Charleston Brig

An attorney for Ali Saleh al-Marri (pictured) provided newly declassifid videos of al-Marri's six-year detention at a Charleston, S.C. military brig to The Post and Courier of Charleston, which are now available here.

"These videos show ... al-Marri[ ] struggling with his six years of solitary confinement, hiding under a metal bed without a mattress and circling his tiny windowless cell for hours," reports The Post and Courier. "Other videos later in al-Marri's incarceration show him bantering easily with brig staff as they place blackout goggles, earmuffs and chains on him before taking him out of his cell."

Adam Serwer highlighted this "kicker" from The Post and Courier's story:

A day after he took office, President Barack Obama reversed the Bush administration's enemy combatant stance and ordered al-Marri transferred from military custody to the courts. Before al-Marri agreed to plead guilty, al-Marri sat with investigators for hours, Savage said. In this less-threatening setting, al-Marri verified some of the government's accusations against him and steered the government away from errors in its intelligence.

"It was a lesson in building trust and having open communications is beneficial to the United States and al-Marri," he said. "In the interrogations, they got nothing."