Guantanamo Muslim Adviser Treads Lightly

A detainee holds prayer beads following the midday Islamic prayer, at Camp Delta detention center, Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, in this Dec. 4, 2006 file photo, reviewed by a U.S. Dept. of Defense official. Known only as "Zak" by the detention staff and "Zaki" to the detainees, the Middle Eastern man's name is a tightly held secret. No one in his family except his wife knows he works at this U.S. military base, where nearly 400 men captured in Washington's war on terror are held. He is Guantanamo Bay's Muslim cultural adviser, a civilian employee who meets with detainees and helps their American captors understand their Muslim ways. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley - AP)

"If anybody is getting tortured, it's the staff, the guards and medical staff who get spit on, called names all day long," he said.

Zak meets with the detention center commander, Navy Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, at least once a week, and meets with detainees, though he is quick to stress that he is not their advocate.

Zak insists he is making a difference and has relayed detainee concerns when he considers them legitimate. He declines to give examples, citing a military rule barring him from discussing anything specific about the prison.

Harris, in a separate interview, said Zak has been useful to the military.

"He helps us all understand better the detainee population and their motivations and their potential intentions," Harris said.

All the detainees at Guantanamo are Muslim and all but a handful are Sunni, the adviser said. A small number of Shiite detainees are held together to avoid conflicts, he added.

While Zak acknowledges that he's generally hated by the prisoners, he says he is gaining the confidence of some _ and that a few have even told him they regret having been recruited into militant groups.

Khalid al-Odah, the leader of an organization of families of prisoners from Kuwait and whose son is held at Guantanamo, said prisoners tried to use the adviser as an emissary after senior camp officials stopped meeting directly with prisoners in 2005. The prisoners speculated that he is Lebanese or Egyptian based on his slang, al-Odah said.

The adviser does not worship with the detainees, who have chosen their own religious leaders from among themselves. Nor is he a Muslim chaplain, a job that primarily involves ministering to staff and military personnel, not prisoners.

A former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, James Yee, said he is skeptical of the cultural adviser, dismissing him as "strictly public relations" to help the military improve the image of a prison camp that has sparked worldwide protests.

"He is in the position to just be a yes man," Yee, who was an Army captain at the camp until his arrest on spying charges in 2003, told AP in a phone interview from his home in Washington state. He spent 76 days in solitary confinement before being cleared of all charges in March 2004.

Guantanamo no longer has a Muslim chaplain. Harris said the Muslim chaplains, whose primary mission is to provide religious services to the troops, are in short supply in the U.S. military and are needed elsewere.

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations says having a cultural adviser at Guantanamo Bay is worthwhile.

"Anything that helps decrease tensions and helps maintain humanitarian treatment is welcome," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based organization.