Regarding Master Corporal Clayton Matchee, as far as my eyewitness goes to the events of that night, yes, I was not on duty but was on my way by the bunker. Shidane Arone was the prisoner in the bunker. I guess he had been captured. I hadn't noticed him on the way through the compound. I was on my way to use the satellite telephone to call home.
On the return from making that satellite transmission home—we were allotted a five- to ten-minute phone call once a week —I re-entered the compound. Adjacent to the entrance to the compound is the bunker where they would keep the prisoners prior to processing and sending them down the next day or two to the jail that we had helped set up. On my return to the compound, Master Corporal Matchee had seen me, because the bunker is quite close to the front gate, and he had called me over. He said, “Hey, we have a prisoner”, and he called me into the bunker.
When I went inside the bunker, he was there with Kyle Brown, who was off to the side. Master Corporal Matchee was holding a wooden baton in his hand.
As I stepped inside the bunker, just to paint the scene for you, I was a trooper at this time and I was not on duty. I was the lowest rank, a trooper, which equates to private, and he was the master corporal. This whole bunker situation with prisoners was not my task and never was. My duties belonged with foot patrolling downtown, but he called me over. He knew I was not in his section, so it was not an area of my responsibility, yet I went over. He was a master corporal. I looked inside the bunker. I stepped inside the bunker, and with the wooden baton he lifted up Shidane Arone's head and I saw a bruised and bloody face. The lips were swollen; the nose looked somewhat busted.
When I initially looked at it, I asked myself if this was from the point of capture and if it happened at the time he was captured. I was not entirely sure. This was at about 11:05 that night. I didn't expect that the prisoner was in any sort of dire condition. I was a boxer for five years previously in the amateur circuit in Alberta and British Columbia. I had seen a lot of wounds and experienced a lot of wounds in the ring. He didn't look as though he was in any imminent harm. I looked and saw that, and my mind was thinking he just wanted to show me or tell me that we had a prisoner, I guessed. I didn't really know why I was there. Then he looked down, Master Corporal Clayton Matchee, who had just finished showing me the prisoner, and all of a sudden he started whacking Shidane Arone across the thigh with the baton, and he started swearing and saying “Fucking spiders”—I apologize for my language—and he started beating the baton on the legs and moving backward and then turned around to the rear of the bunker, continually smacking that baton against the sides of the wall of the bunker. There were no camel spiders there.
We were inundated with camel spiders, which are huge, gross, ugly. It's not even a spider. It's in the arachnid family, but it's quite the pest. It's quite formidable. We were inundated with these things. What I experienced was Clayton Matchee in a state of hallucination, in a state of psychosis, in a state of severe aggression. Because he had turned around and was preoccupied with these camel spiders—and this all happened in a matter of seconds—I saw my opportunity to leave. I saw what he was doing. It made no sense. I looked over at Kyle Brown, who looked at me, and we didn't know what was going on. Kyle Brown was a trooper as well at that time, the lowest rank like myself. I had only just turned 22 years old. I thought that was my opportunity to get the hell out of there, so I backtracked, got out of the bunker, and started walking the hell away to get back to my cot. I just wanted to go back to bed. It was about 11:08 at night.
As I walked away, I was about 25 paces or less, and Kyle Brown came whipping up behind me and said, “John, John, John.” I stopped and looked at him. He said, “I don't know what's going on here. This isn't in my nature. I don't understand what's happening.” I said, “Neither do I. He's a master corporal. You're a trooper, as am I. There are orders. I don't understand what's going on either. I'm going back to my cot.” He just stood there for a moment. I went back to my cot. I turned and walked away and after a couple of steps I noticed that he headed back towards the bunker with his head down.
When I got back to my cot, I immediately put on the same album I always put on to try to get to sleep and decompress from the day's activities, which for me usually meant foot patrolling downtown or some shotgun diplomacy down at the Bailey bridge. I would put on the same album.
It was the new release by the Barenaked Ladies. It's actually their first album. There was a lot of acoustic music, very soft, quieting, and it helped me to decompress and to try to fall asleep. It's a 58-minute album. After 58 minutes, listening to the entirety of that album in my cot in my bed space away from the bunker, I took off the headphones. I couldn't sleep. I was still somewhat in shock over what had happened. I didn't expect this. It was very strange.
I wasn't a smoker, but I did smoke. I wouldn't ever buy them because that would be admitting that I liked to smoke. So I would bum off people. I knew Brady MacDonald was at the compound or at the communications headquarters tent doing his shift. I knew he was on shift so I thought I'd go over and see if he'd give me a cigarette. Brady MacDonald was always a soft touch. He was very nice to me and he handed me one. It was an Export A. “Green Death”, they call those green packs. They're horrible cigarettes anyway.
I had the cigarette and just before I finished the cigarette, I looked over to the open end of the modular tentage, and I saw a group of guys coming out and standing around that bunker that I'd been to an hour or so before. They were trying to revive Shidane Arone, who was now completely prone on the ground, unresponsive. They threw water on top of him, trying to revive him. They could not. I walked over, and I saw what was happening. Someone said, “Get the medic!” I just went, “Oh, my God.” I turned around, and I don't remember too much after that. I remember I might have talked to one or two people and gone back to my cot.
The next day, there we were and things started rolling along quite quickly. The police interviewed me to find out where I was during the time of the events, and they in due course decided I would be testifying for the prosecution of Kyle Brown. So I did the testifying for the prosecution.
That was my situation in the bunker the couple of minutes I was there, and that's what I experienced.
I knew Clayton Matchee prior to the tour, so I have the ability to understand exactly what state Clayton Matchee was in at that moment, and what was going on. His beating camel spiders that weren't there is absolutely hallucinogenic and so was the psychosis of the rage he was in. He didn't even notice us leaving the bunker. He didn't even stop us, where before he was all concerned about calling me over.
I could go on, but that's enough, I guess, for you.