Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

held until December 2006, when the United States forcibly transferred him back to Libya
(see above). 402
According to al-Libi’s family, after Kandahar, the United States took him to Kabul (more
likely Bagram Air Base) 403 and then transferred him to Egypt. 404 Al-Libi’s family said he was
in Egypt for 13 months. 405 He told his family and other detainees with whom he was detained
that he was sent to Egypt “in a coffin.” 406 During his time in Egypt, he told others
that his Egyptian captors beat and abused him constantly. He showed one fellow prisoner
marks he said were from a drill that was used on him in Egypt and burns on his body that
he received there. 407 He told another fellow prisoner at the time that he was cut with blades
on his skin while there and that he was hung out an open window with no clothes on. 408
His Egyptian captors also had him lie on his stomach and forced his legs back towards his
shoulder blades. 409
After Egypt, al-Libi was apparently brought back to US custody, possibly to a CIA prison at
Bagram. 410 This is where it seems he recanted the information he had provided earlier on
402 Ibid.
403 Mayer, The Dark Side, p. 104; Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, p. 120.
404 Some prisoners held with al-Libi said that al-Libi told them he was actually given a choice of either Egypt or Israel and
that he chose Egypt, a choice he said was a bad one. Human Rights Watch interview with Shoroeiya, Tripoli, March 18, 2012;
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Bousidra, April 2, 2012. Bousidra was detained with al-Libi in the foreign
intelligence building in Libya, Bousidra in cell three and al-Libi in cell seven; other prisoners described something similar.
Sheikh Othman Salah said al-Libi told him that they said “if you don’t talk in 24-48 hours and tell us your plan, you will be
transferred to one of two countries that will have no mercy on you—Egypt or Israel.” Human Rights Watch interview with
Sheikh Othman Salah, Tripoli, Libya, Janurary 12, 2012. Al-Libi told Abdullah Mohammed Omar al-Tawaty when they were
detained together in a place called Asouk (he in cell three and Tawaty in cell 14) that when he was in the “dark prison” in
Afghanistan, someone representing himself from the White House came into his cell and said that if he did not tell him in the
next 20 minutes the operations that al Qaeda was planning against the US he would be taken to either Egypt or Israel.
Human Rights Watch interview with Abdulla Mohammed Omar al-Tawaty, Benghazi, Libya, March 21, 2012.
405 Human Rights Watch interview with Faraj el-Fakhri, March 21, 2012.
406 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Bousidra, April 2, 2012; Human Rights Watch interviews with Sheikh
Othman Salah, January 12, 2012; Tawaty, March 21, 2012; Faraj el-Fakhri, March 21, 2012; Abdul Aziz el-Fakhri, March 22,
2012; and Shoroeiya, March 18, 2012.
407 Human Rights Watch interview with Shoroeiya, March 18, 2012. Shoroeiya said al-Libi showed him these marks when they
were detained in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. All prisoners detained there said at some point during their detention in Abu
Salim, Libyan authorities allowed prisoners to leave their cells for limited periods of time and mix with other prisoners in
certain sections of the prison, though they still had to be confined to certain locations.
408 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Bousidra, March 29, 2012.
409 Ibid.
410 Both Shoroieya and Sharif report talking to him during their time in US detention in Afghanistan, although when is not
clear, from around April 18, 2003 to between April 20 and 25, 2004. This was likely the same place where al-Libi described
being detained to al-Tawaty while they were in prison together in Asouk in Libya. Al-Libi told Tawaty that he was taken to the
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