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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 2nd,
2005 - Suspect’s Tale of Travel and Torture 1st feature article from
the Guardian |
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Suspect’s Tale of Travel and
Torture Alleged bomb plotter claims two and a half years of interrogation under
US and UK supervision in ‘ghost prisons’ abroad By Stephen Grey & Ian Cobain The Guardian August 2, 2005 A former London schoolboy
accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full
account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost
detainees held at secret prisons around the world. For two and a half years US
authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan,
Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September
last year. Mohammed, 26, who grew up in
Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots
intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7.
One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a "dirty
bomb" in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to
collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal,
fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators. In an statement given to his
newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured
for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials
who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected
to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with
scalpels. He alleges that in Morocco
he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was
asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5. One interrogator, he
says, was a woman who said she was Canadian. Drawing on his notes,
Mohammed's lawyer has compiled a 28-page diary of his torture. This has been
declassified by the Pentagon, and extracts are published in the Guardian
today. Recruits to some groups
connected to al-Qaida are thought to be instructed to make allegations of
torture after capture, and most of Mohammed's claims cannot be independently
verified. But his description of a prison near Rabat closely resembles the
Temara torture centre identified in a report by the US-based Human Rights
Watch last October. Furthermore, this newspaper
has obtained flight records showing executive jets operated by the CIA flew
in and out of Morocco on July 22 2002 and January 22 2004, the dates he says
he was taken to and from the country. If true, his account adds
weight to concerns that the US authorities are torturing by proxy. It also
highlights the dilemma of British authorities when they seek information from
detainees overseas who they know, or suspect, are tortured. The lawyer, Clive Stafford
Smith, says: "This is outsourcing of torture, plain and simple. America
knows torture is wrong but gets others to do its unconscionable dirty work. "It's clear from the
evidence that UK officials knew about this rendition to Morocco before it
happened. Our government's responsibility must be to actively prevent the
torture of our residents." Mohammed was born in
Ethiopia and came to the UK aged 15 when his father sought asylum. After
obtaining five GCSEs and an engineering diploma at the City of Westminster
College in Paddington, he decided to stay in Britain when his father
returned, and was given indefinite leave to remain. In his late teens he
rediscovered Islam, prayed regularly at al-Manaar mosque in Notting Hill, and
was a volunteer at its cultural centre. "He is remembered here as a very
nice, quiet person, who never caused any trouble," says Abdulkarim
Khalil, its director. He enjoyed football, and was
thought good enough for a semi-professional career. "He was a quiet kid,
he seemed deep thinking, although that might have been because his language
skills weren't great," says Tyrone Forbes, his trainer. In June 2001 Mohammed left
his bedsit off Golborne Road, Notting Hill, and travelled to Afghanistan, via
Pakistan. He maintains he wanted to see whether it was "a good Islamic
country or not". It appears likely that he spent time in a paramilitary
training camp. He returned to Pakistan
sometime after 9/11, and remained at liberty until April 2002 - during which
time, US authorities believe, he became involved in the dirty bomb and gas
blast plots. His alleged accomplice, a Chicago-born convert to Islam, Jose
Padilla, is detained in the US. Mohammed says interrogators repeatedly
demanded he give evidence against him. Mohammed was arrested in
Karachi while trying to fly to Zurich - and thus entered a "ghost prison
system" in which an unknown number of detainees are held at unregistered
detention centres, and whose imprisonment is not admitted to the International
Committee of the Red Cross. His brother and sisters, who
live in the US, say the FBI told them of his arrest in summer 2002, but they
were unable to find out anything else until last February. In recent days the
Bush administration is reported to have lobbied to block legislation,
supported by some Republican senators, to prohibit the military engaging in
"cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment", and hiding prisoners from
the Red Cross. Mohammed alleges he was held
at two prisons in Pakistan over three months, hung from leather straps,
beaten, and threatened with a firearm by Pakistanis. In repeated questioning
by men he believes were FBI agents, he was told he was to go to an Arab
country because "the Pakistanis can't do exactly what we want them
to". The torture stopped after a
visit by two bearded Britons; he believes they were MI6 officers. He says
they told him he was to be tortured by Arabs. At one point, he says, they
gave him a cup of tea and told him to take plenty of sugar because
"where you're going you need a lot of sugar". He says he was flown on what
he believes was a US aircraft to Morocco, while shackled, blindfolded and
wearing earphones. It was, he says, in a jail near Rabat that his real ordeal
began. After a fortnight of questioningand intimidation, his captors tortured
him with beatings and noise, on and off, for 18 months. He says his torturers
used scalpels to make shallow, inch-long incisions on his chest and genitals. Throughout, he was accused
of being a senior al-Qaida terrorist and accomplice of Padilla. He denies
these allegations, though he says that while tortured he would say whatever
he thought his captors wanted. He signed a statement about the dirty bomb
plot. At one point, he says, interrogators told him his GCSE grades, and
asked about named staff at the housing association that owns his bedsit and
about a man who taught him kickboxing in Notting Hill. After 18 months, he says, he
was flown to Afghanistan, escorted by masked US soldiers who were visibly
shocked by his condition and took photos of his wounds. During five months in a
darkened cell in Kabul, he says he was kept chained, subjected to loud music,
and questioned by Americans. Only after he was moved to Bagram air base was
he shown to the Red Cross. Four months later he was flown to Guantánamo. Mr Stafford Smith was first
allowed to see him two months ago. He said there were marks of his injuries,
and he is pressing the US to release the photos taken in Morocco and
Afghanistan. Asked about the allegations,
the Foreign Office said the UK "unreservedly condemns the use of
torture". After consulting with the Home Office, MI5, and MI6, a
spokesman said: "The British government, including the security and
intelligence services, never uses torture for any purpose. Nor would HMG
instigate or condone the use of torture by third parties. "Specific instructions
are issued to all personnel of the UK security and intelligence services who
are deployed to interview detainees, which include guidance on what to do if
they considered that treatment in any way inappropriate." The FBI, the US justice
department, the Moroccan interior ministry and the Moroccan embassy in London
did not return calls. The CIA declined to comment. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/02/guantanamo.humanrights ‘One of them made cuts in my
penis. I was in agony’ From the Guardian August 2, 2005 Benyam Mohammed travelled
from London to Afghanistan in July 2001, but after September 11 he fled to
Pakistan. He was arrested at Karachi airport on April 10 2002, and describes
being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. These are
extracts from his diary. They cut off my clothes with
some kind of doctor's scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face.
But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they'd electrocute me. Maybe
castrate me. They took the scalpel to my
right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed
... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest.
This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming. One of them took my penis in
his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for
maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done
this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. "I
told you I was going to teach you who's the man," [one] eventually said. They cut all over my private
parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would
only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor. Doctor No 1 carried a
briefcase. "You're all right, aren't you? But I'm going to say a prayer
for you." Doctor No 2 gave me an Alka-Seltzer for the pain. I told him
about my penis. "I need to see it. How did this happen?" I told
him. He looked like it was just another patient. "Put this cream on it
two times a day. Morning and night." He gave me some kind of antibiotic. I was in Morocco for 18
months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One
time I asked a guard: "What's the point of this? I've got nothing I can
say to them. I've told them everything I possibly could." "As far as I know, it's
just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you'll have these scars and
you'll never forget. So you'll always fear doing anything but what the US
wants." Later, when a US airplane
picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of
the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries
I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul.
Someone told me this was "to show Washington it's healing". But in Morocco, there were
even worse things. Too horrible to remember, let alone talk about. About once
a week or even once every two weeks I would be taken for interrogation, where
they would tell me what to say. They said if you say this story as we read
it, you will just go to court as a witness and all this torture will stop. I
eventually repeated what was read out to me. When I got to Morocco they
said some big people in al-Qaida were talking about me. They talked about
Jose Padilla and they said I was going to testify against him and big people.
They named Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaidah and Ibn Sheikh al-Libi [all
senior al-Qaida leaders who are now in US custody]. It was hard to pin down
the exact story because what they wanted changed from Morocco to when later I
was in the Dark Prison [a detention centre in Kabul with windowless cells and
American staff], to Bagram and again in Guantánamo Bay. They told me that I must
plead guilty. I'd have to say I was an al-Qaida operations man, an ideas man.
I kept insisting that I had only been in Afghanistan a short while. "We
don't care," was all they'd say. I was also questioned about
my links with Britain. The interrogator told me: "We have photos of
people given to us by MI5. Do you know these?" I realised that the
British were sending questions to the Moroccans. I was at first surprised
that the Brits were siding with the Americans. On August 6, I thought I was
going to be transferred out of there [the prison]. They came in and cuffed my
hands behind my back. But then three men came in
with black masks. It seemed to go on for hours. I was in so much pain I'd
fall to my knees. They'd pull me back up and hit me again. They'd kick me in
my thighs as I got up. I vomited within the first few punches. I really
didn't speak at all though. I didn't have the energy or will to say anything.
I just wanted for it to end. After that, there was to be no more first-class
treatment. No bathroom. No food for a while. During September-October
2002, I was taken in a car to another place. The room was bigger, it had its
own toilet, and a window which was opaque. They gave me a toothbrush
and Colgate toothpaste. I was allowed to recover from the scalpel for about
two weeks, and the guards said nothing about it. Then they cuffed me and put
earphones on my head. They played hip-hop and rock music, very loud. I
remember they played Meat Loaf and Aerosmith over and over. A couple of days
later they did the same thing. Same music. For 18 months, there was not
one night when I could sleep well. Sometimes I would go 48 hours without
sleep. At night, they would bang the metal doors, bang the flap on the door,
or just come right in. They continued with two or
three interrogations a month. They weren't really interrogations, more like
training me what to say. The interrogator told me what was going on.
"We're going to change your brain," he said. I suffered the razor
treatment about once a month for the remaining time I was in Morocco, even
after I'd agreed to confess to whatever they wanted to hear. It became like a
routine. They'd come in, tie me up, spend maybe an hour doing it. They never
spoke to me. Then they'd tip some kind of liquid on me - the burning was like
grasping a hot coal. The cutting, that was one kind of pain. The burning,
that was another. In all the 18 months I was
there, I never went outside. I never saw the sun, not even once. I never saw
any human being except the guards and my tormentors, unless you count the
pictures they showed me. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/02/terrorism.humanrights1 |