Katherine R

Mamdouh Habib

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(6th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Summary
Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan on October 5, 2001, and sent to Egypt for interrogation shortly after that. Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, told the Australian TV show SBS Dateline that Habib was sent to Egypt on U.S. orders and in U.S. custody: “The US wanted him for their own investigations. We are not concerned where they take him,” Hayat said. Hayat also stated that Egypt had never requested Habib’s extradition.

The Australian government has accused Habib of attending Lashkar and Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. An Australian TV program, Four Corners on the ABC network, has reported that a raid on Habib’s home in Sunday had uncovered “notes from a terrorist weapons training course”, that he told a friend he planned “to go to Afghanistan to live an Islamic life in the bin Laden camp,” and that he had contacts with two men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ibrahim El-Gabrowny. Sheik Mohammed Omran, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric in Melbourne, has said that he banned Habib from his mosque for trying to recruit people for jihad.

Habib’s family and lawyers deny all these charges. His wife says he traveled to Pakistan to look for an Islamic school for their children.

Habib’s lawyers say he was imprisoned for six months in Egypt and tortured with beatings, electric shock, and drug injection. Dr. Najeeb Al-Nauimi, the former Justice minister of Qatar, told the Dateline TV program that these accusations were true, though it is not clear how he knew this. From an unofficial transcript:

DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI, FORMER MINISTER OF JUSTICE, QATAR: They said he will die.
REPORTER: Tell me more specifically what you were told from your sources about what happened to Mamdouh Habib in Egypt.
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Well, he was in fact tortured. He was interrogated in a way which a human cannot stand up.
REPORTER: And you know this absolutely?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes. We were told that he – they rang the bell that he will die and somebody had to help him.
REPORTER: And again, did your sources tell you what kinds of things he was saying in Egypt to his torturers, to his interrogators?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: My sources did not say exactly what dialogue but they say that he accepted to sign anything.
REPORTER: So he was talking lots?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes – “Whatever you want, I will sign. I’m not involved. I’m not Egyptian. I’m Egyptian by background but I’m Australian.” But he was really beaten, he was really tortured.
REPORTER: Do you think…
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: They tried to use different ways of treating him in the beginning but in the end of that they thought he was lying and that’s why they were very tough.

Sometime in the spring of 2002, most likely in May, the U.S. brought Habib from Egypt to Guantanamo Bay. Ian Kemish, a spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department, told Dateline SBC that 10 days after he arrived in Guantanamo Habib “made some serious complaints about maltreatment during his time in Egypt” to visiting Australian officials.

This July, three British detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed, gave a long public statement about conditions there. It contained these allegations about Habib (on page 108):

Habib himself was in catastrophic shape – mental and physical. As a result of his having been tortured in Egypt he used to bleed from his nose, mouth and ears when he was asleep. We would say he was about 40 years of age. He got no medical attention for this. We used to hear him ask but his interrogator said that he shouldn’t have any. The medics would come and see him and then after he’d asked for medical help they would come back and say if you cooperate with your interrogators then we can do something.

Habib is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, and has not yet been charged before a military commission.

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The Tirana Cell

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post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

(see also this post from June 15, which relies on the same source.)

Summary
In 1998, the CIA arranged for Ahmed Osman Saleh, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar, Shawki Salama Attiya, Essam Abdel Tawwab, and Mohamed Hassan Tita to be captured in Albania and sent to Egypt for interrogation and imprisonment. According to the Wall Street Journal (see below for link, cite & excerpts–this article is excellent, highly recommended reading, and is the source for all of the information in this post unless otherwise noted.), they were all members of a cell of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad that Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s brother Mohamed started in 1992, and that U.S. officials considered “among the most dangerous terror outfits in Europe”. Islamic Jihad was merging with Al Qaeda at the time.

The arrests were primarily planned by the CIA, which sent 12 agents to plan them & enlisted Albania and Egypt’s help. The U.S. and Albania spent three months planning the operation, and Egypt issued pre-arranged charges and extradition requests against some of the suspects during this time. The arrests were carried out in June, July, and August. The suspects were flown to Egypt on a private jet and handed over to the authorities in Cairo.

All five of them alleged that they were tortured in Egypt. The Wall Street Journal Article Mentions that the Egyptian lawyer Hafez Abu-Saada, “who represented all five members of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published report.” I believe I have found a copy of Abu-Saada’s report, but only the Google cache is available.* These are excerpts from the report. (There are some translation/grammar errors, which I have not attempted to correct):

–Ahmed Osman Saleh (referred to as “Ahmed Ismail Osman” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained in an unknown place for two months, and he was being kept in isolation cell then he was tortured by beaten and suspended him. He was referred to SSI in Lazogli and was detained for 45 days during that period he was beaten and the electricity passed in his body.”

–Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar (spelled “Nagar” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was arrested on July 2, 1998 on his arrival to Cairo airport as he was deported from Albania, he was detained in an unknown place for 35 days-as he stated to the EOHR lawyers in the session on February 4, 1999 before the court body. During this period he was blindfolded, and was lodging for 24 hours in a room covered with water to reach his knee and then he was moved to State Security Investigation in Lazogli, and he was tortured by tying his legs, shackling his hands behind his back, forcing him to lie on a sponge mattress putting a chair on his chest and another between his leg and passing electricity to his body.”

–Shawki Salama Attiya (referred to as “Shawki Salama Mustafa” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained for 65 days, the water covered his knee, his legs was tied and he was dragged on his face. He was referred to the State Security Investigation in Lazogli-as stated in prosecution investigation on September 12, 1998 for many sessions in Folder # 1 page 20, he was tied, his legs and hands was suspended and they passing electricity to his male organ and castrates** and they even threatened of sexually abusing him.”

–Essam Abdel Tawwab (referred to as “Essam Abdel Tawab Abdel Aleim” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained in unknown place and then he referred to SSI, during this period he was beaten by hands and legs, his right hand was injured by a sharpener tool, also his legs and hands was tied and suspended and beaten and the electricity passed in a sensitive parts of his body, as stated in the prosecution investigations ‘their was a recovered wound.'”

–Mohamed Hassan Tita “was tortured –as stated in the prosecution investigations in page 65, he said to the EOHR Lawyer that “the electricity passed through my legs and back and I was suspended”.

There are also allegations that Egyptian authorities arrested and tortured the suspect’s families. Naggar’s brother Mohamed told The Wall Street Journal “that he and his relatives also were — and continue to be — harassed and tortured by Egyptian police. He said he had suffered broken ribs and fractured cheekbones. “They changed my features,” Mohamed Naggar said, touching his face. .” And this is another excerpt from Abu-Saada’s report:

Wives and Children:
– The defendants Ahmed Ibrahim El Nagar’s wife, she was arrested after him and while her departure from Albania in Cairo Airport. She was detained in SSI in Lazogli for three days and they ——- her. Worth mentioning, she was arrested before in 1993 for three days and was tortured by passing electricity to her body.

-The defendant Shawki Salama’s wife called Gihan Hassan Mohamed Hassan and a daughter of defendant Hassan Ahmed Hassan (defendant # 104), was arrested on August 1998 after her ——- from Albania and she was detained for three days in SSI in Lazogli. She was tortured by passing electricity to her body, beating her and tying her hands and legs. Worth mentioning the prosecutor recommend her as a witness against her husband but the court improbable her witness from the ——-.

According to the Wall Street Journal, all five defendants were tried and convicted in a mass trial known as the “Returnees-from-Albania Case” in early 1999. Naggar and Saleh were executed in February, 2000, based on earlier terrorism charges. Attiya was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Tita and Tawwab were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. (Abu-Saada’s report says that Tawwab was sentenced to 15 years.)

*If anyone knows how to do a screen capture of this document, please email it to me at katherinesblog@hotmail.com. (UPDATE: several readers have done so. Thanks!)
**From context I think this is a mistranslation of “testicles” and not a verb, but I of course have no way of knowing for certain.

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Talaat Fouad Qassem

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(4th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

(a.k.a. Talat Fouad Qassem, Abu Talal Al-Qasimy, Talat Fouad Kasem).

Summary
This is the first case I have found of extraordinary rendition.* Qassem was arrested in Zagreb, Croatia. U.S. officials questioned him for two days on a ship in the Adriatic Sea, focusing on an alleged assassination plot against President Clinton. Then they sent him to Egypt, where he had been sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal in 1992.

There is some question about the date when this took place. The Washington Post has reported that it happened in 1998, but the four other sources I’ve found (a 1995 Toronto Star article, a 2001 Boston Globe article, and two 2000 articles in the Arab press) say it was 1995, and I believe that is the correct date.

According to Islamic militant sources in Egypt, Egypt took Qassem to their intelligence headquarters in al-Mansoura, then moved him to Cairo in October 1995. He has not been seen since. Egypt has refused to comment on his whereabouts or on whether he is dead or alive.

His wife believes that they executed him several years ago.

*this is actually one of those grey area cases between rendition and extradition—Egypt had charges against him. They had imprisoned him for seven years in the past before his suspected role in the plot against Anwar Sadat before he escaped from prison, and had tried to get Pakistan to extradite him in 1992, so these were not charges made only at the request of the U.S.

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Author’s Note

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(3rd post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) I’m about to begin a series of post summarizing specific examples of extraordinary rendition. I will go in chronological order, more or less. One of the more difficult … Read more

Torture Outsourcing Update

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(2nd post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) Updates on the House Republicans’ attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”: 1. The Justice Department supports it.: Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” … Read more

Abu Ghraib lawsuit

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Last week, as reported by the Associated Press and Reuters, lawyers in California filed a class action suit against several of the contractors working in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. They’re suing under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) and the Alien Torts Claims Act. The defendants are Titan, CACI, some of their … Read more

The Varela Project

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I can’t believe I’m saying this, but: David Brooks’ criticism Kerry’s remarks on the Varela Project is dead on.* The project has gathered 30,000 signatures on a petition to hold a referendum on whether to hold free elections. Castro has jailed many of its supporters.

Kerry told a Miami Herald reporter that it “has gotten a lot of people in trouble . . . and it brought down the hammer in a way that I think wound up being counterproductive.”

I don’t know very much about Cuba; I only learned the details of the Varela project because of this controversy. I do know blaming the victim when I see it. It’s especially bizarre from a candidate who fully supports the embargo–which to my inexpert eyes has proved, if not counterproductive, totally non-productive. But pushing for repeal or relaxation of the embargo could get Kerry “into trouble” in Florida.** Just as opposing the Iraq war would have gotten him into trouble. Just as opposing a constitutional amendment to take away people’s marriage licenses in his home state would have gotten him into trouble. Just as showing leadership now, instead of strategically lying low, could get him into trouble.

He has my vote; there’s no question. (Even if I believed that the Bush administration were a bunch of starry eyed defenders of freedom–and I so, so don’t–I’d have to vote for Kerry on grounds of competence alone.) There’s also no question that Kerry is capable of great courage. But he seems to have misplaced it lately, and I find myself really missing Howie, Johnny, and Wesley. If the rumors about Gephardt as the VP pick prove true, despite the American Prospect’s worthy efforts, I’ll miss them even more.

See Randy Paul, Kevin Drum, and Tacitus for more.

See also William Butler Yeats (first stanza, last two lines).

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Lo, the prophecy is fulfilled

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The other day, I posted a rant directed at Glenn Reynolds, which ended like this: Saying “I’m against torture” is all well and good. But abstract opposition is not worth much, when your response to credible allegations that your government condones torture is to ignore the evidence, blame the messenger, and change the subject. And … Read more

Congress

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Yes, it’s another bang-head-on-keyboard post on prisoner abuse. I don’t like being this repetitive, but I feel like we’re at a key moment right now: We stop this, or as Anne Applebaum says, “the subject will change” and this will become permanent.

But like Jim Henley, I think the time has come not to kvetch, or even to hold forth eloquently, but to organize.

So: Congress. Yesterday Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein made a request to subpoena Justice Department documents on the Bush administration’s policies towards prisoners. The Judiciary Committee voted it down, 10-9, on purely partisan lines. From the NY Times:

The proposal, which was rejected in a 10-9 vote, identified 23 memos, letters or reports from Sept. 25, 2001, through March of this year on topics that included the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and rules for interrogation.

According to the proposal, the documents include a memo from Mr. Rumsfeld to Gen. James T. Hill, the senior officer of the Southern Command, dated April 2003 and titled, “Coercive interrogation techniques that can be used with approval of the Defense Secretary.” Another memo dated Jan. 4, 2004, written by the top legal adviser to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, and sent to military intelligence and police personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison, is titled, “New plan to restrict Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib.”

So, please, please please: if your Senator is on the Judiciary committee and s/he voted against the subpoena, write or call him and ask him to reconsider. Here’s the list, with contact information:
Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia. Phone: (202) 224-3521. E-mail/contact form.
John Cornyn, R-Texas. Phone: (202) 224-2934. E-mail/contact form.
Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Phone: (202) 224-2752. E-mail/contact form.
Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. Phone: (202) 224-2315. E-mail/contact form.
Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. Phone: (202) 224-5972. E-mail/contact form.
Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Phone: (202) 224-3744. E-mail/contact form.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman. Phone: (202) 224-5251. E-mail/contact form.
John Kyl, R-Arizona. Phone: (202) 224-4521. Email/contact form.
Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama. Phone: (202) 224-4124. Email/contact form.
Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. Phone: (202) 224-5225. E-mail/contact form.

Specter is in a competitive election, and it might be worth asking his opponent to raise this issue.

If your Senator voted for the subpoena, please thank him or her and ask him to keep up the pressure for a real investigation. (If your Senator is Patrick Leahy, thank him a whole lot–I’m pretty sure he’s done more good than anyone else in Congress on this stuff. If your Senator is Chuck Schumer, thank him but maybe explain to him why the “ticking bomb” hypo is not such a good reason to legalize torture, and why you wish he would stop implying to the press that it is.)
Joseph Biden, D-Delaware. Phone: (202) 224-5042. Email/contact form.
Richard J. Durbin, D-Illinois. Phone: (202) 224-2152 . Email/contact form.
John Edwards, D-North Carolina. Phone: (202) 224-3154. Email/contact form.
Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin. Phone: (202) 224-5323. Email/contact form.
Dianne Feinstein, D-California. Phone: (202) 224-3841. Email/contact form.
Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts. Phone: (202) 224-4543. Email/contact form.
Herbert Kohl, D-Wisconsin. Phone: (202) 224-5653. Email/contact form.
Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, ranking minority member. Phone: (202) 224-4242. Email/contact form.
Charles Schumer, D-New York. Phone: (202) 224-6542. Email/contact form.

If your Senator is not on Judiciary, write to him anyway. He may be on Armed Services, or Intelligence, or some other committee that could have jurisdiction over this. Or maybe he’ll make a floor speech–it’s better than nothing. Write to your House member too.

Or write to the President–what the hell. Or call John Kerry, and ask him to show some leadership on this issue.* Or email the Applebaum article and your Congressmen’s addresses to your friends (especially if they’re constituents of Judiciary Committee members.) Or post this on a weblog that actually gets traffic. Or any combination of the above.

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Ghosts, living and dead

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Most of you have probably already seen this story, which was on the front page of the NY Times today:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison’s rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

This prisoner and other “ghost detainees” were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who in February investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees there and at other detention centers as “deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law.”

This prisoner was apparently not abused. They just forgot about him, and forgot to question him–despite their belief that he was a high ranking Ansar-el-Islam officer actively planning attacks on U.S. forces.

Other “ghost detainees” (see correction/update below)have died in U.S. custody. From a May 25 NY Times story:

Accounts from intelligence officials seem to indicate that the practice of keeping detainees off official prison rosters was widespread.

In one of several cases in which an Iraqi prisoner died at Abu Ghraib in connection with interrogations, a hooded man identified only by his last name, Jamadi, slumped over dead on Nov. 20 as he was being questioned by a C.I.A. officer and translator, intelligence officials said. The incident is being investigated by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, and military officials have said that the man, whose body was later packed in ice and photographed at Abu Ghraib, had never been assigned a prisoner number, an indication that he had never been included on any official roster at the prison.

(I’m almost sure this next excerpt from the same story, a few paragraphs later, describes the same prisoner. The article doesn’t make it totally clear, though.)

An American military policeman said in sworn testimony early last month that the man had been brought to Abu Ghraib by “O.G.A.,” initials for other government agency, or the C.I.A., with a sandbag over his head. Military guards took the prisoner to a shower room at the prison, which was used as a temporary interrogation center, according to the account by Specialist Jason A. Kenner of the 372nd Military Police Company.

“He went into the shower for interrogation and about an hour later he died on them,” said Specialist Kenner, whose account left unclear whether the detainee was examined by a doctor or given any military treatment before he died.

“When we put on his orange jumpsuit to take him to the tier, we were told not to take the sandbag off at all,” Specialist Kenner said. “After he passed, the sandbag was removed, and I saw that he was severely beaten on his face. At the time, they would interrogate people in the shower rooms. He was shackled to the wall.”

“Later that day,” Specialist Kenner added, “they decided to put him on ice.”

Today’s Times article says the Ansar-al-Islam suspect in Camp Cutter, “is believed to be the first to have been kept off the books at the orders of Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet.”

What I want to know is, are the key words in that sentence “first…off the books” or “at the orders of Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet”? Were other detainees held off the books before, without Rumsfeld’s authorization? Was Rumsfeld’s authorization always required to hold a detainee without recording his name?

If so, was there a specific authorization for each individual “ghost detainee”? Or a more general order to hold detainees without listing them on the prisoner rolls if CIA officials requested it?

If not, why was Rumsfeld’s authorization required for the Camp Cropper prisoner and not for others? It might be that the chain of command utterly broke down at Abu Ghraib and no one even bothered asking Rumsfeld; they just did what intelligence told them. But Camp Cropper wasn’t a model of organization either, if they just forget to interrogate this prisoner. And Tenet seems to have been very careful about getting DoD and White House approval for the CIA’s actions.

A note on the timing: The “ghost detainee” whose body was photographed at Abu Ghraib died on November 20, according to the NY Times story
(see correction below). Rumsfeld’s order to hold the Ansar-al-Islam suspect without listing him was issued “in November”, according to today’s Times story. This CBS news story and this CNN story says Rumsfeld’s order was about a prisoner code- or nick-named “Triple X.” This U.S. News story, say that General Ricardo Sanchez’ ordered military guards to keep “Triple X” off the rosters and away from Red Cross inspectors on November 18, 2003. Rumsfeld’s authorization would have been issued before Sanchez’ directive; I don’t know how long before. According to Newsweek, “[o]n Nov. 19, Abu Ghraib was formally handed over to tactical control of military-intelligence units.” So it’s hard to tell much from the timing.

I could editorialize on all this, but what’s the point.

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