Rene — US troops face new torture claims
Topic(s): Iraq | Comments Off on Rene — US troops face new torture claimsUS troops face new torture claims
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday September 14, 2004
The Guardian
Allegations that American soldiers routinely tortured and maltreated
detainees have emerged from a third Iraqi city, renewing fears that
abuse similar to that inflicted in Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad has
been systematic and widespread. American soldiers in the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul beat and stripped detainees, threatened sexual
abuse and forced them to listen to loud western music, according to
statements seen by the Guardian.
Lawyers investigating the claims have sent details to the Pentagon
and the British Ministry of Defence and have demanded an inquiry.
Though the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail and in Basra
has been well-documented, this is the first time claims of abuse have
been made from the north of the country.
Two statements have been taken from Iraqis detained in Mosul and more
are expected.
In one, an Iraqi lawyer says he was hooded and stripped naked in a
building known as the “disco”.
Yasir Rubaii Saeed al-Qutaji describes how loud western music was
played and cold water poured over his body; he said he was also
threatened with sexual abuse.
“For the next 15 hours they tried to break me down by taking me
frequently inside and repeating the stripping, cold water and loud
music sequence,” he says.
“Due to the very loud music,” he adds, “they would talk to me via a
loudspeaker that was placed next to my ears.”
The beatings did not leave a mark on his body because his attackers
wore special gloves, he says.
Mr al-Qutaji says he was a founder member of the Islamic Organisation
for Human Rights. He claims that other prisoners were treated even
worse. “Some were burnt with fire, others [had] bandaged broken arms.”
In a separate statement, Haitham Saeed al-Mallah, a Mosul-born
engineering graduate says his house was raided by seven American
soldiers in January. “I was handcuffed and hooded and was then taken
to an unknown place which they call ‘the disco’, where they played
very loud music as one of their means of torture.”
He adds: “They left me standing for hours, handcuffed and hooded,
which made me quite disorientated. Then I was kicked very hard on my
stomach, which was followed by continuous beating with a stick and
with their boots until I fell unconscious. I only woke up after they
poured over my head very cold water, which caused me great suffering.”
Mr al-Mallah says he was taken to a room where there was a “group
torture”.
He adds: “I heard nothing but screaming and suffering of detained
Iraqis. The usage of cold water along with beating seemed to be a
standard procedure. We were then asked to perform exhausting exercises
of squatting while they were playing extremely loud (and dirty) music.
“Whoever fell to the ground out of exhaustion would receive painful
beating and cold water. We were prevented from going to the toilets
despite our pleas, which made many of us soil ourselves”.
He says detainees were allowed to sleep for about two hours, after
which the cycle of torture continued.
“The new thing this time was ordering us to shout, ‘Long live the
United States’. We were also made to shout obscenities (sentences
that had the word ‘fuck’ in them).”
Mr al-Mallah says the next day, he saw “a young man of 14 years of
age bleeding from his anus and lying on the floor.
“He was Kurdish and his name was Hama. I heard the soldiers talking
to each other about this guy, they mentioned that the reason for this
bleeding was inserting a metal object in his anus.”
Mr al-Qutaji, who was detained in March, says he and other Iraqi
lawyers have been unable to stop abuses because US forces have been
given immunity from prosecution.
He says Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisonal Authority,
dismissed 120 of Iraq’s senior judges, 45 of them in Mosul, on the
grounds that they were supporters of Saddam’s regime.
Phil Shiner, of the Birmingham-based law firm, Public Interest Lawyers,
is trying to get the cases raised in the British courts. He is working
with American lawyers to get them raised there.
“The British public needs to know the full implications of the decision
to get into this war,” he said.
A US army spokesman in Baghdad said yesterday that he was surprised
by the allegations, which would be investigated.
The MoD in London said it had not yet been made aware of the
allegations