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Radiolab

The Other Latif: Episode 2

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.643.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Other Latif

Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and shocking discovery. He shares his name with another man: Abdul Latif Nasser, detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government paints a terrifying picture of The Other Latif as Al-Qaeda’s top explosives expert, and one of the most important advisors to Osama bin Laden. Nasser’s lawyer claims that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that he was never even in Al-Qaeda. This clash leads Radiolab’s Latif into a years-long investigation, picking apart evidence, attempting to separate fact from fiction, and trying to uncover what this man actually did or didn’t do. Along the way, Radiolab’s Latif reflects on American values and his own religious past, and wonders how his namesake, a fellow nerdy, suburban Muslim kid, may have gone down such a strikingly different path.

Episode 2: Morocco

Latif travels to Abdul Latif’s hometown of Casablanca, Morocco, to try and find out: was he radicalized? And if so, how? Latif begins by visiting the man’s family, but the family’s reaction to him gets complicated as Latif digs for the truth. He finds out surprising information on a political group Abdul Latif joined in his youth, his alleged onramp to extremism. Tensions escalate when Latif realizes he’s being tailed.

Read more about Abdul Latif Nasser at the New York Times’ Guantanamo Docket.

This episode was produced by Sarah Qari, Suzie Lechtenberg, and Latif Nasser. With help from Tarik El Barakah and Amira Karaoud. Fact checking by Diane Kelly and Margot Williams. Editing by Jad Abumrad and Soren Wheeler. Original music by Jad Abumrad, Alex Overington, and Amino Belyamani.

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm LutthifNasar and this is the other Lutthif episode 2, Morocco.

0:27.9

So the past few years since I discovered I share my name with a Guantanamo detainee,

0:32.5

I've interviewed his lawyer Shelby Sullivan-Venis 10 times.

0:37.1

And every time I do talk to her, I go like this.

0:44.6

So let me just run you through the laundry list of stuff we wanted to talk to you about.

0:48.2

Kind of nervous.

0:49.2

No, no, no.

0:50.2

I apply her with questions about new stuff I've learned or uncovered.

0:53.6

What did he tell you?

0:54.6

What percentage of that would you say is true and what percentage of that would you say

0:57.5

is false?

0:58.5

And she tells me what she can, which is never much.

1:04.0

Again, I'm kind of doing the internal brain vet of class-fed information versus unclassified.

1:09.3

Sure.

1:10.3

Yeah, take your time.

1:17.7

So there's a distinction between information, information that I know, information I don't

1:27.3

know, and information that is either class-fed or declassified that the client has told

1:33.1

me.

1:34.1

Yeah.

1:35.1

So I think I can't answer that question at all annoyingly.

1:38.1

I'm sorry.

1:39.1

OK, that's OK.

...

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