Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi suffers torture in Libya prisons

Human rights not guaranteed in new Libya

Πηγή: Middle East Online 

Feb 27 2013

Τunisian lawyer says Mahmudi is in critical condition as result of torture he has suffered, adding ‘he could die’.

TUNIS - Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, the last premier of deposed Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi, is in critical condition after being tortured in a Libyan prison, his Tunisian lawyer said on Wednesday.

Mahmudi "is in critical condition as a result of the torture he has suffered," said Mabrouk Kourchid, adding that "he could die".

The lawyer did not provide any further details nor reveal his sources for fear they could suffer reprisals.

Mahmudi fled to neighbouring Tunisia in September 2011, shortly after rebels seized Tripoli and effectively put an end to more than four decades of Gathafi's iron-fisted rule.

He was arrested there and extradited to Libya last June, despite warnings from rights groups that he could face the death penalty.

He went on trial in November for what the prosecutor general's spokesman said were "prejudicial acts against the security of the state and financial crimes."

In July, Mahmudi protested his innocence to journalists visiting his prison.

"I am not guilty, not guilty, not guilty," he told reporters during a visit organised by the authorities in an apparent bid to quash rumours he had been tortured.

A physician by training, Mahmudi was loyal to Gathafi until the end, serving as premier from 2006 up to the final days of his regime.

Along with Seif al-Islam, the toppled dictator's most high-profile son who is also on trial, Mahmudi is one of the few remaining keepers of the many state secrets under Gathafi, who was captured and killed by rebels in October 2011.

Terra Incognita: The CIA’s jihad against ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

A detainee is escorted to his cell at Guantanamo

Πηγή: The Jerusalem Post
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Jan 8 2013

It isn’t every day that members of the US Senate seek to interfere in a Hollywood production or other work of art.
In mid-December, US Senators Diane Feinstein and John McCain wrote a letter to Sony Pictures condemning the movie Zero Dark Thirty. The film was “grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location” of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, they wrote.

It isn’t every day that members of the US Senate seek to interfere in a Hollywood production or other work of art. It isn’t every day that senators seek even to decide which history books are “grossly inaccurate and misleading” and which represent the “correct” narrative. In fact it would seem that not since the days of Joe McCarthy, has the US Senate shown such interest in the creative instincts of Hollywood. Those days it was Communists, now it seems to be the fear audiences might get the wrong message.

What prompted this outburst was the Kathryn Bigelow masterpiece Zero Dark Thirty, a well constructed film about the hunt for Bin Laden.

Bigelow was the toast of the town for her gritty portrayal of solders working on bomb disposal in The Hurt Locker. But in Zero Dark Thirty she sought to tell the story of the decade-long hunt for Bin Laden, focusing on a female CIA officer who kept the oil burning when all else seemed lost. In doing so Bigelow had to re-visit those controversial days when the US whisked men off to “black sites” and subjected them to “enhanced interrogation.”

These interrogations involved placing detainees in “stress positions,” some beatings, simulated drowning (known as waterboarding) and other less than kosher means of extracting information. Critics deemed it torture, and anyone watching it in Zero Dark Thirty will agree. But as George Bush is shown quipping in the Oliver Stone film W, “that reminds me of my fraternity days.” No one died or had their fingernails ripped out one by one.

And here Bigelow’s troubles began.

Because the film seemed to remain moralityneutral on the subject, without some character who says “I won’t stand for this” or “America doesn’t torture,” it is construed as condoning the actions.

Jesselyn Radack wrote at the Daily Kos, “I saw Zero Dark Thirty yesterday and it’s revolting – for its blatant propaganda, glorification of torture and false narrative that torture led to the demise of Bin Laden.”

Radack suggested that the movie must have a disclaimer that explains “torture does not work and was of no value in finding Osama bin Laden.”

In their letter to Sony the US senators asserted that the studio has an “obligation” to state that the film “is not based on facts, but rather part of the film’s narrative.”

The senators believe in the narrative presented by the Senate Intelligence Committee, a secret document, that supposedly shows “other means” were used to locate Bin Laden’s courier, not interrogation of a subject.

The senators are incensed that the film is “perpetuating the myth that torture is effective.”

But now things have taken an unusual turn. Jose Rodriguez, who supervised the interrogation program from 2002 to 2007, has claimed: “Sorry, Hollywood, what we did wasn’t torture,” and has noted that “no one was bloodied or beaten” on his watch.

Now the US Senate Intelligence Committee has sent the head of the CIA a letter demanding to know more about contacts between the CIA and the filmmakers and arguing that perhaps the CIA misled the Hollywood artists. For his part, the CIA director has sent around a letter to CIA employees explaining that “multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well.”

What seems to bother everyone is that Zero Dark Thirty is about a true story. However, other movies based on real events, such as Oliver Stone’s Nixon, or Charlie Wilson’s War, have not been upbraided by the US government.

Films about the CIA have also never come in for such a complaint from the agency, whether it is The Quiet American, The Good Shepherd, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Spy Game or Russia House, to name a few. So why did this particular film strike so close to home? In the wake of the revelations about what the “enhanced interrogation” program entailed and after America had cooled off from the shock of 9/11, numerous people became unhappy with the apparent illegality of America whisking terror suspects off to “black sites” in foreign countries where they were denied rights they would have had under military law and civilian law in the US.

The discomfort bred a narrative that “torture doesn’t work” as a response to those who maintained the need for torture in the “ticking bomb scenario” where a terrorist is caught and a bomb he knows about will explode in several hours. This was the subject of the 2010 film Unthinkable, in which Samuel L. Jackson must torture a terrorist to find a nuclear bomb that is about to explode.

The idea behind the “it doesn’t work” argument is that it defangs the critics who want to torture and also gives the anti-torture people an argument that seems hard-nosed and intelligent. Of course it ignores the moral issue of torture; if torture did work, would it be justified? The US Constitution has said no, in denying “cruel and unusual punishment” and providing a host of rights to defendants. The senators and others cling to the “it doesn’t work” argument out of fear that people know, in the back of their minds, that maybe it does work.

They are afraid that Zero Dark Thirty is an accurate depiction of events. But since when were people so worried about moviegoers getting the “wrong message” from a movie?

Libyan Alleges Waterboarding by C.I.A., Report Says

A member of the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group in Tripoli in 2011. Members were detained in Afghanistan and sent back.

Πηγή: New York Times
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and SCOTT SHANE
Sept 6 2012

WASHINGTON — Days after the Justice Department closed out its criminal investigation of the deaths of two detainees while in the custody of the C.I.A., new information has surfaced calling into question official accounts of the extent of waterboarding by American interrogators.

A new report by the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch, based on documents and interviews in Libya after the fall of its dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, includes a detailed description of what appears to be a previously unknown instance of waterboarding by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan nine years ago.

That claim clashes with repeated assertions by current and former agency officials that only three high-level terrorism suspects — none of them Libyans — were waterboarded.

The account documented by Human Rights Watch could not be independently corroborated. But the report’s description of interrogation methods, based on individual interviews with former prisoners who had not sought out the human rights workers, match up with official documents on C.I.A. techniques. It underscores how much is still not known about the United States’ treatment of terrorist suspects during the early years of the Bush administration.

When President Obama took office in 2009, members of Congress and human rights advocates called for a “truth commission” to establish a definitive account of interrogation and detention. But the calls faded after Mr. Obama said he wanted to look forward and not backward.

Last week, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that a three-year criminal investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program was concluding without any charges being filed. The only remaining inquiry into the program, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, is nearing completion, but its report is classified and it is unclear how much will become public.

The investigation by Human Rights Watch had its origins in a trove of documents related to detainees transferred to Colonel Qaddafi’s prisons, including several by the United States. The papers became available last year as a result of the uprising against the Libyan leader, which was supported by the United States and other NATO allies.

Researchers used the names on the files as part of their broader efforts to track down former prisoners transferred to Libyan custody and interview them, opening an unusual window into American detention, interrogation and rendition operations nearly a decade ago. Many of the former detainees are now living freely in Libya, and some are active in politics or have positions in the new government.

The 156-page report, “Delivered Into Enemy Hands: U.S.-led Abuse and Rendition of Opponents to Gaddafi’s Libya,” written by Laura Pitter, recounts interviews with 14 Libyans who it says are former detainees who were sent back to Libya around 2004, after Colonel Qaddafi agreed to renounce his nuclear ambitions and help fight Islamist terrorism. At least five, Ms. Pitter writes, had been held by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan before their rendition.

Most of the former detainees were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group, who were dedicated to the overthrow of the Qaddafi government. Many had gone to Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and some had come into contact with Al Qaeda. In December 2004, the State Department designated the Libyan group a terrorist organization, but the former detainees denied being allied with Al Qaeda against the Western nations that had largely considered Colonel Qaddafi a pariah.

A particular focus of the report is the account of Mohammed Shoroeiya, who was reportedly detained in Pakistan in April 2003 and held in American custody in Afghanistan before being transferred to Libya. Mr. Shoroeiya gave Ms. Pitter detailed sketches of what he said were prison facilities and techniques.

Mr. Shoroeiya told Human Rights Watch that at one point in Afghanistan, his American captors had put a hood on his head and strapped him to a wooden board, then poured water over his face until he felt as if he was asphyxiating. An American man who appeared to be a doctor was present during the sessions, he said. While he did not use the term “waterboarding,” the description matches that technique.

“They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating,” Mr. Shoroeiya said. He was asked questions between sessions, he added, and “they wouldn’t stop until they got some kind of answer from me.”

C.I.A. officials have publicly stated that waterboarding was used only on three prisoners: Abu Zubaydah, who helped run a terrorist training camp; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of plotting the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000; and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ms. Pitter said Mr. Shoroeiya first mentioned a board being used in water torture in 2009 to a Human Rights Watch researcher who spoke with him in a Libyan prison. She said she tracked him down this year hoping to learn more about his treatment in Libya. “All these guys are grateful for the intervention,” she said, referring to the NATO assistance to Libyan rebels. “But they just feel like somebody needs to acknowledge that this happened to them and that it was wrong.”

Asked about the reported fourth case of waterboarding, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Youngblood, said, “The agency has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases in which detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique under the program.” She said she could not comment on the “specific allegations” in the Human Rights Watch report but noted that the Justice Department had reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees held by the agency and “declined prosecution in every case.”

Justice Department officials have declined to discuss which cases they examined or why charges were not brought, referring in general terms to problems with evidence, statutes of limitations and jurisdiction. But it is possible that the treatment of the Libyans, which has not been previously reported, was not part of the investigation.

Mr. Shoroeiya and another detainee imprisoned in Pakistan and held by the Americans in Afghanistan, Khalid al-Sharif, reported other mistreatment, too.

They described being stripped naked and chained to walls; being left in diapers in dark cells for weeks or months at a time without being allowed to bathe; being forced into painful stress positions; being slammed into walls while their necks were protected by a foam collar; being forced into a small box; and being subjected to continuous, loud music.

Many of those techniques match the descriptions of techniques that the Bush administration approved as lawful, despite anti-torture laws. The techniques have been discussed for years and were detailed in Justice Department memorandums that were declassified in 2009.

Several details were new, however. Mr. Shoroeiya said the board to which he was strapped for the suffocation sessions could also be spun around, disorienting him. Mr. Shoroeiya also described being forced to stand, with one leg broken, naked and without food for over a day in a tall, narrow box while music blared from speakers on either side of his head. And both he and Mr. Sharif said interrogators forced them to lie in icy water in a sort of tub improvised from a tarp, with more water poured over their faces.

Obama's justice department grants final immunity to Bush's CIA torturers

Anti-torture activists, wearing Guantánamo-style orange jumpsuits, demonstrate outside the White House in June 2011

Πηγή: The Guardian
By Glenn Greenwald

August 31 2012

(updated below)

The Obama administration's aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the "war on terror" crimes committed by Bush officials is now complete. Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the closing without charges of the only two cases under investigation relating to the US torture program: one that resulted in the 2002 death of an Afghan detainee at a secret CIA prison near Kabul, and the other the 2003 death of an Iraqi citizen while in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. This decision, says the New York Times Friday, "eliminat[es] the last possibility that any criminal charges will be brought as a result of the brutal interrogations carried out by the CIA".

To see what a farce this is, it is worthwhile briefly to review the timeline of how Obama officials acted to shield Bush torturers from all accountability. During his 2008 campaign for president, Obama repeatedly vowed that, while he opposed "partisan witch-hunts", he would instruct his attorney general to "immediately review" the evidence of criminality in these torture programs because "nobody is above the law." Yet, almost immediately after winning the 2008 election, Obama, before he was even inaugurated, made clear that he was opposed to any such investigations, citing what he called "a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards".

Throughout the first several months of his presidency, his top political aides, such as the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, publicly – and inappropriately – pressured the justice department to refrain from any criminal investigations. Over and over, they repeated the Orwellian mantra that such investigations were objectionable because "we must look forward, not backward". As Gibbs put it in April 2009, when asked to explain Obama's opposition, "the president is focused on looking forward. That's why."

On 16 April 2009, Obama himself took the first step in formalizing the full-scale immunity he intended to bestow on all government officials involved even in the most heinous and lethal torture. On that date, he decreedabsolute immunity for any official involved in torture provided that it comported with the permission slips produced by Bush department of justice (DOJ) lawyers which authorized certain techniques. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution," the new president so movingly observed in his statement announcing this immunity. Obama added:

"[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past … we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."

Note how, in Obama's new formulation, those who believed that Bush officials should be held criminally accountable for their torture crimes – should be subjected to the rule of law on equal terms with ordinary citizens – were now scorned as "the forces that divide us". On the same day, Holder issued his own statement arguing that "it would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department."

But at least this limited immunity left open the possibility of prosecuting those agents who went beyond the limits of the DOJ memos in how they tortured: in other words, those "rogue" torturers who used brutality and savagery beyond even what was permitted by Bush lawyers. On several occasions, Holder had flamboyantly leaked that he was horrified by what he read in certain case files about detainees who were severely injured by torture or even killed by it – there were more than 100 detainees who died while in US custody – and that he could not, in good conscience, simply sweep all of that under the rug.

As a result, in August 2009, Holder announced a formal investigation to determine whether criminal charges should be brought in over 100 cases of severe detainee abuse involving "off-the-books methods" such as "mock execution and threatening a prisoner with a gun and a power drill", as well as threats that "prisoners [would be] made to witness the sexual abuse of their relatives." But less than two years later, on 30 June 2011, Holder announced that of the more than 100 cases the justice department had reviewed, there would be no charges brought in any of them – except two.

The only exceptions were two particularly brutal cases, both of which resulted in the death of the detainee. One involved the 2002 abuse of Gul Rahman, who froze to death in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistanknown as the "Salt Pit", after he was beaten, stripped, and then shackled to a cement wall in freezing temperatures.

The other was the 2003 death of Manadel al-Jamadi at Abu Ghraib, whodied in CIA custody after he was beaten, stripped, had cold water poured on him, and then shackled to the wall. It was al-Jamadi's ice-packed body which was infamously photographed with a smiling US Army Sgt Charles Granier standing over it giving the thumbs-up sign.

A US military autopsy declared al-Jamadi's death a homicide due to "blunt force trauma to the torso complicated by compromised respiration". Autopsy photos showed "lacerations and multiple bruises on Jamadi's feet, thighs and arms", though "his most significant injuries – five broken ribs – are not visible in the photos." A physician told NPR back in 2005:

"'How Jamadi was shackled 'makes it very difficult to breathe because you are suspended in a very awkward position. When you combine it with having the hood over your head and having broken ribs, it's fairly clear that this death was caused by asphyxia because he couldn't breathe properly.'"

So, those are the two cases which the DOJ this week announced it was closing without any charges of any kind being brought. Because the Obama administration has systematically blocked all other cases besides these two from any possibility of criminal charges, yesterday's decision means that nobody in the US government will pay any price for the systematic worldwide torture regime which that nation implemented and maintained for close to a decade.

This is so despite the findings of General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the torture regime and said that "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes" and "the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." And it is done even in the face of General Barry McCaffrey's extraordinary observation that:

"We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA."

The ACLU's Jameel Jaffer yesterday said:

"That the justice department will hold no one accountable for the killing of prisoners in CIA custody is nothing short of a scandal … the decision not to file charges against individuals who tortured prisoners to death is yet another entry in what is already a shameful record."

Beyond the disgust that these events, on their own, should invoke in any decent person, there are two points worth making about all of this which really highlight just how odious all of it is.

First, Obama has shielded Bush torture crimes not only from criminal prosecution, but any and all forms of accountability. Obama himselfvigorously opposed and succeeded in killing even a congressional investigation into the torture regime at a time when his party controlled both houses of Congress.

Moreover, Obama's top officials, as WikiLeaks cables revealed, secretly worked with GOP operatives to coerce other countries, such as Spainand Germany, to quash their investigations into the US torture of their citizens, and issued extraordinary threats to prevent British courts from disclosing any of what was done. And probably worst of all, the Obama administration aggressively shielded Bush officials even from being held accountable in civil cases brought by torture victims, by invoking radical secrecy powers and immunity doctrines to prevent courts even from hearing those claims.

In sum, the Obama administration has been desperate to ensure that there will be no accountability or even that meaningful investigations ever take place. That is almost certainly due to the fact that numerous high-level members of Obama's own party were so complicit in these crimes. But at least equally important is this remarkable – and, it turns out, prescient – observation from a New York Times article by Charlie Savage in December 2008, on the prospect of torture investigations aimed at Bush officials:

"Because every president eventually leaves office, incoming chief executives have an incentive to quash investigations into their predecessor's tenure."

In other words, Obama is motivated to shield Bush officials from accountability for their crimes in the hope that once Obama leaves office, he, too, will be gifted identical immunity from the rule of law.

Second, although government torturers have now been fully protected by Obama from any accountability, those who blow the whistle on such crimes continue to be pursued by the same administration with unprecedented aggression. As Friday's Times article on Holder's announcement pointedly notes:

"While no one has been prosecuted for the harsh interrogations, a former CIA officer who helped hunt members of al-Qaida in Pakistan and later spoke publicly about waterboarding, John C Kiriakou, is awaiting trial on criminal charges that he disclosed to journalists the identity of other CIA officers who participated in the interrogations."

Here, again, we see one of the prime precepts of American justice: high-level official who commit even the most egregious crimes are shielded from all accountability; the only real "criminals" are those who speak publicly about those crimes.

When Obama first announced his intent to run for president, he vowed that "the era of Scooter Libby justice … will be over" – meaning high-level officials will no longer be able to break the law with impunity. In mid 2008, Holder denounced Bush's illegal torture and surveillance programs as showing "disrespect for the rule of law", and he vowed:

"We owe the American people a reckoning."

To say those pledges have been radically violated is to understate the case. Far worse, though, is that Obama officials have bolstered the warped precept at the root of so many of America's disasters: that crimes committed by and at the behest of the powerful reside above and beyond the rule of law. In so doing, they have ensured that Bush officials who authorized torture continue to command mainstream respectability, while future leaders tempted to torture again have no reason whatsoever to refrain from doing so.

This final act in the sorry spectacle has long been predictable, even inevitable. But that does not make it any less repellent.

* * * * *

UPDATE: I was on Democracy Now this morning with Amy Goodman discussing Holder's announcement. The seven-minute segment (which also included a discussion of Clint Eastwood's spectacular stream-of-consciousness outburst at the GOP convention last night), can be seen on the player below; a transcript will be posted here a bit later in the day:

Popular Libyan TV reporter killed in Tripoli jail

Libyan TV reporter, Hala al-Misrati, has been killed in a prison cell in Tripoli

Πηγή: The Voice of Russia
By RIAN
Feb 19 2012

A popular Libyan TV reporter, Hala al-Misrati, has been killed in a prison cell in Tripoli, the Al Arabiya television reports.

This happened on February 17, exactly a year after the beginning of an armed rebellion that led to regime change in Libya last autumn.

Al-Misrati openly opposed the rebels and often criticized the new authorities.

The last time she appeared before TV cameras was in late December. She stood silently, holding a sheet of paper on “December 30” was written, her face bearing traces of beating. Those who saw that video said that she had probably had her tongue cut off.

Fresh evidence of torture and abuse of thousands of prisoners in post-Gaddafi Libya appears almost daily.

Caught on video: The horrifying proof that Libya's freedom fighters have turned into brutal torturers

Πηγή: Daily Mail
By BARBARA JONES

Feb 12 2012

• Film shows three men tying up blood-spattered man before whipping him with cables and touching him on his skin with electric wires
• Man, suspected by rebels of having supported Gaddafi, told: ‘Blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done’
• Video handed to Mail on Sunday in Tripoli refugee camp

A terrified Libyan man is beaten and tortured with electric shocks by youths who appear to be former revolutionary fighters.

The images, taken from a video handed to The Mail on Sunday in a Tripoli refugee camp, will be seen as fresh evidence that those who deposed Colonel Gaddafi with the help of the West are adopting methods as brutal as the dead tyrant’s.

The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy.



The man being whipped with cables on the video was Saleh Barhoun Gersh, who had run a general store in Towerga - which was loyal to Gaddafi during the conflict until the town was ransacked by fighters from nearby Misrata. When the rebels arrived, Mr Gersh was so frightened he wore women's clothes to disguise himself

The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy

The men, one of whom is wearing combat trousers and is armed with a knife, tell the man that 'blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done'

The new video images follow growing protests about abuse and torture in parts of the country.

Doctors from the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have pulled out after refusing to deal with the results of such brutality in their clinics.

According to sources, the youths in the video were former rebels who refused to surrender their weapons at the end of the civil war in October – and are intent on revenge on those they suspect of having supported Gaddafi.

They are said to have driven in armed trucks into the al-Fellah ‘internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp in a suburb of Tripoli, firing at crowds and searching homes until they found men on their list of ‘suspects’.


Fury: Women in the refugee camp, in a suburb of Tripoli, scream at the militia

Their victim, seen on the video, was Saleh Barhoun Gersh, who had run a general store in Towerga – which was loyal to Gaddafi during the conflict until the town was ransacked by fighters from nearby Misrata city.

Before Gaddafi was killed, the rebels had been under siege from his forces for weeks in Misrata – a port 150 miles east of Tripoli.



Commander Mohamed al-Deaka said of the men carrying out the abuse: 'Yes, it happens here, but it's everywhere in Libya. We have to use force to make prisoners give answers. Our city was destroyed in the fighting. Now we want to know who carried out the destruction, who raped our women and stole our property'

When some of the Misrata rebels arrived at the camp, Mr Gersh was so frightened he wore women’s clothes to disguise himself.

In the film he cries out as he is whipped and is told: ‘You are from Towerga, you dog. You say you did nothing in Misrata, so why are you in disguise? We found weapons in every house in Towerga. Your hand is bleeding and we hope it is paralysed.’

The men chant as they reach for live electric wires: ‘Everyone we catch is innocent, they say.

‘Well, blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done. We’ve caught 60 of you so far and none of you did anything.’

It is not clear when the footage was taken or what happened to Mr Gersh.

Camp manager Mohamed al-Mabruk, who handed over the footage, said: ‘The fighters from Misrata have kept their weapons and vowed to capture everyone who supported Gaddafi.

‘They come on regular raids to our three camps in Tripoli and take anyone they want. They beat them and torture them to get them to confess to rape and murder.’


Locals said Towerga residents were known supporters of Gaddafi and are among 8,500 people believed to be held in secret camps all over the country.

Mr al-Mabruk is helpless to stop the raids. He said: ‘You can do nothing against the Misrata militias.

'We are all terrified of them. The government, the police and the army cannot stop them.’

Attacks are often filmed by the fighters for amusement to post on YouTube.

The abuse of Mr Gersh was captured on a mobile phone left behind in the chaos of a raid. Libya’s interim government has admitted it is largely powerless to prevent this collapse of law and order. It comes at a time when doubts are being raised about Nato’s support for the uprising.

Britain spent about £300million on bombing raids to help secure the victory that ousted the Gaddafi regime four months ago.

But local militias are hell-bent on revenge against their former enemies. They also frequently clash with rival militias.



Rebel fighters in Towerga, south of Misrata, which has been systematically looted and destroyed since Gaddafi's downfall

Thousands of fighters have commandeered schools, halls and sports centres as detention facilities for ‘suspects’ they capture from their homes or the street.

The Misrata brigades are considered the most hostile, with thousands of untrained youths carrying out the aggressive interrogation. In other footage collected by the camp manager, more than 30 armed trucks are shown on an early morning raid into the camp.

Women scream that they are being attacked in their beds and that some family members are sick. ‘Is this the new revolution. Is this the justice we all fought for?’ they shout.

Last month, 14 badly injured detainees were sent to Medecins Sans Frontieres doctors, three of them needing hospitalisation.

Claudia Evers, Misrata co-ordinator for MSF, said: ‘The militia refused to let us take them to hospital. We’ve reported two deaths. No action has been taken and our doctors refuse to continue.’

Amnesty International has documented thousands of cases of abuse and torture, and handed photographs to The Mail on Sunday. Senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera has protested to the National Transitional Council (NTC) without success.

‘I have seen people who have been beaten with iron bars and rubber pipes, some hardly able to walk,’ she said.

‘Men are hung by handcuffs from a door frame and attacked with electric wires. Tasers are applied to their ears and genitals, and finger and toenails are torn out.’

She has evidence of 12 deaths. No investigations have been carried out by the authorities. ‘There is not a single case where anyone has been brought to justice,’ she said. ‘There is a total lack of accountability.’


End of a tyrant... but not the end of the bloodshed: A grab from a video taken from the mobile phone of a National Transitional Council fighter showing the demise of Gaddafi last October

At al-Huda prison centre in Misrata, Sheikh Fathy Daraz heads an Islamic charity for inmates’ welfare.

But he is at the mercy of the militia, who regularly take men away for questioning.

‘We see their bruises and their broken limbs when they return but we can do nothing,’ he said. ‘There is no effective police force or national army yet.’

Nearby at the city’s al-Head sports centre, the tennis courts and gym were deserted. A group of 25 brigades have taken over.

Commander Mohamed al-Deaka is a former construction engineer. He was defensive about abuse by his men. ‘Yes it happens here, but it’s everywhere in Libya,’ he said.

‘We have to use force to make prisoners give answers. Our city was destroyed in the fighting. Now we want to know who carried out the destruction, who raped our women and stole our property.’

Khaled Ben Ali, head of LibAid, an umbrella organisation for humanitarian agencies, said that NTC ministers told him they were powerless: ‘The Prime Minister told me he had issued written orders for the surrender of weapons and the militias tore them up.

‘They fought for freedom and now they think they are free to do what they like. What they like is revenge. There is no effective judicial system. Maybe we need the UN Security Council to find new ways of protecting our civilians.’

A government source said: ‘This is the result of our legacy from Gaddafi – brutalised people enacting revenge. But it must stop.’

Libya's ex-envoy to France dies in custody

Dr. Omar Brebesh. Photo Courtesy of Brebesh Family.

Πηγή: The Statesman
By AFP
Feb 3 2012

TRIPOLI, 3 FEB: Libya's former Ambassador to France, Omar Brebesh, has died in the custody of a militia from possible torture, 24 hours after he was detained by the armed group, Human Rights Watch said today.

The New York-based HRW said a Tripoli-based militia from the town of Zintan detained Brebesh on 19 January and that a preliminary autopsy found the cause of death included “multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs”.

“Photos of Brebesh's body, seen by Human Rights Watch, show welts, cuts and the apparent removal of toenails, indicating that he was tortured prior to death,” the rights watchdog said in a statement.

It said a report by the judicial police here also found that Brebesh had died from torture and that an unnamed suspect had confessed to killing him.

Militias made up of former rebels who fought Muammar Gaddafi's forces have been facing growing criticism from rights groups for allegedly torturing prisoners, most of whom are loyalists of the slain dictator.

Last week, Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders reported “widespread torture” in prisons under the control of militias and of some officially recognised military.

The two groups said such cases were observed in the prisons of Tripoli, Misrata and smaller towns such as Ghariyan. Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in Misrata over these allegations.

Yesterday, Libyan justice minister Ali Hamida Ashur said the authorities would investigate all cases of “torture” in prisons and bring to justice those involved in it.

Libya: Fresh reports of deaths of detainees amid widespread torture

According to Doctorts Without Borders report Libya detainees were tortured and denied medical care

Πηγή: Amnesty International UK
Jan 26 2012

"It is horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture" - Donatella Rovera

Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-al-Gaddafi fighters and loyalists, Amnesty International said today.

Amnesty delegates in Libya have met detainees being held in and around Tripoli, Misrarah and Gheryan, who showed visible marks indicating torture inflicted in recent days and weeks. Their injuries included open wounds on the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body.

The torture is being carried out by officially recognised military and security entities as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework.

Detainees, both Libyan and foreign nationals from sub-Saharan African countries, told Amnesty they had been suspended in contorted positions, beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars and wooden sticks, and given electric shocks with live wires and Taser-like electro-shock weapons. The patterns of injury observed by the organisation were consistent with their testimonies. Medical reports seen by Amnesty also confirmed the use of torture on several detainees, a number of whom died in custody.

The majority of detainees being targeted are Libyans believed to have stayed loyal to Colonel al-Gaddafi during the recent conflict. Foreign nationals, mostly sub-Saharan Africans, also continue to be randomly detained, including in connection with their irregular legal status, and some are tortured.

The organisation found that detainees were usually tortured immediately after being held by local armed militias and subsequently under interrogations, including in officially recognised detention centres. To date detainees have not been allowed access to lawyers. Several told Amnesty they had confessed to crimes they had not committed just to end the torture.

Speaking from Libya, Amnesty International Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera said: “After all the promises to get detention centres under control, it is horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture.

“We are not aware of any proper investigations into cases of torture, and neither the survivors nor relatives of those who have died in detention have had any recourse to justice or redress for what they have suffered.

“While many detainees have described their experiences of torture to us, some have proved too scared to speak - fearing harsher torture if they speak out - and just showed us their wounds.”

In Misratah, detainees continue to be tortured in an interrogation centre run by the National Military Security (Amn al-Jaysh al-Watani) and in the headquarters of armed militias. On 23 January, Amnesty delegates interviewed detainees in Misratah who had been tortured only hours earlier. One man, still in detention, told Amnesty:

“This morning they took me for interrogation upstairs. Five men in plain clothes took turns beating and whipping me… They suspended me from the top of the door by my wrists for about an hour and kept beating me. They also kicked me."

Another detainee told Amnesty he was beaten on wounds which he had sustained the month before at the hands of the militia. He said:

“Yesterday they beat me with electric cable while my hands were cuffed behind my back and my feet were bound together. They threatened to send me back to the militia who captured me, who would kill me."

Deaths in custody

Several detainees have died in the custody of armed militias in and around Tripoli and Misratah in circumstances that suggest torture.

Relatives of a former police officer and father of two from Tajura, east of Tripoli, told Amnesty that he was detained by a local armed militia in October 2011 and they had been unable to obtain any information about his fate for about three weeks, until he was allowed to call his wife. A few days later his family was informed by a hospital in Tripoli that his body had been brought in. Images of the body seen by Amnesty show extensive deep bruising all over the body and limbs, as well as open wounds on the soles of the feet apparently caused by falaqa (beating on the soles of the feet), a torture method frequently reported in Libya.

The most recent death in custody as a result of torture known to Amnesty was ‘Ezzeddine al-Ghool, a 43-year-old army colonel and father of seven, who was detained by an armed militia based in Gheryan, 100 km south of Tripoli, on 14 January. His body was returned to the family the following day covered in bruises and wounds. Doctors confirmed he had died as a result of the injuries he sustained. Several other men who were detained at the same time were also reportedly tortured. Eight sustained serious injuries which required hospital treatment.

Amnesty has also received reports of other similar cases which it is investigating.

Lack of investigation

Despite repeated requests by Amnesty since May 2011, the organisation believes at the Libyan transitional authorities - both at the national and local level - have failed to conduct effective investigations into cases of torture and suspicious deaths in custody.

The police and the judiciary remain dysfunctional across the country. While in some areas courts are reportedly processing civil cases, so-called “sensitive” cases related to security and political issues are not being addressed. Instead a range of mostly unofficial bodies, with no status in law, including so-called “judicial committees”, have been carrying out interrogations in various detention centres, outside the control of the judiciary.

Donatella Rovera said: “So far there has been a complete failure on the part of those in power to take concrete steps to end torture and other ill-treatment of detainees and to hold accountable those responsible for such crimes.

“We don’t underestimate the challenges faced by the Libyan transitional authorities in establishing control over the multitude of armed militias operating throughout the country, but we must see them taking decisive action on torture. In the interests of building a new Libya based on respect for human rights, this issue cannot be left at the bottom of the pile.”

Amnesty called on the Libyan authorities to urgently:

• Order the closure of all unofficial places of detention and establish mechanisms to bring all places of detention under the control of the authorities and to ensure effective oversight over detention procedures and practices;
• Ensure that prompt investigations are carried out into all known or reported cases of torture and other ill-treatment, immediately remove suspected perpetrators from any functions dealing with detentions pending the outcome of the investigations; where there is sufficient admissible evidence, bring suspects to justice in fair trials and without the possibility of the death penalty;
• Ensure that all detainees are allowed access to lawyers;
• Ensure that detainees undergo regular medical examinations and that medical certificates describing any injuries possibly resulting from torture are provided to the detainees and to the judicial authorities.

In October 2011 Amnesty published “Detention Abuses Staining the New Libya”, a report revealing a pattern of beatings and ill-treatment of captured Gaddafi soldiers, suspected loyalists and alleged mercenaries in Libya.

Human rights group urges Ottawa to investigate Cheney over torture

A human rights group is urging the federal government to bring criminal charges against former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney, accusing him of playing a role in the torture of detainees during the years of the Bush 

administration.

Πηγή: thestar
Sep. 24 2011


A human rights group is urging the federal government to bring criminal charges against former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney, accusing him of playing a role in the torture of detainees during the years of the Bush administration.

Cheney will be in Vancouver on Monday to promote his book In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, which outlines his views of the war on terror and other events during the administration of president George W. Bush.

Human Rights Watch claims that overwhelming evidence of torture by the Bush administration, including at least two cases involving Canadian citizens, are grounds for Canada to investigate Cheney and comply with the Convention Against Torture.

In addition, the New York-based group said that Canadian law expressly provides for jurisdiction over an individual for torture and other crimes if the complainant is a Canadian citizen, even for offences committed outside of Canada.

It said in a news release issued Saturday that Canada had ratified the Convention Against Torture in 1987 and incorporated its provisions into the Canadian Criminal Code.

“The U.S. has utterly failed to meet its legal obligation to investigate torture by the Bush administration, but that shouldn't let other countries off the hook,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

“Cheney's visit to Vancouver is a rare opportunity to remedy this shameful failure to uphold the rule of law.”

A spokesperson for Cheney could not be reached for comment, but in the past the former vice-president has been a staunch defender of the policies of the Bush years.

He frequently appeared on the U.S. talk-show circuit to say he's unapologetic about waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques. He has repeatedly insisted such tactics saved “hundreds of thousands of lives.''

The complaint from the human rights group came on the heels of a New Democrat MP's call on Friday for the federal government to bar Cheney from entering Canada.

Don Davies sent a letter to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney urging the federal government to deny Cheney entry, also citing the treatment of detainees during the Bush administration years.

Kenney's office could not be immediately reached for comment.

Human Rights Watch said it had documented the role of senior Bush administration officials in authorizing torture of detainees, including “waterboarding” and prolonged exposure to heat and cold.

The group further said the U.S. was directly responsible or complicit in the alleged torture of at least two Canadian citizens, Maher Arar and Omar Khadr.

U.S. authorities deported Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, back to Syria in 2002 when he stopped in the U.S. on the way home to Canada. He was jailed in Damascus and tortured into giving false confessions about terrorist links.

Khadr was convicted a year ago in Guantanamo Bay after pleading guilty to war crimes he committed as a 15-year-old in Afghanistan.

“Canada's own investigation into the Maher Arar case shows there is sufficient evidence to investigate Cheney for authorizing torture,” Roth said.

“Bush, Cheney, and others authorized the abusive detention regime that Canadians and thousands of others were subjected to. They should be held accountable.”

Antiwar activists are expected to protest in Vancouver during Cheney's trip.

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest

Πηγή: Global Recearch
by Ralph Lopez

Sep. 20 2011

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office.

The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company. The company was under contract to the Department of Defense. The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons. The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet. Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding.

Torture Room, Abu Ghraib



Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004 of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here… We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.” And journalist Seymour Hersh says: “boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has.”

Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaint was filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify. General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.com was asked: “Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?”
Karpinski answered: “Yes, absolutely.” In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimony and offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness. Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything.”

And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib, said in his report:
“there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Abu Ghraib Prisoner Smeared with Feces



Amazingly, the two American contractors in the 7th Circuit decision were known by the military to be working undercover for the FBI, to whom they had reported witnessing the sale of U.S government munitions to Iraqi rebel groups. The FBI in Iraq had vouched for Vance and Ertel numerous times before they nevertheless disappeared into military custody. They were held at Camp Cropper in Iraq where the two were tortured, one for 97 days, and the other for six weeks.

In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture. By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time.

It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops. Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level.

The forms of torture employed against the Americans included “techniques” which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. They included “walling,” where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold.

The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world. Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials in Germany, France, and Spain. Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerland due to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva. “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.


And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to “flog his memoirs,” that “the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBC earlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be “the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel to.”


Abu Ghraib: Dog Bites



What would seem to make Rumsfeld’s situation more precarious is the number of credible former officials and military officers who seem to be eager to testify against him, such as Col. Wilkerson and General Janis Karpinsky.

In a signed declaration in support of torture plaintiffs in a civil suit naming Rumsfeld in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Col. Wilkerson, one of Rumsfeld’s most vociferous critics, stated: “I am willing to testify in person regarding the content of this declaration, should that be necessary.” That declaration, among other things, affirmed that a documentary on the chilling murder of a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and taxi driver in Afghanistan was “accurate.” Wilkersonsaid earlier this year that in that case, and in the case of another murder at Bagram at about the same time, “authorization for the abuse went to the very top of the United States government.”

Dilawar

The young farmer’s name was Dilawar. The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005:
“Four days before [his death,] on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar’s mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.”
Dilawar’s misfortune was to drive past the gate of an American base which had been hit by a rocket attack that morning. Dilawar and his fares were arrested at a checkpoint by a warlord, who was later suspected of mounting the rocket attack himself, and then turning over randam captures like Dilawar in order to win trust.

The UK Guardian reports:
“Guards at Bagram routinely kneed prisoners in their thighs — a blow called a ‘peroneal strike’… Whenever a guard did this to Dilawar, he would cry out, ‘Allah! Allah!’ Some guards apparently found this amusing, and would strike him repeatedly to show off the behavior to buddies. One military policeman told investigators, ‘Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. … It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.’”
Dilawar was shackled from the ceiling much of the time, with his feet barely able to touch the ground. On the last day of his life, after 4 days at Bagram, an interpreter who was present said his legs were bouncing uncontrollably as he sat in a plastic chair. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

The New York Times reported that on the last day of his life, four days after he was arrested:
“Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face. “Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”

At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

“‘Leave him up,’ one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.”
The next time the prison medic saw Dilawar a few hours later, he was dead, his head lolled to one side and his body beginning to stiffen. A coroner would testify that his legs “had basically been pulpified.” The Army coroner, Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, said: “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” She testified that had he lived, Dilawar’s legs would have had to be amputated.

Despite the military’s false statement that Dilawar’s death was the result of “natural causes,” Maj. Rouse marked the death certificate as a “homicide” and arranged for the certificate to be delivered to the family. The military was forced to retract the statement when a reporter for the New York Times, Carlotta Gall, tracked down Dilawar’s family in Afghanistan and was given a folded piece of paper by Dilawar’s brother. It was the death certificate, which he couldn’t read, because it was in English.

The practice of forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time, links Dilawar’s treatment to a memo which bears Rumsfeld’s own handwriting on that particular subject. Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the memo may show how fairly benign-sounding authorizations for clear circumventions of the Geneva Conventions may have translated into gruesome practice on the battlefield.

The memo, which addresses keeping prisoners “standing” for up to four hours, is annotated with a note initialed by Rumfeld reading: “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” Not mentioned in writing anywhere is anything about accomplishing this by chaining prisoners to the ceiling. There is evidence that, unable to support his weight on tiptoe for the days on end he was chained to the ceiling, Dilawars arms dislocated, and they flapped around uselessly when he was taken down for interrogation. The National Catholic Reporter writes, “They flapped like a bird’s broken wings.”

Contradicting, on the record, a February 2003 statement by Rumfeld’s top commander in Afghnanistan at the time, General Daniel McNeill, that “we are not chaining people to the ceilings,” is Spc. Willie Brand, the only soldier disciplined in the death of Dilawar, with a reduction in rank. Told of McNeill’s statement, Brand told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “Well, he’s lying.” Brand said of his punishment: “I didn’t understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you’ve been bad.”

Exhibit: A sketch by Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell

Exhibit: Dilawar Death Certificate marked “homicide”

Exhibit: Rumsfeld Memo: “I stand 8-10 hours a day. Why only 4 hours?”

Dilawar’s daughter and her grandfather



Binyam, Genital-Slicing

Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty. He was held for more than five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base, Guantánamo Bay, and third country “black” sites.

In his diary he describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. He writes:
“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…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.

“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.’”
The obvious question for any prosecutor in Binyam’s case is: Who does “Washington” refer to? Rumfeld? Cheney? Is it not in the national interest to uncover these most depraved of sadists at the highest level? US Judge Gladys Kessler, in her findings on Binyam made in relation to a Guantanamo prisoner’s petition, found Binyam exceedingly credible. She wrote:
“His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.”

Obama: Torturers’ Last Defense

The prospect of Rumsfeld in a courtroom cannot possibly be relished by the Obama administration, which has now cast itself as the last and staunchest defender of the embattled former officials, including John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Judge Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and others. The administration employed anunprecedented twisting of arms in order to keep evidence in a lawsuit which Binyam had filed in the UK suppressed, threatening an end of cooperation between the British MI5 and the CIA. This even though the British judges whose hand was forced puzzled that the evidence contained “no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.” The judges suggested another reason for the secrecy requested by the Obama administration, that it might be “politically embarrassing.”

The Obama Justice Department’s active involvement in seeking the dismissal of the cases is by choice, as the statutory obligation of the US Attorney General to defend cases against public officials ends the day they leave office. Indeed, the real significance of recent court decisions, the one by the 7th Circuit and yetanother against Rumsfeld in a DC federal court, may be the clarification the common misconception that high officials are forever immune for crimes committed while in office, in the name of the state. The misconception persists despite just a moment of thought telling one that if this were true, Hermann Goering, Augusto Pinochet, and Charles Taylor would never have been arrested, for they were all in office at the time they ordered atrocities, and they all invoked national security.

Judge Kessler’s findings point to yet another even more alarming aspect of the Bush-era crimes for which Rumsfeld is now being pursued for his part. And that is the emerging evidence that the tortures perpetrated were not designed to protect national security at all, but to obtain false confessions in order to score propaganda points for the War on terror.

Andy Worthington writes that:
“As it happens, one of the confessions that was tortured out of Binyam is so ludicrous that it was soon dropped…The US authorities insisted that Padilla and Binyam had dinner with various high-up members of al-Qaeda the night before Padilla was to fly off to America. According to their theory the dinner party had to have been on the evening of 3 April in Karachi … Binyam was meant to have dined with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Sheikh al-Libi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Jose Padilla. What made the scenario ‘absurd,’ as [Binyam's lawyer] pointed out, was that ‘two of the conspirators were already in U.S. custody at the time — Abu Zubaydah was seized six days before, on 28 March 2002, and al-Libi had been held since November 2001.’”
The charges against Binyam were dropped, after the prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned. He told the BBC later that he had concerns at the repeated suppression of evidence that could prove prisoners’ innocence.
The litany of tortures alleged against Rumsfeld in the military prisons he ran could go on for some time. The new photographic images from Abu Ghraib make it hard to conceive of how the methods of torture and dehumanization could have possibly served a national purpose.

The approved use of attack dogs, sexual humiliation, forced masturbation, and treatments which plumb the depths of human depravity are either documented in Rumsfeld’s own memos, or credibly reported on.

The UK Guardian writes:
“The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I – resistance to interrogation – match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

Libya: 'His arms bore marks of torture – inflicted at the hands of the rebels'

Khalid Mohammed served in the Libyan army for five years

Πηγή: The Independent
By Portia Walker

Monday, 12 September 2011

The prisoner's thin arms were the first giveaway. They were pocked with fresh, round scars – the distinctive marks of cigarette burns. Cuts criss-crossed his arms and his left wrist was swollen.

Tortured prisoners are a familiar sight in Libyan jails but the captive at Jdeibah prison in Tripoli was no victim of Colonel Gaddafi's regime, but a prisoner of those who now control the Libyan capital. His wounds serve as a grim warning of the challenges the country faces as it emerges from four decades of institutionalised brutality. The man with the burn marks, Khalid Abdul Jalil Mohammed, 25, served as a soldier in Muammar Gaddafi's army. He was arrested a week ago at a checkpoint in Tripoli and was accused of killing people as he fought for the old regime.

Mr Mohammed hails from the town of Sabha, deep in the southern desert hinterland. It is one of few places in Libya which is still held by forces loyal to the former dictator. He said he joined the army five years ago because he was motivated by a lack of other opportunities. "I was bored," he added. He was paid 532 Libyan dinars a month, which he gave to his family to support his five younger siblings.

The young fighter spent the first part of the war in the east of the country between Ajdabiya and Brega, where Colonel Gaddafi's loyalists battled rebel forces along a front line that shifted backwards and forwards during weeks of fighting. From there, he went to Zawiya, a town near Tripoli in the west which was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting. When rebel forces attacked Zawiya last month, Mr Mohammed's commander told him to surrender. He abandoned his gun and ran away, travelling with a friend to Tripoli where he spent the last month hiding at his friend's house in the suburb of Tajoura.

The guards at the Jdeibah prison insisted that they were not the ones who had tortured him. "I swear – in the prison no one touched him," said one – a 27-year-old man dressed in civilian clothing. Mr Mohammed disagreed, insisting yesterday: "They hurt me here."

However, none of the guards – a trio of 20-something civilian volunteers – denied that their captive had been tortured since he was arrested by rebel forces. "They did it because he was a liar and we couldn't get any information", explained one of them. When Mr Mohammed pulled up the legs of his dirty blue jeans to show the welts and bruises to his calves and bony knees, the guards made me put away my camera and asked me to leave.

Other prisoners interviewed at the compound said they had been treated well and were being fed. During the interviews, prisoners were taken off to be served meals.

Mr Mohammed eventually admitted that he had killed people during fighting on the eastern front. "I was given orders and I had to follow them because I am a soldier," he said. "But I feel guilty now."

Asked what he thought the rebels would do to him, Mr Mohammed looked downcast.

"I will die," he said with bleak resignation. "I killed people. They have to kill me now."

Protection from torture weakened under new plans

The Copenhaged Process could undermine international human rights law

Πηγή: The Bereau of Inverstigative Journalism
By Angus Stickler

August 25th, 2011

The Geneva Conventions are at risk as Nato countries propose formalising a much criticised system that allows them to transfer prisoners to regimes suspected of using torture.
It is a breach of international law to transfer detainees to the custody of a state where they may face a risk of torture even if a ‘memorandum of understanding’ (MOU) is signed promising that the receiving country will not abuse the detainees.

But a joint investigation by the Bureau and the New Statesman, shows that the world’s most powerful military nations are attempting to sweep away the fundamental provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

Since 2007 25 nations including the UK and the US had been pushing to establish a common framework for detainee transfers in Iraq and Afghanistan through a grouping called the Copenhagen Process.

It has received little publicity. Its meetings are closed. Its full membership is secret. Human rights groups such as Amnesty and other interested non-governmental organisations have been excluded.

What we do know is that it is led by the Danish government and as well as the US and UK, it involves Nato, the EU, the African Union and the UN. And it aims to produce an “outcome document”, which it hopes will receive approval from the UN and individual countries.

The starting point for those around the Copenhagen table is that, while the principles of humanitarian and human rights conventions may be set in stone, 20th-century law is out of kilter with 21st-century conflict. Military nations need a get-out clause from the Geneva Conventions.

Matt Pollard, a senior legal advisor at Amnesty International, said that the use of MOUs was ‘among the worst practices that states are currently engaging in’.

‘In effect, it is resulting in states bypassing their obligations not to transfer people to risk of torture,’ he said. ‘Basically states say: ‘Yes – I’m not supposed to transfer a person to you if you’re going to torture them – so please just promise me you won’t torture them.”

The UK has an MOU with the Afghan government and regularly transfers detainees. Last year the high court heard from ten alleged insurgents who claimed they had been abused after being handed over to Afghan security services by the UK. One said metal clamps had been attached to parts of his body and that he had been beaten with an electric cable.

A recent US State Department report on Afghanistan listed methods of abuse used in the country, including: ‘beating by stick,scorching bar, or iron bar; flogging by cable; battering by rod; electric shock; deprivation of sleep, water and food; abusive language; sexual humiliation; and rape’.

Allegations of torture and abuse by the Afghan security services have only come to light in the UK because of court cases. If MOUs are accepted into international law this transferal of responsibility will mean that further cases will not be exposed to British courts’ scrutiny. This would mean future cases may never see the light of day.

Human rights groups to boycott inquiry into British torture and rendition

Πηγή: The Guardian
By James Meikle and agencies
Thursday 4 August 2011 16.23 BST




Lawyers and human rights groups are to boycott the inquiry into the UK's alleged role in torture and rendition since the 9/11 terror attacks, saying it lacks credibility and transparency, and arrangements for it are "secretive, unfair and deeply flawed".

Key sessions will be held in secret and the cabinet secretary will have the final say over what information is made public. Those who alleged they were subject to torture and rendition will not be able to question MI5 or MI6 officers, and will foreign intelligence agencies will not be questioned.

The decision not to participate, reported by the Guardian last month, was confirmed in a joint letter to the solicitor for the inquiry, which will be run by the retired judge Sir Peter Gibson. Ten groups including Liberty, Reprieve and Amnesty International said they did not intend to submit any evidence or attend any further meetings with the inquiry team.

They said the inquiry's protocol and terms of reference showed it would not have the "credibility or transparency" to ensure "the truth about allegations that UK authorities were involved in the mistreatment of detainees held abroad" was brought to light.

The human rights groups said the inquiry would not comply with the government's international obligations to investigate torture. Lawyers representing former detainees have also complained about the nature of the inquiry, which was initially welcomed when it was announced by David Cameron last year.

Former detainees and their lawyers will not be able to question intelligence officials and all evidence from current or former members of the security and intelligence agencies, below the level of head, will be heard in private. The inquiry will not start until the end of a current police investigation.

The human rights groups say in their letter: "We are particularly disappointed that the issue of what material may be disclosed to the public will not be determined independently of government and, further, that there will be no meaningful participation of the former and current detainees and other interested third parties.

"As you know, we were keen to assist the inquiry in the vital work of establishing the truth about allegations that UK authorities were involved in the mistreatment of detainees held abroad. Our strong view, however, is that the process currently proposed does not have the credibility or transparency to achieve this."

A second letter, written jointly by Christian Khan and other lawyers representing former Guantánamo Bay detainees, said: "We consider it impossible to advise those whom we represent that the structure and protocols now confirmed for the Gibson inquiry can achieve what are essential ingredients for a public inquiry into grave state crimes."

Detainees would not even know "if the individuals being questioned are the right ones".

The lack of input for detainees, "simply serves to demonstrate that there is no comprehension on the part of the government of the gravity of the crimes which representatives of the state may have committed", they said. "We had hoped as lawyers to assist in a transparent exercise of vital importance. It is a matter of profound regret that our assessment is that the inquiry does not provide the means by which this can be realised.

"In the absence of there being any alteration to the protocols, our advice is compelled to be that it is inappropriate for our clients to submit evidence."

Several high-profile human rights lawyers signed Khan's letter, including Louise Christian, Irene Nembhard, Gareth Peirce, and Tayab Ali and Sipna Malik.

Amnesty's UK policy advisor, Tara Lyle, said: "This is a desperately needed inquiry into extremely serious allegations but the arrangements for it are secretive, unfair and deeply flawed. We need an inquiry that is as open and effective as possible, not this semi-secret process that lacks scope and ambition.

"Those that suffered terrible abuse are set to be let down by this inquiry, while the general public is likely to be denied the opportunity to learn what went wrong during this dark chapter in our history."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "If this inquiry proceeds without the participation of the victims it will be nothing more than a waste of time and public money. Until a credible, independent process is established this shameful chapter of the war on terror continues."

Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary who chairs the intelligence and security committee, denied the inquiry was secretive and said the campaigners were being unrealistic.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I cannot recollect an inquiry that's been proposed to be so open as we're having in this particular case. When was the last time the head of MI5 and the head of MI6 – the prime minister has made quite clear – can be summoned to this inquiry and be required to give evidence?" There had to be "some element of trust" when the authorities were dealing with top secret information, he added.

A statement from the inquiry said the decision by solicitors and human rights groups was regrettable and said it was hoped they would reconsider.

"The inquiry will go ahead," the statement said. "It will examine the relevant documentation held by government. It will hear the key government witnesses. The inquiry offers the detainees and anyone else with evidence relevant to its terms of reference the only opportunity for them to give evidence to an independent inquiry.

"The detainees and the NGOs have alleged the involvement or awareness of the UK government and its security and intelligence services in relation to the mistreatment and rendition of detainees held by other countries. The inquiry would welcome such evidence."