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Title: Amnesty International Reveals New CIA 'Disappearance' Case That Began in Abu Ghraib
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Published: Mar 13, 2008
Author: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/A
Post Date: 2008-03-13 21:39:12 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 68
Comments: 5
Amnesty International Reveals New CIA 'Disappearance' Case That Began in Abu Ghraib WASHINGTON, March 13, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Former Detainee Was Held More Than 2 Years in "Black Site," Human Rights Organization Reports Amnesty International today exposed in a new report, "From Abu Ghraib to secret CIA custody: The case of Khaled al-Maqtari," further details of the cruelty and illegality of the CIA program of secret detentions and enforced disappearances -- a program re-authorized by President Bush in June 2007. In an exclusive to Amnesty International, 31-year-old Yemeni national Khaled Abdu Ahmed Saleh al-Maqtari recounted his ordeal as one of the men most recently released from secret detention in May 2007. Initially a "ghost detainee" at Abu Ghraib, he was transferred to CIA custody in Afghanistan, then held in unknown locations and in complete isolation for more than two and a half years, without charge or trial or access to any form of due process. His statements include numerous allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. "Khaled al-Maqtari's account is one more shameful chapter in the Bush administration's war on terror playbook," said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA executive director. "Mr. al-Maqtari's descriptions of being subjected to international crimes including enforced disappearance and torture are terrible and disgraceful for the United States government. Equally reprehensible is that none of these allegations are known to have ever been investigated, nor has anyone been held accountable." Khaled al-Maqtari was detained when U.S. army soldiers raided a suspected arms market in Fallujah, Iraq, in January 2004, arresting at least 60 people. He was transferred to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison as an unregistered "ghost detainee." He has recounted a regime of beatings, sleep deprivation, suspension upside-down in painful positions, intimidation by dogs, induced hypothermia and other forms of torture. He said that on one occasion, after being beaten by three men in a small room, he was forced to stand naked on a chair in front of a powerful air conditioner, holding up a full case of bottled water. He was periodically drenched in cold water, which made him shiver so hard he could barely remain standing. Khaled al-Maqtari said he was also suspended by his feet, with his arms still cuffed behind his back, while a pulley was used to lower him up and down over a water crate. After nine days of interrogation in Abu Ghraib, Khaled al-Maqtari was taken by plane to a secret CIA detention facility in Afghanistan, were he was held for an additional three months. Flight records obtained by Amnesty International corroborated that a jet operated by a CIA front company left Baghdad International Airport nine days after al-Maqtari's arrest, heading for Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul. While in Afghanistan, Khaled al-Maqtari said, he was subjected to further torture and ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement, the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of hot and cold, prolonged shackling, sensory deprivation and disruption with bright lighting and loud music or sound effects constantly channeled into his cell. As he told Amnesty International: "It was not really music but noise to scare you, like from one of those scary movies...I was scared, there were no dogs but there was noise there. Whenever you try to sleep, they bang on the door loudly and violently." Khaled al-Maqtari also told Amnesty International that during the lapses in the music or sound effects he began to speak to other detainees, and he figured out there were about 20 others being held in the cells around him, including Majid Khan, one of the "high value" detainees transferred from secret CIA custody to military detention in Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. In late April 2004, Khaled al-Maqtari and a number of his fellow detainees were transferred to another CIA "black site," possibly in Eastern Europe. He was held there for 28 more months, before being sent to Yemen where he was detained by Yemeni officials until May 2007. "At no point during his 32-month confinement was Khaled al-Maqtari told where he was or why," said Anne FitzGerald, senior advisor at Amnesty International, who interviewed Khaled al-Maqtari. "According to Mr. al-Maqtari, he did not have access to lawyers, relatives, the International Committee of the Red Cross or any person other than his interrogators and the personnel involved in his detention and transfer. This clearly violates the United States' international obligations. The U.S. government has a case to answer." Khaled al-Maqtari is in his native Yemen, living with the effects of prolonged psychological and physical torture. He has not received any reparation from U.S. authorities, who have yet to acknowledge his detention. The abuses that have affected him most, he said, were the years of endless isolation, his total uncertainty about his future, the constant monitoring by cameras, and his segregation from the outside world, particularly the lack of contact with his family. Amnesty International urges the U.S. authorities to end the use of secret detention; hold accountable those responsible for abuses carried out under the program; make known the names, fate and whereabouts of all individuals held in the context of the so-called "war on terror;" and charge any detainees who are still held with recognizable criminal offenses and bring them to trial in independent courts or release them immediately. The report will also be available online starting March 14 at www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/013/2008/en SOURCE Amnesty International
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
just curious, do you know if Obama has addressed this issue?
I don't. I am pretty week on Obama, but he looks better and better. Esp as the Lobby seems to not have him locked.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Photos of US Torture of Iraqi Prisoners At The Abu Ghraib Prison In Iraq
Where do you start??? Really where do you start. Bush and the Dems and Repubs, I guess.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Good question.
#2. To: christine (#1)
#3. To: tom007 (#0)
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” ~ J. Edgar Hoover
#4. To: wudidiz (#3)
Everyone had been proud of Lynndie England. A Wal-Mart in nearby LaVale displays her photo on its Wall of Honor. The Mineral County courthouse in Keyser, W.Va., posts her photograph and those of other local soldiers under a banner that says: "We're hometown proud."
#5. To: tom007 (#4)
Where do you start???
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” ~ J. Edgar Hoover
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