INTIMACIES by Katie Kitamura

“The Court has succeeded in extraditing a well-known jihadist who stood accused of four counts of crimes against humanity and five counts of war crime.
The authorities surrendered him earlier that day, and he was being transported to a plane as we spoke.

We expect that the accused will land in The Hague just after midnight, at which point he will be transferred to the Detention Centre.
He will need to be read his rights, and of course there will be other issues, he may have questions or requests or practical matters to communicate.
It’s very difficult to predict the mood of the accused once they are detained, often they are in a state of shock or denial.”

“In a few hours, I would meet this man, who would then no longer be a name and a photograph, a list of actions and accusations, but a person in the world.
I didn’t know if I was prepared for that, it seemed almost impossible to fathom–at some point he had crossed a boundary and his personhood had been hollowed out.”

“He was accompanied by two guards, he was wearing traditional robes and looked so much older than in the photograph, which could not have been taken very long ago, that I felt an immediate and inexplicable tightening in my throat.
He glared at each of us in turn, he stood with his mouth pursed, it was clear that he was disgusted with the situation.”

“I began interpreting immediately, angling my body toward the accused and speaking in a low voice into his ear.
The man jerked his head away, as if irritated by a mosquito or some other airborne insect, he gave no sign whatsoever of listening.”

“Finally, the accused stared at me and asked–in French, which he spoke haltingly but I thought fluently–why he had not been provided with an Arabic language interpreter.”

Kindle, 2022