[Marxism] Escaped while attempting to testify? OR Did naked prisoner used penis to pick lock?

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This article also alludes to the Washington Post revelations re. East
European detention/torture sites, but I thought this bit of info was
also interesting. I realize that I am one of those who are involved in
the "pornographication of politics," but I can't help myself.
[three-fifths of the way down at http://themilitant.com/]

Why do I think that Omar al-Faruq has been deep-sixed someplace,
especially since he "provided little useful information"? BTW, whatever
happened to truth serums? Was that a myth?

Brian Shannon
____________________

The New York Times
November 3, 2005
Qaeda Operative in Southeast Asia Has Fled U.S. Jail in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - Omar al-Faruq, a confidant of Osama bin Laden who
was one of Al Qaeda's senior operatives in Southeast Asia, escaped from
an American military prison in Afghanistan in July, a Pentagon official
said Wednesday.

Military authorities acknowledged in July that four suspected Qaeda
terrorists had escaped from the heavily fortified prison at Bagram Air
Base, apparently by picking the locks of their cells and slipping past
a careless Afghan guard. They remain at large.

Mr. Faruq was one of Mr. bin Laden's top lieutenants until he was
captured in Indonesia in June 2002 and turned over to the United
States. Pentagon officials confirmed that he was one of the fugitives
only after the information was disclosed this week at a military trial
in Texas of an Army sergeant charged with maltreating detainees in
Afghanistan. Mr. Faruq was identified by an alias at the time of the
jailbreak.

His disappearance, a major source of embarrassment to American
officials at the base, came to light on Tuesday when defense lawyers
for Sgt. Alan Driver demanded to know where he was so that he could
testify at the trial.

Commanders in Afghanistan said security at the prison had been
redoubled after the detainees escaped.

American intelligence officials say that they believe that Mr. Faruq
set up the Qaeda network in Southeast Asia in 1998, and that they were
convinced at the time he was captured that he knew a great deal about
pending attacks. At the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation
center at Bagram, Mr. Faruq initially provided little useful
information, intelligence officials said.

Most details of his interrogation are unknown, except that the
questioning became prolonged, extending to around-the-clock sessions,
American officials said. Some interrogation specialists have said he
probably was left naked most of the time, with his hands and feet
bound.

The military prison at Bagram was established as part of a broader
network of American detention centers set up around the world after the
Sept. 11 attacks. The most secret of the centers, in several foreign
countries, are those run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Those centers house about three dozen terror suspects, including Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that among the sites were some
in Eastern Europe countries, including one at a former Soviet air base.
It was previously reported that the facilities used in the past by the
C.I.A. had been located in Thailand and other countries in Southeast
Asia and in the Middle East.

The Post did not publish the names of the Eastern European countries
involved, saying it was honoring a request from American government
officials.


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