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Latif Nasser Profile picture
@latifnasser
Feb 4, 2020 • 9 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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Ooof. I’ve been waiting to acknowledge something out loud for 3+ years. And today’s the day I finally can. It’s a story I’ve been working on called #TheOtherLatif. The story starts with a tweet and ends with a tweet. A thread. Image
3 years ago, I was here on Twitter procrastinating and saw a tweet about me from a non-profit law firm that I didn’t even remember following. Turns out, it wasn’t about me. It was about another guy who has my name. A guy who happens to be … Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay! (gulp) Image
I found some leaked govt docs about him via @nytimes, which paint a pretty nefarious picture of him as Al Qaeda’s “top explosives expert” & one of bin Laden’s “most impt military advisors,” pre and post 9/11. It also calls him a “HIGH risk” to the US and its allies. (double gulp) Image
@nytimes Then I tracked down his lawyer, @dontspyonmeNYPD, who told me that whole doc is basically fiction. That he was never even in Al Qaeda, that he was prob sold for a bounty. He has been locked up 17+ years. No charges. No trial. Tortured. But she told me something even crazier. Image
@nytimes @dontspyonmeNYPD In July 2016, this guy - the other Latif - had a parole-type hearing with reps from 6 top US govt agencies: State, Defence, Homeland Security, Justice, Joint Chiefs, & Director of Natl Intelligence. They unanimously decided to clear him to go back to his home in Morocco (!!) Image
@nytimes @dontspyonmeNYPD BUT there was some kind of bureaucratic delay, and by the time the paperwork got finalized, the Obama people were on their way out and the Trump people were on their way in. Trump tweeted that “There should be no further releases from Gitmo” and so he never got transferred. ImageImage
@nytimes @dontspyonmeNYPD So this guy with my name is cleared on paper but still at Gitmo, just sitting there. I’ve spent the last three years reporting about him full-time. Not allowed to intvw him, but have traveled and done 60+ intvws w others incl his family, interrogators, even other ex-Gitmo guys. Image
@nytimes @dontspyonmeNYPD The podcast series that came out of this is #TheOtherLatif. Easily the most personal and difficult story I’ve ever reported. Ep 1 of 6 up now in the @Radiolab feed … smarturl.it/radiolab?IQid=… Image
@nytimes @dontspyonmeNYPD @Radiolab Couldn't have gotten this far wo help of so many people, incl and esp @radiosuzie, @sarqari, @bethel_habte, @JadAbumrad, @SorenWheeler, @McEwenAnnie, @MargotWilliams, @DianeAKelly, @alexoverington, @Si_Adler, and more ... and oh yeah, podcast art by Will Paybarah.

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More from @latifnasser

Latif Nasser Profile picture
Oct 30
The US election is nigh. If you RAGE that it’s down to a few votes in a few swing states, I've got a story for you.

A political drama about just how close we came to abolishing the Electoral College. And BONUS, it’ll explain why we still use this old relic to pick Presidents.🧵 A black and white cropped photo of Senator Birch Bayh standing on a vertical version of the Radiolab logo with an electoral college map projected on the back. A more standard Radiolab logo in the top left.
Story starts with a US Senator named Birch Bayh (rhymes with Guy).

When he started his term in 1963, he was young, dashing, ambitious, “the Kennedy of the Midwest.” His only problem was … Senator Birch Bayh closeup photo, clean shaven, short black hair, blue eyes, looks like he is listening attentively
Senator Birch Bayh in short sleeve white dress shirt with a tie and black pants, standing with one foot perched up on a crate, speaking into a megaphone to a crowd of protesters.
No one took him seriously. At a time when everything was based on seniority, Bayh had no power at all.

Until one day, longtime Senator Estes Kefauver had a fatal heart attack on the floor of the Senate. Now Kefauver happened to be … newspaper headline: Kefauver Dies of Ruptured Artery with a black and white photo of Kefauver in a tux
Read 33 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 26
Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that - after a year of obsessive reporting - led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A 🧵. The moon with a rocket landed in its eye. The most iconic shot of 1902 sci-fi film Le Voyage Dans La Lune.
So about a year ago, I was putting my little guy to bed in his crib and I noticed a strange detail on the solar system poster up on his wall … A solar system poster. The Sun in the middle as an orange ball. All the planets orbiting with their respective moons. At the bottom the planets arranged in order of distance from the sun. And the title of the poster THE SOLAR SYSTEM in all caps.
Venus had a moon called Zoozve. Huh, I thought. Never heard of that. Close up of the poster. You see a bit of the sun on the right. Mercury going around the sun. Venus going around the sun behind it. Next to Venus a dot with a label: ZOOZVE.
Read 34 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Apr 15, 2023
Last year, a coworker randomly asked me to hand-deliver an antique violin across the country. I said yes, because why not. I had no idea what I was getting into, and now I need your help. A 🧵
Last May, I went to a work retreat in upstate NY and a sound designer on our show @Jeremy_s_Bloom pulled me aside and asked me to do him a favor. Bearded, red-hatted sound d...Latif and Jeremy standing, ...
@Jeremy_s_Bloom He had heard through a friend (@DerekBeckvold) about an Afghan violinist who had just escaped from Kabul and settled in LA (where I live). Problem was the guy had to leave his violin behind.

Jeremy had a beautiful 110-year-old violin in his closet he used to play. A beautiful old violin in a...
Read 24 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 11, 2022
2022 is off to a rocky start. Will it be worse than 2021? And was that one worse than 2020? If you, like me, are sick of comparing and complaining about the last few years, here’s a fun exercise: name the worst year ever. As in, THE worst year to be a human on earth. A 🧵.
Some obvious contenders: 1347 (Black Death). 1918 (Spanish Flu). 1929 (Great Depression). But the one that convinced me was a year I had NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE.
The year? 536 AD. The catastrophe that took place then goes by many names: The Mystery Cloud. The Dust Veil. Or my personal favorite: The Fimbulwinter. (I’ll explain that last one, I promise.)
Read 37 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 11, 2022
Today is 20 years since the first prisoners landed at Guantanamo Bay. The US government chose the site bc they thought neither American nor international law applied. They built it quickly and in a rudimentary way because it was meant to be temporary. /1
On the flight to Guantanamo from Kandahar Airport, the prisoners wore shackles, blindfolds, ear muffs, many were even tranquilized, because military folks were afraid they would get loose and "chew through a hydraulics cable" and take the plane down. /2
Turns out the vast majority of the 780 people who were ultimately held there were "innocent of any substantial wrongdoing," and that the "US leadership became aware of this ... very early on." (That's not me saying that, that's the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell.) /3
Read 5 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
May 4, 2021
A tiny story about how tragedy ripples thru culture and history. /1
#OTD: May 4, 1970. Ohio National Guard fires on unarmed Kent State student protestors, killing four.  Among the crowd: art student Jerry Casale. He knew two of the students who got killed. /2
Over the next few months, the campus is locked down. Casale and fellow student protester Bob Lewis channel their anguish into a weird new style of art. The central idea: everything is going to hell. People and society seem to be getting worse, to be devolving. /3
Read 6 tweets

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