Young Afghan Grasps at Former Life After Seven Years at Guantanamo

Mohammed Jawad says he was 12 years old the last time he saw Afghanistan. On a cold day in December 2002, he was grabbed by police and threatened with the death of his family if he didn't put his thumbprint to a confession that he tried to kill two U.S. soldiers. He was carted across the globe to Guantanamo Bay, where he was imprisoned until August, when a U.S. judge decided the Pentagon's case against him was "riddled with holes."

Tuesday's Los Angeles Times follows Jawad as he returns to Afghanistan, where he instinctively sits with the children despite being 19 years old, and where "old friends he last saw when they were flying kites are now in college, married with children, enjoying their careers." His mother did not recognize him, and fainted when he showed her a special mark on his head. Now strangers welcome him with kisses on the streets of Kabul, but he is struggling to recover his former life.

U.S. military officials have maintained that Jawad is guilty and defended themselves against his charges of inhumane treatment. They contend he is older than he says and still believe he threw the grenade that killed two U.S. soldiers on that fateful day in 2002.

Jawad suffers from haunting prison memories and guilt about the de facto family he left behind at Guantanamo. He once tried to commit suicide by banging his head against the wall. He frequently describes the treatment to his family, talking about "having his hands bound behind his back and being forced to eat like a dog, being kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed and subjected to excessive heat, loud noise, solitary confinement." He says he deliberately tried to avoid picking up the "bad words" the American guards used, and that only faith in the Koran kept him from insanity.

As he has settled into a new life in Kabul, Jawad says he wants to go to school even if he has to study with children much younger than he is, and hopes to become a doctor. "That's my dream," he says. "I don't know if it's possible. But that's my dream."