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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 10th,
2007 - Preacher Seized by CIA Tells of Torture in Egypt |
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Preacher Seized
by CIA Tells of Torture in Egypt By Stephen Grey The Sunday Times June 10, 2007 An Egyptian preacher who was
seized by the CIA in daylight on a Milan street has revealed the details of
14 months of torture to which he says he was subjected after his
“extraordinary rendition” to Egypt. Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr,
known as Abu Omar, described how Egyptian interrogators stripped him,
shackled his arms and legs in a crucifixion position and then beat him and
gave him electric shocks. He claimed they had twice attempted to rape him. Now living in Alexandria,
Nasr, 44, walks with a limp, is deaf in one ear and bears scars. Last Friday the trial opened
of 26 American defendants accused of kidnapping him on February 17, 2003, in
an operation prosecutors say was coordinated by the CIA and Italian
intelligence. None of the US defendants, a number of whom were identified by
aliases, attended. Nasr fled Egypt in 1988
after he was accused of being a member of Gama’a Islamiya, an Egyptian
militant group that later carried out terrorist attacks. He denied the
allegation and was granted political asylum in Italy. When he disappeared he
was walking to midday prayers at a radical mosque where he was a part-time
preacher. He became a “ghost
prisoner”, his arrest and detention confirmed to nobody. “I was out of
history. My lawyer searched prisons all over Egypt and no one could find a
trace of me,” he said. Senior CIA officials have
confirmed that Nasr was regarded by the US as an Al-Qaeda operative. A team
from Langley, Virginia, was dispatched to Milan to snatch him and fly him to
Egypt. According to Nasr, his
ordeal began in CIA hands after he was bundled into a white van and driven to
Aviano air force base. He claimed he had been beaten while bound and gagged,
and thought he would die. “I was bleeding: bleeding
from my face, bleeding from my knees, bleeding from other parts of my body,”
he said. “My mouth started foaming.” Throughout his 13-hour
journey via Ramstein in Germany to Egypt, nobody spoke to him. The CIA agents
had wrapped him in masking tape “like a mummy” that made his face bleed when
it was ripped off later. Nasr claimed that in Cairo
he had been taken to a room and told he was meeting two “pashas”, important
people. He was asked: “Do you want to be an informer for us? If you say yes
then you can be back in Italy in 24 hours.” When Nasr said no, they sent him
back to his cell. For the first seven months,
he said, he had been in the hands of Egyptian foreign intelligence, allies of
the CIA. He alleged its operatives had stripped him and given him constant
beatings with bare knuckles, sticks and electric cables. One method involved
handcuffing his leg to his hands, so he was forced to stand for hours on the
other leg, while being beaten. On September 14, 2003, he
was handed over to Egyptian state security at its interrogation compound in
the Nasr City district of Cairo. For the next seven months, his treatment
grew worse. “Once I was thrown on the
floor and my hands were cuffed to my back and they brought a security agent
who mounted my back and slapped on top of me so as to rape me. That’s when I
broke down and I started screaming till I passed out.” In April 2004, he was
released for 23 days but was told it was on condition he did not speak to the
media, telephone his wife and family in Italy or talk to human rights groups. When he broke the rules and
phoned home, his calls were tapped. A tap in Italy alerted the police to his
kidnapping and they began the investigation that eventually identified the
CIA team. Another phone tap in Egypt resulted in his rearrest. He continued
to be held without charge in prison until early this year. At no point was he
charged with any offence. Nasr’s allegations are hard
to verify in detail. He has not been examined by a doctor; nor has he been
brought before a court. According to Amnesty
International, which alleges 18,000 prisoners are held without trial in
Egypt, his account is credible. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, an
Amnesty expert on Egypt who interviewed Nasr, said: “Sending him back to
Egypt, knowing that Egypt practices torture on a widespread scale and knowing
that Abu Omar was wanted by the intelligence services, they knew he would be
tortured.” Egypt has acknowledged
receiving 60 to 70 prisoners from the US. It denies that torture is routine
and says when cases are identified, those responsible are punished. The Egyptian interior
ministry said Nasr was an unreliable character. “The information we had about
him was that he was, one way or the other, an individual who embraced the
ideology of jihad,” it said. The CIA and the US
government refused to discuss the case and refused to cooperate with the
Italian judicial inquiry. Stephen Grey interviewed
Nasr for Dispatches, Kidnapped to Order, on Channel 4 tomorrow at 8pm External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1909883.ece |