“You Might Get Hit by a Car” On Secret Tape, FBI Threatens American Muslim Refusing to be Informant

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“You Might Get Hit by a Car” On Secret Tape, FBI Threatens American Muslim Refusing to be Informant

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New details have emerged about the FBI’s efforts to turn Muslim Americans living abroad into government informants. An exposé in Mother Jones magazine chronicles the story of an American named named Naji Mansour who was living in Kenya. After he refused to become an informant, he saw his life, and his family’s life, turned upside down. He was detained, repeatedly interrogated and ultimately forced into exile in Sudan, unable to see his children for years.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: New details have emerged about the FBI’s efforts to turn Muslim Americans living abroad into government informants. An exposé in Mother Jones magazine chronicles the story of an American named Naji Mansour. After he refused to become an informant while he was living in Kenya, he saw his life and his family’s life turned upside down. He was detained, repeatedly interrogated and ultimately forced into exile in Sudan, unable to see his children for years.

He ended up spending 37 days in a squalid prison in Sudan. After he was released from prison, FBI agents approached him again. This time Naji Mansour decided to record the phone conversation. During the call, the agent informs Mansour that he might get, quote, “hit by a car.” On Thursday, the phone recording was published by Mother Jones. Take a listen.

FBI AGENT: If you did have any kind of business going on today or any kind of things like that, you’re going to find how miniscule and worthless it was compared to this fork in the road that you’re about to—that you’re about to take.

NAJI MANSOUR: What are you talking about? No, why don’t you come out and say it?

FBI AGENT: OK.

NAJI MANSOUR: Why don’t you come out and say? What fork in the road are you talking about?

FBI AGENT: Dude, it’s—whatever. Honestly, I don’t care. I’m getting out of here. I don’t care. OK? And it’s—you know, when I tell somebody, “Hey, you know what? If you cross the street without looking, you’re going to get run over,” that’s not a threat, [bleep]; that’s advice [bleep], OK? You’re about to cross the street without looking both ways, and I’m telling you, “You know what? You might get hit by a car.” That is not a threat. That is a solid piece of the advice. So you don’t want to take it.

AMY GOODMAN: That was a phone conversation of an unidentified FBI agent pressuring Naji Mansour to become an informant. Mansour’s story is the focus of a new piece in Mother Jones titled “This American Refused to Become an FBI Informant. Then the Government Made His Family’s Life Hell.”

We’re joined now by Naji Mansour via Democracy Now! from Sudan. And joining us from Washington, D.C., is journalist is Nick Baumann, who wrote the piece for Mother Jones magazine.

Nick, let’s begin with you. Just lay out this whole story.

NICK BAUMANN: As you heard, this is a story about Naji Mansour, who refused to become an informant for the FBI, and sort of what happened to him and his family, especially his family, after he made that fateful decision. And the way I start the story, and I think the best place to start, is with Naji’s mom, who’s a longtime U.S. government employee, and his sister, and they’re in Juba in South Sudan. And it’s the middle of the night, late at night. Juba is a very dangerous place. And they’re actually wandering the streets looking for Naji, because he’s been disappeared. They don’t know where he is. They’ve been told by his wife that—who was held with him and then released, that he’s being held in a blue building somewhere, but they don’t know where that is. And imagine just if this is your child or your brother, and you’re an American living abroad, just having no idea where that person is and having to search for them. And Naji believes—and I think with—he has a few good reasons to believe this—that the U.S. government sort of orchestrated the bad things that happened to him and his family.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Naji Mansour, could you tell us how it is that you’ve later discovered that you came into the crosshairs of the FBI? Why did they begin to target you initially? And talk about those early—the early experiences you had.

NAJI MANSOUR: Well, basically, in 2008, I was working in Dubai in an IT company. And due to the financial crisis, I had come back to Nairobi in late 2008. I had gone early 2009 to cancel my visa, and then I returned to Nairobi. I had, on numerous occasions, offered my place in Kenya, or my—actually, our family house in Kenya to a lot of travelers or anybody who would like to come by. And this is a family tradition that we have. We have traveled most of our lives, and we have been given accommodation, and we have given accommodation.

So, apparently, just after I come back from Emirates, I get a call from a mosque acquaintance in Dubai, who, you know, I knew of, not so much, but we had several conversations. And on some occasion, maybe one or two occasions, I’ve offered him to come over to Kenya, or if he was ever in Kenya, that he should look me up, or something like this. He had called me, and he had asked for me to accommodate two young gentlemen coming by, his friends. I thought they would be coming from Emirates, but apparently they came from England. I kind of—I believed. When I was asking for more information, they had—the phone had cut. So, these two gentlemen happened to be on a watchlist. They had come over, stayed with me. And after about two weeks, my house was raided by local law enforcement. After the raid, which I—I wasn’t there, as can be read about in the story.

After the raid, I secured some legal documentation barring my deportation, which is usually what they do to young men who are married to Kenyan women. Once I obtained this documentation, I handed myself in to the anti-terror police unit, and they had questioned me for two days and let me go. After that, I brought myself to the U.S. Embassy to report this to the consular section, to a person called Mike Fogarty. And he basically brought in another guy called Jeff Roberts, who was the deputy RSO, head of security over there, or deputy head of security. And he basically came in with—very quickly came in with two FBI agents. It was very—it was very candid, but I agreed to sit and talk with them. It was from that time that the FBI was involved in my case.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from the conversation between you, Naji Mansour, and an FBI agent. Here, the agent tells you they’re scrutinizing not only you, but your mother.

FBI AGENT: What I’m trying to say is, you don’t want to come into the embassy to do it, fine. You know, I—we said we’d do it outside of the embassy. This isn’t a—meeting hasn’t been a priority to you. In fact, you haven’t wanted to sit with us since we’ve talked, since I’ve been back in country. OK? You say you want to get things resolved, I say there’s scrutiny on you. There’s scrutiny on your mom. She’s employed by the consulate, and yet you don’t want—or she’s employed at the consulate through a contractor, and you’re saying you don’t want to come to the embassy, and there’s a good—there’s good reason for that. So I said—…..more here

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