what had happened to them. There was a party celebrating their return. He describes taking a shower, with hot water, not just cold. And learning to eat full meals, again. And waking up at night, from dreams where he's counting off, counting off.

In the Q&A afterward, Michael Tucker introduced someone he'd just connected with just a few weeks earlier. A U.S. Army guard who was stationed at Camp Ganci, and who grew to know Yunis in the prison. Tucker says that even with all the fact-checking he'd done for the material in the documentary, the soldier was able to confirm even more facts. Tucker mentions that both he and Yunis have been accused of fabricating the whole thing.