Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

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North Africa, and Asia in response to governments they deemed corrupt, oppressive, and not sufficiently Islamic. Libya was no exception. In 1977, several years after Gaddafi took power, he imposed his unique political system, the Jamahiriya, or “state of the masses,” on the country. The government confiscated property, and began regulating every aspect of life, from religion to economics to education, in entirely new and often incomprehensible ways. Many Libyans, including traditional Muslims who were particularly outraged by the changes Gaddafi made to the practice of Islam and considered them blasphemous, expressed their opposition. Gaddafi put down dissent brutally, focusing in particular on Islamist opposition groups who, due to their alignment with Islamist groups abroad and the deep devotion of many members, he treated as a dangerous threat. Those suspected of even the slightest connection with the movement were rounded up, imprisoned, and sometimes executed, including in public and broadcast on television. It is in the context of this crackdown that the LIFG began to organize and set out, from bases both within and outside Libya, to overthrow Gaddafi. Virtually all the former Libyan detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they fled the country in the late 1980s because of Gaddafi’s repressive policies against organized Islamic opposition groups and against persons perceived to be associated with such groups, due to their religious practices. Some joined the LIFG while in Libya and others once outside the country. All but one said they participated in the fighting in Afghanistan that eventually defeated the Soviet-installed government of Mohammed Najibullah in 1992 and used the training they gained there for LIFG-led anti-Gaddafi efforts. After the September 11 attacks on the United States, being Libyan without documentation in Afghanistan, and being part of an armed Islamic opposition group, placed these Libyan expatriates at high risk of arrest. That was true even if—as all those interviewed for this report claim—their group was not at war with the West. And so many of them fled, along with their families, moving from country to country, including to destinations such as Malaysia and Hong Kong as well as Mali and Mauritania. It was in these countries that they were taken into custody before being sent elsewhere. For many of the individuals profiled here, this will be the first time their stories are told because until last year they were locked up in Libyan prisons. 3 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012
These stories provide new details about serious human rights violations in US detention sites, US and UK collaboration with the Gaddafi government, and the roles of several other countries that assisted in renditions. This information includes: • New accounts of abuse in secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) black sites: Five former LIFG members told Human Rights Watch that they were detained in US run-prisons in Afghanistan for between eight months and two years. The abuse allegedly included: being chained to walls naked—sometimes while diapered—in pitch dark, windowless cells, for weeks or months at a time; being restrained in painful stress positions for long periods of time, being forced into cramped spaces; being beaten and slammed into walls; being kept inside for nearly five months without the ability to bathe; being denied food and being denied sleep by continu- ous, deafeningly loud Western music, before being rendered back to Libya. The United States never charged them with crimes. Their captors allegedly held them incommunicado, cut off from the outside world, and typically in solitary confine- ment throughout their Afghan detention. The accounts of these five men provide extensive new evidence that corroborates the few other personal accounts that ex- ist about the same US-run facilities. One of those five, before being transferred to Afghanistan, as well as another former LIFG member interviewed for this report, were also held in a detention facility in Morocco. • New evidence of “waterboarding” torture and a similar practice during interrogations: One former detainee, Mohammed Shoroeiya, provided detailed and credible testimony that he was waterboarded on repeated occasions during US interrogations in Afghanistan. While never using the phrase “waterboarding,” he said that after his captors put a hood over his head and strapped him onto a wooden board, “then they start with the water pouring…. They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.” He added that, “they wouldn’t stop until they got some kind of answer from me.” He said a doctor was present during the waterboarding and that this happened numerous times, so many times he could not count. A second detainee in Afghanistan described being subjected to a water suffocation practice similar to waterboarding, and said that he was threatened with use of the board. A doctor was present during his suffocation-inducing abuse as well. The allegations of waterboarding contradict statements about the practice from senior US officials, such as former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who DELIVERED INTO ENEMY HANDS 4
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: This report is based mostly on Huma
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 and 26: Gaddafi also made major changes to
Page 27 and 28: Abu Salim massacre, in which prison
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
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stan.” 191 Both thought they migh
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Shoroeiya said there were intrusive
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“The biggest suffering for any pr
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Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi Maji
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him in Pashto, they spoke to him in
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Loud music was blaring constantly.
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On various occasions while detained
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he was in Karachi, Pakistan. After
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faces. He said he saw from the eyeh
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His interrogators would come to him
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He again went on hunger strike, ask
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Di’iki was detained in solitary c
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Mustafa Salim Ali el-Madaghi Mustaf
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took photos of him; put him in diap
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flight plan to go into Nouakchott,
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Mehdi said he first went to Saudi A
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Pakistanis responded in Pashto. He
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There were about 12 interpreters, p
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know what’s going to happen to yo
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Departure from Libya Belhadj was bo
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‘This is it.’ I thought I would
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information with you [Libyan securi
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equests for information from Abu
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subsequently was able to receive vi
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Sami Mostefa al-Saadi © 2012 Human
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making harsh statements against the
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denied permission for the Libyan ai
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Saadi said he was held without char
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complicity in his transfer back to
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Abu Farsan spent the next decade at
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They noted in the fax that they und
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On June 7, 2006, Abu Farsan was tra
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Safrani in Afghanistan, said that t
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V. The Case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Lib
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In late 2001, Pakistani authorities
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2004, al-Libi recanted the informat
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held until December 2006, when the
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It is not clear when Ibn al-Sheikh
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Mostafa al-Mehdi (see above) saw al
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VI. Detainees Rendered From Other A
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appointed a lawyer who he said did
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In early 2008 he was charged with b
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government. After 1992, when the go
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governments during the Gaddafi gove
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conflict or emergency, may “opt o
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them to Libya in violation of their
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each country to which the agency de
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shelving the Gibson Inquiry and wou
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To the US Congress • Create an in
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To the Government of the Netherland
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Acknowledgments This report was wri
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Recreation of Document 2144 SUBJECT
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Translation of Documents 2164-65 Al
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Delivered Into Enemy Hands US-Led A
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Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

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