Image courtesy of Rebecca Marshall Photography at rebecca-marshall.com.

Directors: Amir Aziz and Michael Niederman

Producer: Dan Norland

An Algerian citizen, Lakhdar was a charitable aid worker for the Bosnian Red Crescent Society in 2001, living a peaceful life in Sarajevo with his wife and their two young daughters. In October of that year, he was wrongfully accused, along with five other Algerians, of plotting a terror attack against the US embassy in Sarajevo. To this day, he has no idea why anyone ever suspected him of this.

Kidnapped, shackled, and renditioned to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba, Lakhdar was detained there from January 2002 to May 2009, with no charges ever filed against him. He endured brutal beatings, interrogation sessions, and uncertainty about whether he would ever see or even speak with his family again. Steadfast in his innocence, he embarked on prolonged hunger strikes to protest his mistreatment and was subjected to painful force-feeding sessions, strapped into a ‘torture chair’ specifically built for that purpose.

In 2008, Lakhdar accomplished an extraordinary feat. Having never lost faith that he would one day establish his innocence and win his freedom, he prevailed in a landmark US Supreme Court case that bore his name, Boumediène v. Bush, which held that Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court. He then appeared before a George W. Bush–appointed federal judge, Richard J. Leon, who reviewed the government’s case and ultimately found that it had none.

It had taken the better part of seven years – and extraordinary courage and perseverance – for Lakhdar to get his day in court. But once he did, it took just a few weeks for it to become clear that he never should have been detained in the first place. 

In May 2009, Lakhdar was finally reunited with his wife and daughters in France, where they were to be resettled. Their tearful reunion in Paris, though joyous, was also marked by his sorrow at having missed seven precious years of his two young daughters’ lives.

The name Boumediène has since become synonymous with the principles of justice and due process: Boumediène v. Bush marked a historic legal milestone enshrining the right of non-US citizens to be protected from unlawful and indefinite detention.

Where Korematsu has become a shorthand for the United States’ willingness to abandon the Constitution in wartime, Boumediène represents a refusal to do so, albeit one that came far too late.

Lakhdar now lives with his wife and three younger children, resuming their lives in a quiet village perched along the French Riviera, a short drive from his two older children and his grandchildren.

Our documentary film, LAKHDAR, is birthed from Lakhdar Boumediène’s powerful will to tell his incredible story of survival to the world and his desire to stop it from happening to others in the future. As the man who won a landmark Supreme Court case against a sitting US president, Lakhdar knows the immense historical weight his name carries - or should.

In the film, we follow him in Nice as he rebuilds his life, navigates France’s culture and customs, and experiences fatherhood for the second time. We listen to him and his family share the story of what they went through. We follow him as he seeks an official apology and some measure of justice from the US government.

LAKHDAR addresses several important questions. First, what happens to people who experience Guantánamo? How can anyone survive it, or how does one ever adjust to ‘normal’ life after witnessing its horrors? Second, will the US government do anything to try to right the wrongs of Guantánamo? Have our legal and cultural understandings of torture and detention changed in any meaningful way?

Have we learned anything from Boumediène, the case, or from Boumediène, the man? 

Your generous donation will enable the filmmaking team to complete the documentary and tell Lakhdar's story to the world. LAKHDAR reminds us that we must not look away from the horrors of Guantánamo or from the humanity of the men tortured there. It is an urgent reminder of the heavy debt the US still owes people like Lakhdar and their families.

For questions, contact Amir Aziz at [email protected] or the filmmaking team at [email protected].