Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

Saadi said he was held without charge at the Tajoura prison for approximately three years,
much of that time in solitary confinement. Then on December 15, 2007, he was moved to
Abu Salim prison, where he was held until March 23, 2010. 347 During his time at Tajoura,
Libyan authorities interrogated him sporadically and at times beat him. The interrogations
usually started at 5 a.m. and went until noon. He said he was not treated badly during the
first month in custody and was even led to believe that he would be released in a matter of
days. But after that, the treatment got worse. He said he was hit with a black wooden stick
that was just over a foot long, whipped with a rope, slapped, kicked, punched, and administered
electric shocks on the neck, chest, and arms. He estimates that he was shocked 15
times. After about a year and a half at Tajoura, Saadi noted that the abuses began to
lessen. He thought that this might have been because of increased cooperation with the
Americans and a commitment by the Libyan authorities as part of that cooperation to not
use force. He added, however, that when interrogators got angry, they still seemed to have
a “green light to start” physically abusing him.
Saadi told Human Rights Watch,
The beatings took place outside the cell and outside the interrogation
room—it was a room just for beating and torture.… The beatings were random,
not regular. For example, after an interrogation, if they weren’t
satisfied, I found myself in a different room and the torture and beating
would start. It would be a different group doing that [the beating] but sometime
the interrogators would be there just watching.
During his time at Tajoura, Saadi said, he was interrogated by Libyan, American, British,
and Italian intelligence agencies, as well as some agents who spoke French, though he did
not know if they were French.
The interrogators Saadi believes were American questioned him twice: once immediately
after he arrived in Libya and again four of five months later. The first team of Americans
consisted of two interrogators, a man named Joe or John, who was short and thin, and a
woman in her 40s. He said, “It seemed that this lady was specialized in Libyan files
347 Ibid.
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