The former Mufti of Al-Qaeda talks about his first five years in Iranian prisons policy

And in the program “With facilitationOuld El Walid said that the Iranians gathered the remainder of these detainees with their families in one of the old camps, after a great effort and a hunger strike.

The complex in which they lived was a prison, but it did not bear the name of the prison. The building consisted of 4 sides, and the detainees were placed on one side, which was a room with thick walls, with no windows but small ventilation holes.

The detainees continued to consider themselves prisoners in a country to which they had come as guests, despite the efforts of the Iranians in trying to prove the opposite by providing furniture, mattresses, and many things that alleviate the burden of staying in this place.

The Iranians – according to Ould Al-Walid – also provided them with food in large types and quantities, but they met their non-essential requests gradually so that these demands would not expand, and when they asked to follow the media, they allowed them to follow the local channels.

Thus, Iran isolated these detainees from the world, but provided them with everything they needed inside and opened a clinic for them in the place. The detainees opened two schools for children, organized lessons to memorize the Qur’an, and tried in every way to change the essence of the place and life.

The Egyptians celebrated the month of Ramadan in the Egyptian way, and then some of the detainees had new children, prepared feasts, and characterized their lives with many of their local customs.

Unknown status

The problem with those responsible for the place – as Ould Al-Walid says – was that they did not know what they would do with these detainees who were guests of the government, but were prisoners in the eyes of those in charge of the camp.

On the other hand, the detainees believed that the Iranians were not treating them according to Sharia, morality, or the law, because their fate was unknown, and even when they tried them, they conducted mock trials for them so that their stay would become legal and no one would demand them.

However, Ould Al-Walid believes that Iran was determined to keep this group with it to ensure that it would not be subjected to any attack by jihadist groups in the future, out of recognition of its familiarity with these detainees or out of fear for them.

The government allowed women detainees to go out to hospitals accompanied by their eldest son or another woman, and they allowed them to wear the niqab in Tehran even though it was prohibited, Ould Al-Walid says.

However, the long stay in this complex eventually led to disagreements between the detainees and the guards due to the latter’s strictness in allowing children with their mothers or preventing some women from leaving out of stubbornness, and the matter reached a clash on one occasion.

This time, the detainees broke the gate, so the guards fired gas and smoke bombs and entered the families with weapons, so that matters would not get out of their hands.

Saddam and procrastination

Ould Al-Walid was responsible for the detainees of all affiliations, and he says that the detainees transgressed this time and brought the guards to confrontation, used force and bullets to intimidate, closed the gates on everyone, and acted according to their military logic for the first time.

As a result of this clash, the government transferred 4 detainees to Evin Prison, which required rejection from the rest of the prisoners despite their objection to what their colleagues did.

When the officials refused to sit down to discuss this problem, the detainees decided to go on a hunger strike and visit the clinic, but the Iranians did not show a response, so they burned what could be burned inside the prison to show their protest against what happened, and they began to destroy the non-concrete ceilings and light bulbs.

Despite this, the Iranians continued to be stubborn and continued to monitor everything with cameras, until the detainees gathered all their clothes and set them on fire, and here the administration moved to negotiate with Ould Al-Walid, who says that the prisoners did not actually have tools for escalation.

After this incident, the Iranians returned two of the four detainees who had taken them to Evin and transferred two to another prison, and the problem ended despite the presence of latent tension in people.

The detainees began to demand to be released or moved to a normal residential complex and not a prison like the one they were in. The Iranians responded to them that they had actually begun to build a place suitable for normal life, but they delayed moving them until they completely lost their credibility with the detainees.

At this point, a new official from the first generation of the Iranian revolution was appointed, who had precise knowledge of the mujahideen and had previously lived with jihadi movements due to his association with their support in the early 1980s.

The man did not accept what he heard about the lives of the detainees, which he said did not reflect the principles of the revolution, which he accused the ruling regime at the time of abandoning. He promised them that he would leave his position if he was unable to improve their conditions.

Indeed, this official provided many simple things that would have relieved them of the burden of imprisonment, and the most important thing he provided to them was a large digital library, but he eventually resigned when he sensed the government’s procrastination in fulfilling its promises to these people.

Afterwards, the detainees received an Iranian minister who tried to speak to them cordially, and explained to them that Iran did not hold them responsible for the guilt of others who had committed operations against Iranian diplomats and against Shiite citizens as well. Here, Ould al-Walid responded to him by saying that the Mujahideen also did not blame Iran for supporting the American coalition that invaded Afghanistan.

After spending five years in this complex, the detainees were transferred to the Karaj complex, which they had waited for for years. It was fenced like a prison, but it remained residential in the end.