Chris Cornell / Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah (Part 12)

Fragments of a future narrative

I haven’t heard from Raheel since August. His father tells me the Bureau of Prisons cut off his email access—not the first time this has happened. 

Officers monitor his messages, like any prisoner’s, and apparently our conversations drifted into sensitive territory: Raheel shared things he shouldn’t have, responding to questions I ought not to have asked. Now his punishment is another form of isolation.

One of his last emails was an essay. Raheel urged me “to look into the beginning of it all. Where this all began. With 9/11.” I realized, reading it, that he considers himself a political prisoner—one of “many other terrorism cases” targeting Muslims in recent decades.

I balked initially, then reconsidered. I thought through the sequence of events leading to his arrest; I reread his emails. “Locked up for a thought crime,” he once summarized his plight. I think that gets to the core.

He bought weapons, true; he discussed plans to storm the Capitol, yes—but all of this at an FBI informant’s urging. And the Bureau only reached out, only crosshaired him to begin with, because of his pro-ISIS posts. Repellant, sure. But thought crimes.

“There is an internationally accepted definition of the term ‘political prisoner,’” the National Conference of Black Lawyers once wrote. “They are men and women who have been incarcerated for their political views and actions.”

It’s the views, in these cases—endorsing ISIS as Raheel did, as Jason Ludke and Emanuel Lutchman had.

Or, in Matthew Llaneza’s case, the Taliban.