Here's How We Treat The Innocent....at Gitmo

My Nightmare of Torture and Assault,
by Briton Held in Guantanamo
By Severin Carrell, Raymond Whitaker, and Andrew Buncombe
The Independent U.K.

Sunday 30 January 2005

One of the four Britons freed from Guantanamo Bay last week has alleged being tortured, nearly suffocated and repeatedly assaulted in American detention, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

In the first detailed account to emerge since their release, Moazzam Begg, 35, from Birmingham, has accused his US captors of threatening his family, killing fellow detainees, and interrogating him more than 250 times. His 25-page testimony was written in solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay last year for an American tribunal hearing.

It details, for the first time, why he visited Islamist training camps in Afghanistan, and describes the night in 2002 when he was captured in Pakistan by US agents.

Mr Begg claims that while he was held by the Americans at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in 2002, he was "dragged into an isolation room, my hands shackled from behind to my ankles, and a suffocating hood placed over my head. I was struck about the head several times, then left in that manner on the floor for several hours, only to be interrogated again."

Mr Begg, who used to run an Islamic bookshop in Birmingham, is recuperating in a safe house with his family after arriving back in the UK on an RAF jet last Tuesday with fellow detainees Feroz Abbasi, 24, Richard Belmar, 25, and Martin Mubanga, 32, all from London. All four men were held by anti-terrorism police for questioning for nearly 24 hours before being released without charge.

However, speculation is increasing that the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, will seek court orders to place the men under strict controls under new emergency anti-terrorism powers that he is now seeking. Mr Clarke said last week he wants the power to put suspected terrorists and their immediate families under house arrest, or to impose very strict bail-style controls on their movements and behaviour.

The Government insists these powers are chiefly in response to the ruling last month by nine Law Lords that the jailing of 11 foreign men without trial, including the radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada, was illegal. Sources in the US administration suggested that the new measures were part of the guarantees given by Britain before the four detainees were leased from Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon insisted last week that the four continue to pose a "significant threat", and security sources in Britain are making similar claims about the 11 men detained in Belmarsh prison and other jails.

Lawyers for the four ex-Guantanamo detainees now suspect that they all face court orders that could force them to live under strict bail conditions, including restrictions on their movements and use of computers, and the possible surrender of their passports.

Last night, Gareth Peirce, the lawyer for Mr Begg and Mr Belmar, said: "It's pretty obvious that the timing of their release with Mr Clarke's announcement is not coincidental. It's a complete police state if all these powers come in."

In his testimony, Mr Begg alleges that he was "coerced" into signing a false confession at Guantanamo Bay on 13 February 2003 by the same US interrogators who had allegedly tortured him at Bagram airbase. He had signed the confession, which claimed that he was a member of al-Qa'ida, with "memories fresh [with] the threats of summary trials, life imprisonment and execution". He added: "They reiterated the previous threats."

In further passages of his diary, Mr Begg alleges that he saw US interrogators using a series of illegal practices to extract confessions from detainees. At Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, he claims, interrogators used "sleep deprivation; racial and religious taunts; being chained to a door for hours - with a suffocating plastic sandbag as a hood; arm twisting and forced bowing; and several beatings."



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ACLU Calls On Gonzales to Appoint
Special Counsel on Torture Abuses
American Civil Liberties Union | Press Release

Sunday 30 January 2005

Full criminal investigation of civilian officials must be free of political pressure.

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called upon senators to insist - prior to voting on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general - that he commit to immediately appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute any criminal acts by civilians in the torture or abuse of detainees by the U.S. Government.

"In America, no one is above the law, even those at the highest level of government," said Christopher Anders, an ACLU legislative counsel. "Senators should demand now that Gonzales show the American people that he is beholden not to the political sways of the White House, but to the interests of truth and justice, by committing to the immediate appointment of an outside special counsel to investigate any and all criminal conduct by civilians in the use of torture and abuse against prisoners."

At his confirmation hearing, Gonzales failed to adequately answer inquiries from both sides of the aisle about the Bush Administration's policies on the torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees. The ACLU said that the appointment of an outside special counsel - with full investigatory and prosecutorial powers - is the only way to ensure that all civilians who violated federal laws against torture will be held responsible

In a letter distributed to senators, the ACLU said that a three-prong test outlined in the Justice Department's own regulations regarding the appointment of an outside special counsel has been met. The prongs include:

The requirement that "criminal investigation of a person or matter [must be] warranted," is met by the clear record of high-level government officials changing U.S. policy on the treatment of prisoners. This record was highlighted by the example of the Justice Department's December 30, 2004 memorandum that rejected and replaced an August 1, 2002 memo that narrowly interpreted "torture" under the Anti-Torture Act. Incredibly, acts such as burning, electric shocks, prolonged intense noise, amputation of a finger or similar disfiguring harm, use of stress positions, or prolonged exposure to heat or cold would not have fit within the meaning of "torture" as explained by the August 1, 2002 memorandum. The new memorandum, finalized just one week before the Gonzales confirmation hearing, expands the range of actions considered criminal. In short, while U.S. laws had not changed, the Department's interpretation of them had. Therefore, the ACLU said, it is likely that criminal acts occurred under the looser interpretations in effect for more than two years.

The requirement that an "investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department," is met by the fact that then White House counsel Gonzales, numerous Justice Department and Defense Department officials, along with Vice President Cheney's counsel and top officials of the CIA reportedly were intimately involved with the formulation of one or another of an array of policies withdrawing protections against torture or abuse of prisoners. Gonzales and Justice Department attorneys cannot fully and fairly investigate a matter in which he and other high-level Administration officials will necessarily at least be subject to questioning.

Finally, the requirement that "Under the circumstances it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter," is met. The images of the abuses at Abu Ghraib are still etched in the national memory, and despite oversight hearings, inquiries from members of Congress, and litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, the American public still does not have a complete picture on the extent and causes of torture and abuse.

"It is time for the Senate to demand accountability and responsibility," Anders added. "A small number of enlisted men and women in the military and a few low-ranking military officers should not be the only individuals held responsible for the torture and abuse that repulsed all Americans, if civilians were also engaged in criminal conduct. The American people deserve to know the truth, and justice must be served."

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The ACLU's letter to the Senate can be read at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17374&c=206

The ACLU's report on Gonzales's civil rights and civil liberties record is available at:
http://www.aclu.org/gonzales

Information about the ACLU's Freedom on Information Act lawsuit on the torture documents is at:
http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia