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Report alleges wider use of torture by US
Source: Agencies |
September 7, 2012, Friday
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HUMAN Rights Watch says it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States.
A report issued yesterday details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era US program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.
The report also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The US handed over Islamist opponents of Gadhafi it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" they would not be mistreated, Human Rights Watch said.
The report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while held in US-led detention centers in Afghanistan - some for up to two years - or in US-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them to Libya.
"Not only did the US deliver (Gadhafi) his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, author of the report.
The 14 Libyans were swept up in a hunt for Islamic militants and al-Qaida figures after September 11, 2001. They were mostly members of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who fled in the 1980s and 1990s to Pakistan, Afghanistan and African countries.
The group ran training camps in Afghanistan at the same time al-Qaida but it largely shunned Osama bin Laden and his campaign against the US, focusing instead on fighting Gadhafi.
Ironically, the US helped the Libyan opposition overthrow Gadhafi in 2011 and several of the 14 former detainees now hold positions in the new Libyan government.
The accounts of new uses of simulated drowning came from two former detainees, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya and Khaled al-Sharif. They were seized in Pakistan in April 2003 and taken to US-run prisons in Afghanistan, where al-Shoroeiya was held for 16 months and al-Sharif for two years before they were handed over to Libya.
In Afghanistan, they were shackled in cells for months in variety of positions, often naked in almost total darkness with music blaring continuously.
Al-Shoroeiya described being waterboarded, though he did not use the term. He said he was put in a hood and strapped upside down on a wooden board. Freezing water was poured over his nose and mouth until he felt he was suffocating. During interrogation sessions, he was waterboarded multiple times.
Al-Sharif described a similar technique. He was put on a plastic sheet with guards holding up the edges, while freezing water was poured over him, including onto his hooded face directly over his mouth and nose.
"I felt as if I were suffocating," he said. "I spent three months getting interrogated heavily ... and they gave me a different kind of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not."
Asked about the new accounts, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency "has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases" of the use of waterboarding.
She could not comment on the specific allegations.
A report issued yesterday details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era US program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.
The report also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The US handed over Islamist opponents of Gadhafi it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" they would not be mistreated, Human Rights Watch said.
The report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while held in US-led detention centers in Afghanistan - some for up to two years - or in US-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them to Libya.
"Not only did the US deliver (Gadhafi) his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, author of the report.
The 14 Libyans were swept up in a hunt for Islamic militants and al-Qaida figures after September 11, 2001. They were mostly members of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who fled in the 1980s and 1990s to Pakistan, Afghanistan and African countries.
The group ran training camps in Afghanistan at the same time al-Qaida but it largely shunned Osama bin Laden and his campaign against the US, focusing instead on fighting Gadhafi.
Ironically, the US helped the Libyan opposition overthrow Gadhafi in 2011 and several of the 14 former detainees now hold positions in the new Libyan government.
The accounts of new uses of simulated drowning came from two former detainees, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya and Khaled al-Sharif. They were seized in Pakistan in April 2003 and taken to US-run prisons in Afghanistan, where al-Shoroeiya was held for 16 months and al-Sharif for two years before they were handed over to Libya.
In Afghanistan, they were shackled in cells for months in variety of positions, often naked in almost total darkness with music blaring continuously.
Al-Shoroeiya described being waterboarded, though he did not use the term. He said he was put in a hood and strapped upside down on a wooden board. Freezing water was poured over his nose and mouth until he felt he was suffocating. During interrogation sessions, he was waterboarded multiple times.
Al-Sharif described a similar technique. He was put on a plastic sheet with guards holding up the edges, while freezing water was poured over him, including onto his hooded face directly over his mouth and nose.
"I felt as if I were suffocating," he said. "I spent three months getting interrogated heavily ... and they gave me a different kind of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not."
Asked about the new accounts, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency "has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases" of the use of waterboarding.
She could not comment on the specific allegations.
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