page_title: Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko
section_title: Discovery of interrogation video
hierarchical_section_title: Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko / Discovery of interrogation video
caption_attribution_description: FBI imagining of Abd al Rahim
context_page_description: A Syrian-Kurd, Abd Al-Rahim Abdul Rassak al-Janko is a former student in the United Arab Emirates who traveled to Afghanistan in 2000, where he was captured by the Taliban who announced that he had confessed to plotting to murder Osama bin Laden, as well as spying against the Taliban on behalf of Israel and the United States. He was also denounced for "his sexual indiscretions with other young men" and accused of homosexuality. Following the Invasion of Afghanistan, al-Janko begged a British journalist to alert the Americans that he had been held prisoner by the Taliban for two years; however, he was taken from the Taliban prison by American forces, and sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps where he spent seven years in detention.
context_section_description: On January 14, 2002, five video cassettes were recovered from the rubble of the destroyed home of Mohammad Atef outside Kabul, Afghanistan. The tapes showed Abderraouf Jdey, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Muhammad Sa'id Ali Hasan, and Khalid Ibn Muhammad Al-Juhani vowing to die as martyrs. A video of Al-Rahim was also found in the rubble, of his interrogation - ostensibly following torture - by Atef himself. The video showed his reaction to Atef's questioning of his sexuality, and claims that he had spied on behalf of the Americans and Israelis.
  In response, on January 17, 2002 the FBI released to the public the first Most Wanted Terrorists Seeking Information list, in order to profile the five wanted terrorists about whom very little was known, but who were suspected of plotting additional terrorist attacks. The videos were shown by the FBI without sound, ostensibly to guard against the possibility that the messages contained signals for other terrorists, although it turned out that in actuality the audiotrack would have vindicated al-Janko from the American claims.
  U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called upon people worldwide to help "identify, locate and incapacitate terrorists who are suspected of planning additional attacks against innocent civilians... These men could be anywhere in the world."  Ashcroft added that an analysis of the audio suggested "the men may be trained and prepared to commit future suicide terrorist acts."
  On that day, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was one of the only four known names among the five. Ashcroft said not much was known about any of them except bin al-Shibh.  The other initial known three are still featured in compiled video clips on the FBI site, in order of appearance, Muhammad Sa'id Ali Hasan, al-Janko, and Khalid Ibn Muhammad Al-Juhani.  The fifth subject was identified a week later as Abderraouf Jdey.
  Al-Janko, along with three others, was later removed by the FBI from the official count on the main page of the Seeking Information list. By February 2, 2003, the FBI rearranged its entire wanted lists on its web site, into the current configuration.  The outstanding five martyr video suspects (including Jdey's Montreal associate Boussora) were moved to a separate linked page, titled "Martyrdom Messages/video, Seeking Information Alert" (Although both Jdey and Boussora were later returned to the main FBI list page). Around this time the FBI also changed the name of the list, to the FBI "Seeking Information - War on Terrorism", to distinguish it from its other wanted list of "Seeking Information," which the FBI already uses for ordinary fugitives, those who are not terrorists.
caption: A composite image created by the FBI to show how al-Rahim may try to disguise himself.
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