Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Even fleeing the country did not mean escaping Gaddafi’s reach. In the 1970s and 80s, Gaddafi’s government reportedly formed assassination squads that tracked down and killed his opponents abroad. 56 Flight from Libya State restrictions on the practice of Islam were the main reason most of the men interviewed for this report said they had left Libya, though some also cited more general freedom of expression issues. “I had a beard when I was at the university and it was obvious I used to pray,” said Mustafa Salim Ali el-Madaghi, one of the men who fled Libya in 1990 only to be sent back by foreign governments. “I was afraid to show anything like that because such an appearance was considered an act of outright opposition. I started to be followed by a security person…. All of this plus the continuous arrests of people made me decide to leave Libya because I knew that if I stayed I would end up in prison.” 57 Another former detainee, Abu Farsan, said he prayed at home and avoided the mosque because “going to the mosque was the route to prison.” 58 Those interviewed said that after they had left the country, a number of friends and relatives who stayed behind were harassed, detained, or killed. 59 After he fled Libya in 1988, Sami al-Saadi said that security forces repeatedly harassed his elderly father, even breaking into his house and beating him. Two of Saadi’s brothers were also arrested and imprisoned in Tripoli’s high security prison, Abu Salim, where many political prisoners were held. After being held for several years without trial, both lost their lives in the 1996 56 Pargeter, Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi, p. 103-105 (On one occasion, Musa Kusa, Gaddafi’s former Intelligence Chief, reportedly admitted to these killings, reportedly telling The Times “on 11 June 1980: ‘We killed two in London and there were another two to be killed… I approve of this.” On another occasion the attacker of a Libyan man killed in Rome reportedly told the police that he was sent by people to kill the victim because he was a “traitor” and an “enemy of the people.”); See also these two Associated Press stories, one in the Schenectady Gazette and another in the Gainesville Sun reporting on May 18, 1984 that the Gaddafi government had taken a decision, according to JANA, the official Libyan news agency, to form squads to hunt down “traitors, fugitives and stray dogs,” wherever they are, and “liquidate” them without “any hesitation”: “Libya Forms Suicide Squads to kill ‘Traitors, Fugitives, and Stray Dogs,’” Schenectady Gazette, May 18, 1984, bit.ly/RK9UV2 (accessed August 18, 2012); and “Libyan Suicide Squads to Chase, ‘Traitors’,” Gainesville Gazette, May 18, 1984, http://bit.ly/Sx6lkn (accessed August 19, 2012); See also Hilsum, Sandstorm, p. 79-83. 57 Human Rights Watch interview with Mustafa Salim Ali el-Madaghi (Madaghi), Tripoli, Libya, March 26, 2012. 58 Human Rights Watch interview with Abu Farsan, March 26, 2012. 59 See Human Rights Watch, Truth and Justice Can’t Wait: Human Rights Developments in Libya Amid Institutional Obstacles, 1-56432-563-6, December 2009, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya1209web.pdf (accessed July 24, 2012), p. 53 (“Many of the prisoners who were killed in 1996 had been imprisoned in Abu Salim since 1989 or 1995, years in which mass arrests took place to crack down on perceived opposition.”). 21 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012
Abu Salim massacre, in which prison guards killed some 1,200 prisoners after a revolt over prison conditions. 60 All of the men interviewed for this report were in their late teens or early twenties when they left Libya. Some of them were founding members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), discussed below. After leaving Libya, most were among a large group of Libyans who went to Afghanistan around this time, where they joined other Libyans there fighting with rebel groups, referred to broadly as “the mujahidin,” against Soviet military forces and the Soviet-backed Afghan government. 61 The United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and several other governments backed the Afghan rebels with covert funding, weapons, and training for the fighters. 62 The Saudi government for example, contributed $350 to $500 million per year for the mujahidin through a US government controlled Swiss bank account. 63 “In Saudi Arabia, everyone was talking about the Afghan Jihad,” said Osmail Omar Gebril al-Lwatty, one of the rendered Libyans who fought in Afghanistan. “They made it so easy for us. There were camps where you could live normally and train, in Jalalabad and Khost, then you went to Peshawar to get equipped.” 64 A well-known Palestinian cleric at the time, Abdullah Azzam, authored numerous statements and texts, one of which was published as a book, considered by many to constitute a fatwa (legal pronouncement), in which he argued that Muslims had a personal obligation to defend Afghanistan against the Soviets. 65 “I believed the people in Afghanistan were 60 Human Rights Watch interview with Saadi, March 14, 2012; See also Tawil, Brothers in Arms, p. 181, n. 1 and these reports for more information about the Abu Salim killings: Human Rights Watch, “Libya: June 1996 Killings at Abu Salim Prison,” June 28, 2006, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya2003.pdf; and Human Rights Watch, “Libya: Truth and Justice Can’t Wait,” Dec. 12, 2009, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya1209web.pdf, p. 46. 61 Noman Benotman, a former member of the Shura Council of the LIFG, estimated in one account that there were between 800 and 1,000 Libyan fighters of various affiliations in Afghanistan. See Tawil, Brothers in Arms, p. 165, n. 38. In another account, Benotman estimated between 900 and 1,000. See Omar Ashour, “Post-Jihadism: Libya and the Global Transformations of Armed Islamist Movements,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 23, Issue 3 (2011), p. 382. Although Gaddafi supported Islamist rebel groups in other countries—the Philippines for instance—he did not throw his support behind Afghan rebel groups because of Libya’s then close relationship with the Soviet Union. 62 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), p. 119; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 197. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 65; Ali Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al- Qaeda (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), p. 22. 63 Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 119. 64 Human Rights Watch interview with Lwatty, March 17, 2012 . 65 Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 117-18; See also Tawil, Brothers in Arms, p. 17; and Soufan, The Black Banners, p. 23. DELIVERED INTO ENEMY HANDS 22
Page 1 and 2: H U M A N R I G H T S W A T C H Del
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2012 Human Rights Watc
Page 5 and 6: Mustafa Jawda al-Mehdi ............
Page 7 and 8: This report is based mostly on Huma
Page 9 and 10: These stories provide new details a
Page 11 and 12: Gaddafi opponents in Libya. Ten of
Page 13 and 14: treatment. Nor did they protect det
Page 15 and 16: two more the following April. Commu
Page 17 and 18: esponsibilities. Mehdi and Shoroiey
Page 19 and 20: identified in this report to Libya,
Page 21 and 22: of compiling the names of those who
Page 23 and 24: Libya from the 1970s to the 1990s I
Page 25: Gaddafi also made major changes to
Page 29 and 30: insurgency, mainly in eastern Libya
Page 31 and 32: In late autumn of 2007, these repor
Page 33 and 34: econciled with Gaddafi and a number
Page 35 and 36: PLACES OF ARREST, DATES OF TRANSFER
Page 37 and 38: Shoroeiya and Sharif said that once
Page 39 and 40: Arrest and Detention Shoroeiya and
Page 41 and 42: CIA Rendition Transportation Proced
Page 43 and 44: Both were detained in this first lo
Page 45 and 46: Abu Yasser al Jazairi, from Algeria
Page 47 and 48: Sharif also said he learned the nam
Page 49 and 50: Afghanistan on April 25, 2004. Both
Page 51 and 52: Shoroeiya and Sharif both alleged t
Page 53 and 54: The Interrogators Shoroeiya said th
Page 55 and 56: He said there were doctors present.
Page 57 and 58: Mohammed Shoroeiya said his interro
Page 59 and 60: stan.” 191 Both thought they migh
Page 61 and 62: Shoroeiya said there were intrusive
Page 63 and 64: “The biggest suffering for any pr
Page 65 and 66: Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi Maji
Page 67 and 68: him in Pashto, they spoke to him in
Page 69 and 70: Loud music was blaring constantly.
Page 71 and 72: On various occasions while detained
Page 73 and 74: he was in Karachi, Pakistan. After
Page 75 and 76: faces. He said he saw from the eyeh
Page 77 and 78:
His interrogators would come to him
Page 79 and 80:
He again went on hunger strike, ask
Page 81 and 82:
Di’iki was detained in solitary c
Page 83 and 84:
Mustafa Salim Ali el-Madaghi Mustaf
Page 85 and 86:
took photos of him; put him in diap
Page 87 and 88:
flight plan to go into Nouakchott,
Page 89 and 90:
Mehdi said he first went to Saudi A
Page 91 and 92:
Pakistanis responded in Pashto. He
Page 93 and 94:
There were about 12 interpreters, p
Page 95 and 96:
know what’s going to happen to yo
Page 97 and 98:
Departure from Libya Belhadj was bo
Page 99 and 100:
‘This is it.’ I thought I would
Page 101 and 102:
information with you [Libyan securi
Page 103 and 104:
equests for information from Abu
Page 105 and 106:
subsequently was able to receive vi
Page 107 and 108:
Sami Mostefa al-Saadi © 2012 Human
Page 109 and 110:
making harsh statements against the
Page 111 and 112:
denied permission for the Libyan ai
Page 113 and 114:
Saadi said he was held without char
Page 115 and 116:
complicity in his transfer back to
Page 117 and 118:
Abu Farsan spent the next decade at
Page 119 and 120:
They noted in the fax that they und
Page 121 and 122:
On June 7, 2006, Abu Farsan was tra
Page 123 and 124:
Safrani in Afghanistan, said that t
Page 125 and 126:
V. The Case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Lib
Page 127 and 128:
In late 2001, Pakistani authorities
Page 129 and 130:
2004, al-Libi recanted the informat
Page 131 and 132:
held until December 2006, when the
Page 133 and 134:
It is not clear when Ibn al-Sheikh
Page 135 and 136:
Mostafa al-Mehdi (see above) saw al
Page 137 and 138:
VI. Detainees Rendered From Other A
Page 139 and 140:
appointed a lawyer who he said did
Page 141 and 142:
In early 2008 he was charged with b
Page 143 and 144:
government. After 1992, when the go
Page 145 and 146:
governments during the Gaddafi gove
Page 147 and 148:
conflict or emergency, may “opt o
Page 149 and 150:
them to Libya in violation of their
Page 151 and 152:
each country to which the agency de
Page 153 and 154:
shelving the Gibson Inquiry and wou
Page 155 and 156:
To the US Congress • Create an in
Page 157 and 158:
To the Government of the Netherland
Page 159 and 160:
Acknowledgments This report was wri
Page 164:
Recreation of Document 2144 SUBJECT
Page 174:
Translation of Documents 2164-65 Al
Page 215:
Delivered Into Enemy Hands US-Led A
show all

Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?