SAMI

From: me
To: Sami
Date: 01.01.2007
Subject: from Germany
______________________________

Dear Sami,

Happy New Year!
I hope this eMail reaches you somehow and somewhere. And more than anything I hope that you are out of Syrian prison. Although I can't say that I hope for you to be back in Iraq, I presume (or fear) that might be the case.

I don't really know what to say to you. Meeting you and your fellow country-men in the prison in Damascus was a very intense and overwhelming experience and I don't think I have quite lived up to the implemenations it had on me yet. It happened just as I told you: I left the prison on that saturday night with a smile on my face because I thanked God for having given me that experience and for having met you all, especially you. Now I'm back in Germany and I meet friends, that have somehow heard about my experience in Syria and they say: "Hey, I heard they locked you up in Syria... how the hell did that happen?" ...and - like I said to you in prison - it's a good story, but I try to always end it with: "...well, it might sound like a good story with a happy ending in my case, but it certainly isn't for those I shared the cell with." Then I tell them about you, the call you got, your friends who were killed after receiving that same call, your escape to Syria etc., about 'Ali, whose two brothers were killed by the Americans... and of course about poor Kusay, whose chest they broke in prison.

Sami, please let me know where you are now, if you are back in Iraq, or somehow still in Syria. And please - if there is anything I can do for you, let me know. I really mean that.

I think of you a lot, my friend and I pray that God will help you with your start from zero and that He will make things easier for you as much as possible.

Take care and may the New Year bring you peace and safety more than anything.

Love,
Selim "al-Almani"