RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA — Juma al-Dossari is returning to his life the way a photograph in a darkroom gradually takes shape on paper.
He is home after surviving six years and more than a dozen suicide attempts as a U.S. prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Courtyard walls have replaced barbed-wire fences, and Al-Dossari has completed what the Saudi government describes as a "soft approach" rehabilitation program to cleanse his mind, find him a wife, buy him a car and keep him happy so he doesn't drift back toward Islamic fanaticism and jihad.
It is a strange, erratic journey toward self-discovery; Al-Dossari says he can Google his name and find descriptions of a man he no longer knows, but he's still unsure about what kind of man he will become.
"We can't go immediately from getting off a plane from Cuba to living in society. Everything has changed," said Al-Dossari, a nervous, wiry 34-year-old in a checkered kaffiyeh. "There are more streets, bridges and buildings here than I remember. I was gone a long time. My driver's license expired while I was in Guantanamo. My father died. Now, I'm trying to get things back on track."
The other day, Al-Dossari sat on a long couch at the Care Rehabilitation Center with fellow released Guantanamo detainees. They wore pressed white tunics. Some spoke in broken English learned from their former captors; others were thin and still recovering from what Saudi doctors described as torture and trauma. Several of the men smiled as if posing for a family portrait, disguising the rage and bewilderment of lost years and wondering how to fit back into their native land, which was welcoming but suspicious.
This religiously rigid kingdom, a key U.S. ally that has been battling Islamic terrorist networks for years, is known for harsh imprisonment and interrogation tactics that often draw condemnation from human rights groups.
But for three years, the Interior Ministry has been trying to turn impressionable militants away from radicalism through six weeks of psychological counseling, religious reeducation, job training and art therapy that can produce Jackson Pollock knock-offs and stark desert scenes. Those who complete the program, such as Al-Dossari, receive outreach counseling and are kept under surveillance.
"We have to deal with the minds and the emotional passions of the extremists," said Turki Otayan, a psychologist at the center, which has treated 1,500 alleged militants, including more than 100 released this year from Guantanamo. "Fixing minds is like fixing a building with 60 floors. It's not easy."
