The music, cuisine and ancient sites are pleasant distractions, but the real reason we came to Fez is to interview a man named Mohamed Suleimani al Alami. A native of this lovely imperial city, he’s one of a handful of Moroccan prisoners who have been released from the Guantanamo prison camp.

Many other Moroccans are still in Guantanamo, some of them identified only by first name on www.cageprisoners.com, a Web site that compiles information on detainees at the notorious U.S. prison. After striking out with five other former Guantanamo detainees (three were still in Moroccan custody and two declined interviews), Mohamed Suleimani al Alami was our last hope.

Signs looked ominous from the beginning. In Rabat, we’d met with al Alami’s attorney, who told us his client had declined all interviews with journalists since his return to Morocco last year. The lawyer, however, was happy to show us court papers and letters from al Alami’s thick case file.

According to his attorney, 42-year-old al Alami was farming cattle with an Afghan partner when he was detained in 2001 in a village near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. He’d left Morocco because of family problems stemming from his marriage. He and his wife have a young daughter. (The attorney and the documents painted a detailed account of al Alami’s road to Guantanamo, but I have to save them for a news story. You can read al Alami’s testimony before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal on pages 72-73 of the document here.)

After more than four years as Guantanamo inmate No. 237, al Alami was released in early 2006 and repatriated to Morocco. He was finally home, but his ordeal wasn’t over – a Moroccan court charged him with participation in “a criminal gang, practice of activities in a non-recognized association and organization of unauthorized public meetings.”

He narrowly avoided a five-year prison sentence when a Moroccan judge acquitted him after a key witness recanted testimony that he’d seen al Alami at the Faruq training camp, according to al Alami’s lawyer. Fully cleared of any wrongdoing, al Alami returned to Fez to help look after his ailing father.

We arrived in Fez late Wednesday night and began calling al Alami’s phone number first thing Thursday morning. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. Later that afternoon, we tried again. The phone was switched off for the rest of the night. We began to wonder if we even had the correct number.

We’d pretty much given up and were preparing to leave Fez today when we tried the number a final time. Fouzi, a Moroccan friend who is acting as a translator and guide for me here, was startled when a relative of al Alami’s picked up and agreed to put the former detainee on the line. Fouzi and I huddled together in excitement, hoping for a breakthrough.

Al Alami was polite and friendly as he listened to our spiel about wanting to document the stories of former Guantanamo detainees. We reassured him we would only inquire about his time in U.S. custody, not his stint in Moroccan prison (many former detainees worry about being rearrested if they speak out about their post-release experiences in their home countries).

             “Let me think about it and consult some people and get back to you in a few minutes,” al Alami said.

            Ah, we thought, the classic brush-off. We didn’t expect to hear from him again, but we did – five minutes later.

            “I’m sorry, but I’ve consulted with my people and they’ve advised me not to do any media interviews,” al Alami said.

            We asked him if we could at least give him a list of questions that he could answer at his convenience and return to us by email.

            “Sorry, but I wouldn’t answer it even if you left it,” he said.