Closing Guantanamo
Monday January 18 at 10 pm ET/PT & Sunday January 24 at 6 pm ET on CBC News Network
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In the wake of the foiled terrorist attack on a Detroit bound plane on Christmas Day & a Yemeni based Al-Qaeda group claiming responsibility, U.S. President Obama faces yet another challenge to his promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly half of the prisoners remaining in Guantanamo are from Yemen. Closing Guantanamo is a gripping documentary that explores why the first promise Obama made when he became president one year ago, has been so difficult to keep.
Over the past eight months, Britain's former secretary of defence, Michael Portillo, visited the prison camps, and traveled to Yemen, Bermuda and Washington to investigate what could be done with the 240 remaining prisoners - some of whom are thought to be too dangerous to release, yet difficult to successfully prosecute and convict. Among the prisoners is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 and suspected collaborator in the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.
In Closing Guantanamo, Portillo also visits Yemen where cameras are rarely allowed, and talks to former prisoners about their experiences inside Guantanamo, and how that may have changed their view of jihad. He looks at how President Obama got stuck between a rock and a hard place --- and questions where Obama goes from here? Obama originally promised to close Guantanamo by Jan. 22, 2010.
Directed by Alex Cooke and produced by Alan Hayling of Renegade Productions for the BBC.
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