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Methodology

This report draws on Human Rights Watch interviews with three of the former detainees – one in person, although he declined to give a full interview, and two by telephone. In some citations the time and place of Human Rights Watch’s interview have been withheld to protect the interviewee. In addition, Human Rights Watch spoke with several of the detainees’ family members, lawyers, and human rights activists, and examined official court papers, taped testimony to other human rights organizations, photographs, and media accounts, to document the human rights abuses suffered by these seven men after they got back to Russia.1 

One of the former detainees, Airat Vakhitov, agreed to speak with Human Rights Watch, he said, because he felt the story of the Russian detainees’ experiences back home had not yet been told.2




1 An eighth Russian citizen, Ravil Mingazov, remains in custody in Guantanamo at this writing. 

2 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Airat Vakhitov, September 7, 2006.