Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

There were about 12 interpreters, possibly American, he said, but from what seemed to be
different backgrounds, such as Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and Lebanon. They spoke to him in
Pashto, not Arabic. They asked him questions about whom he knew and about people in
photographs shown to him. One of the reasons he is sure he was in US custody is that
whenever they asked him questions, they would say “Washington says this and Washington
says that.” Sometimes the interpreters asked questions of their own and the
interrogators would stop them and tell them only to ask the question they told them to ask.
Mehdi figured out later that he was detained in this facility for about 10 months, but while
he was there it was nearly impossible to keep track of time. Sometimes he could tell the
passage of time by noting when meals were delivered. Other times he would pour water on
the floor before he went to sleep and would try to tell how much time had passed based
upon how much water had evaporated. He was only able to tell how long he was at the
facility later by calculating the time between his arrest and return to Libya.
Transfer and Treatment in Libya
One night he was told that the next day, which he later learned was April 21, 2005, he
would be taken to Libya. He begged his American captors not to send him back there:
I informed them that I faced a real danger if they sent me back. I was wanted
in Libya…. If I reached Gaddafi, that was when the real ‘ceremony’ was
going to begin. I was so clear. I said they will kill me, they will torture me.
And [the proof of that was] I was [eventually] sentenced to death [there]. It
was the first time I cried actually, the first tears I wept were when they told
me I was being handed over to the Libyans.
He said he asked if any sort of international organization, like the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), would be involved. When the Americans said no, he asked if they
could be involved. He told Human Rights Watch, “They just laughed and said ‘no.’ I knew
the dangers of being handed over without anyone registering me, I needed someone to
know, to be involved so it was public… If this went through the ICRC, I felt like it would be
safer.”
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