HDNet's 'Dan Rather Reports' Presents an Interview With Former Guantanamo Detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene, Along With an Inside Look at the Infamous Detention Center

Interview with the man at the center of political and legal storm and a tour of life inside Guantanamo to air on 'Dan Rather Reports' - Tuesday, June 9 at 8:00 p.m. ET

Tomorrow night's "Dan Rather Reports" will present an interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, the man who spent nearly seven years in the U.S. Detention Camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Excerpts from this, Boumediene's first U.S. television interview, aired on last Tuesday's program.

The program also travels "inside the wire" to the detention facility itself, where - as the fate of 239 men remains up in the air - the message from the military is "Guantanamo is not what you think."

Mr. Boumediene has been at the center of a political and legal storm since shortly after he was sent to Guantanamo in 2002. He became the lead petitioner in the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush, establishing that Guantanamo prisoners have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court. Once Mr. Boumediene won that right, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush reviewed the government's evidence and found the President had "no legal basis" to justify holding him.

His attorney tells "Dan Rather Reports" that there are other men like Boumediene - "still inside double-barb wire, looking at the Caribbean just below them" - who are innocent.

In the interview, Boumediene reveals allegations of torture and mistreatment at the hands of American soldiers, intelligence officials, and military doctors.
"Nothing change [sic] in Guantanamo. Nothing," said Boumediene. "The same rules. They torture me in the Obama time more than Bush."

But Rear Admiral David Thomas flatly denied those allegations. "There is no torture at Guantanamo," Thomas said. During a tour, "Dan Rather Reports" was shown a $200 million, state-of-the-art facility that's come a long way since the camp's early days. There is now satellite television, exercise equipment and English classes for compliant detainees. The program also presents footage of rooms where interrogations, or "strategic debriefs," happen, which are furnished with comfortable couches, faux Persian rugs and television sets. In fact, there are guards who say that conditions at Guantanamo are better than those at U.S. prisons. Our goal is "to take the conditions of detention off the table of the debate," Thomas said.

But scholar Karen Greenberg says it's the legal issues, not creature comforts that are at the heart of today's Guantanamo debate. "There is no amount of chocolate cake, there is no amount of movie access, there is no amount of satellite TV that is going to make it okay not to have legal rights," Greenberg said.

"Dan Rather Reports" premieres on HDNet on Tuesday, June 9 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore presentation at 11:00 p.m. PT to accommodate West Coast prime time.