[A-List] US military: Iraq & the torture trail

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US 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.