Video: Riz Ahmed reads Poems from Guantánamo

Riz Ahmed reads Jumah al-Dossari’s poem 

"Death Poem" by Jumah al Dossari

"Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the 'protectors of peace'."

Jumah al-Dossari’s poem is read here by Riz Ahmed, the actor who appeared in the film "Road to Guantánamo". Jumah al-Dossari, who was released in 2007, was held in Guantánamo for more than five years and had been in solitary confinement since the end of 2003. He tried to kill himself more than a dozen times.

This poem was written as part of a suicide letter Jumah al-Dossari left for his lawyer when he had given up hope of ever seeing his family again. He is now in Saudi Arabia completing what the Saudi Arabian authorities refer to as a reform and rehabilitation programme for returned Guantánamo detainees.

Read a transcript of Jumah al-Dossari’s full testimony.