Ex-Detainee on Guantanamo

Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian who spent 7 years in Guantanamo Bay, talks about his detention and returning to a normal life. He was the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, that gave detainees the right to seek judicial review of their imprisonment and he was released to France earlier this month.

On Christmas in 2006, Boumediene recalled, he started a hunger strike in an effort to get someone to listen to his pleas of innocence. Twice a day, about 6 a.m. and 1 p.m., he was strapped to an iron chair and force-fed through a tube in his nose that reached into his stomach.

Until a meal with his lawyers as he was about to leave Guantanamo, Boumediene said, he broke his fast only twice, once when he learned of President Obama's election and again when the judge ordered his release.

"I have no idea why this happened to me," he said. "I'm a Muslim like any other. I pray and I observe Ramadan. But I don't have any hatred against anybody."

Grateful to be settling in France with government help, his first goal is to draw close to his family again, Boumediene said. But down the road, he added, he wants to sue the U.S. government or its senior officials to hold them accountable.

"I don't know whether it will be possible," he said. "But even if it takes 100 years, I am determined to bring suit."