Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko

Who is Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko?

A Syrian-Kurd, Abd Al-Rahim Abdul Rassak al-Janko was a student in the United Arab Emirates who traveled to Afghanistan in 2000, where he was captured by the Taliban who announced that he had confessed to plotting to murder Osama bin Laden, as well as spying against the Taliban on behalf of Israel and the United States. He was also denounced for "his sexual indiscretions with other young men" and accused of homosexuality. Following the Invasion of Afghanistan, al-Janko begged a British journalist to alert the Americans that he had been held prisoner by the Taliban for two years; however he was taken from the Taliban prison by American forces, and sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps where he spent seven years in detention.

When a videotape of al-Janko's 2000 interrogation on charges of sodomy and espionage against the Taliban was discovered by American forces in the rubble of Mohammed Atef's house; the Bush administration released the video, which showed al-Janko breaking down in tears, but stripped the tape of its audiotrack and falsely declared that it was a "martyrdom video", claiming that al-Janko spoke of dying as a martyr following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Although the Department of internally acknowledged the video to be his filmed interrogation by the Taliban, the American government publicly continued labelling it as a "martyrdom" recording, and added al-Janko to the FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list. Amnesty International condemned the use of a video showing al-Janko being interrogated by militants as proof of his association with them as "kafkaesque".