Russians suing the u.s., britains suing the u.k. over torture at guantanamo

[alonzomourning23]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/02/04/920895-ap.html

MOSCOW (AP) - Several Russian citizens who alleged they were tortured while being held at the U.S. navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said they plan to sue the U.S. government in interviews published Friday.

Timur Ishmuradov, who said he was detained by Taliban forces in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, charged the U.S. government allowed prison officials at Guantanamo to systematically torture him, Izvestia newspaper reported.

"I am very angry at Americans for what they did to me - I have traces of their tortures on my body," Ishmuradov told Izvestia.

"I have scars on my back after being dragged on the ground," he said.

"They would beat me during interrogations and also while taking me from one place to another."

Foreigners from about 40 different countries have been held at the Guantanamo Bay base - some for more than three years - without being charged with any crimes. They were mainly swept up in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

U.S. authorities said they have treated the Guantanamo prisoners consistent with the Geneva Conventions, although they said the accords do not apply to the detainees, claiming they are "enemy combatants," as opposed to prisoners of war.

Ishmuradov and six other Russian citizens were returned to Russia last March. An eighth Russian man, Ravil Mingazov, remains at Guantanamo, Izvestia said. The seven were held at a pretrial detention centre in southern Russia, then released in June. All were seized in Afghanistan by U.S. forces on suspicion of fighting for the Taliban.

Airat Vakhitov, 29, said he lost 66 pounds during his first several months in Guantanamo. He recalled prisoners were forced to change cells every 15 minutes and deprived of sleep, Izvestia reported.

When violating prison rules, detainees were beaten and prison guards also used tear gas against them, Vakhitov told the newspaper. When prisoners were praying, guards would hit them, forcing the men to take their clothes off, he said.

Vakhitov said he continues to be harassed by Russian law-enforcement officials and cannot find a job. He said he plans to sue the U.S. government.

"I think I will follow Airat's example and take U.S. authorities to court," former Guantanamo detainee Ravil Gumarov, 42, of Tajikistan, was quoted saying by Izvestia.

"Nobody wants to hire me now."

Meanwhile, in Geneva, Switzerland, UN human rights experts expressed concern Friday about possible "irreversible psychiatric symptoms" developing among prisoners entering a fourth year of virtual solitary confinement at Guantanamo.

The experts on arbitrary detention noted allegations detainees at Guantanamo may be subject to "inhuman and degrading treatment."

Human rights officials have expressed concern about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo.

A secret report obtained by The Associated Press found guards punched some detainees, tied one to a gurney for questioning and forced a dozen to strip from the waist down. One squad of guards was all-female, traumatizing some Muslim prisoners, said the report that summarized what investigators saw when they viewed 20 hours of videotapes of the squads.

"The conditions of detention, especially of those in solitary confinement, place the detainees at significant risk of psychiatric deterioration, possibly including the development of irreversible psychiatric symptoms," the UN experts said in a statement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4240107.stm

British terror suspect held captive in Guantanamo Bay for 33 months plans to sue the government, it is reported.
Martin Mubanga claimed in the Observer that an MI6 officer played a key role in consigning him to the Cuban camp, following his initial arrest in Zambia.

Mr Mubanga, who holds dual British and Zambian nationality, says he was subjected to brutal interrogation at the camp and was daubed with urine.

The Foreign Office said it could not comment on matters of intelligence.


Stripped and confined

Mr Mubanga, 32, from London, was freed from the US camp last month along with fellow Britons Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar and Moazzam Begg.

In the first media interview given by any of the quartet, Mr Mubanga told the newspaper his worst moment came last March when he was told he would be released, only to be confined and told he would be there for many more years.

He added that, even as US authorities began to doubt his guilt, he was stripped of his clothes and mattress and forced to remain in an empty metal box, naked except for boxer shorts.

He also recalled an interrogation when he was ordered to urinate in the corner of an interview room while chained hand and foot.

A US interrogator then, he said, dipped a mop in the pool and daubed him with it.

'Break me'

Mr Mubanga, who insists he does not feel bitter, said: "I've lost three years of my life, because I was a Muslim.

"If I hadn't become a Muslim and carried on doing bad things, maybe I'd have spent that three years in a regular prison.

"The authorities wanted to break me but they strengthened me. They've made me what I am - even if I'm not quite sure yet who that person is."

Mr Mubanga's lawyer Louise Christian said: "'We are hoping to issue proceedings for the misfeasance of officials who colluded with the Americans in effectively kidnapping him and taking him to Guantanamo."

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said it was "vital" to establish whether ministers approved Mr Mubanga's transfer to Guantanamo.

'Properly detained'

In response to the article, the US Department of Defense said: "The Department of Defense has no doubt that Mr Mubanga was properly detained as an enemy combatant under the laws of war.

"He was detained to prevent him from fighting against the US and our allies in the war on terror."

The department's statement added: "US policy condemns and prohibits torture. US personnel are required to follow this policy and applicable law.

"Torture is illegal, it's immoral and it doesn't work."

The statement also suggested that Mr Mubanga had a motive in making his claim. It said: "Al-Qaeda training manuals emphasise the tactic of making false abuse allegations.

"That this detainee is now making allegations of abuse at Guantanamo seems to fit the standard operating procedure in al-Qaeda training manuals."

A Foreign Office spokesman said he could not comment on the activities of British intelligence or security agencies.

Mr Mubanga says he was seized in Zambia in March 2002 after travelling to visit relatives.

He had previously spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he went to study Islam, and maintains that he does not support al-Qaeda and he condemned the September 11 attacks.

Among the evidence used against him was his passport, which he says was lost but was produced by an agent who said it had been found in a cave in Afghanistan.

Mr Mubanga and the three other freed British detainees were released without charge by UK police on their return from Cuba.

I hope they win.

 

[bmulligan]

I hope they win

Of course you do. You hate all things relating to Bush and "this president's" war on terror. And you love anything that shades our efforts in a bad light. You are not the slightest bit objective in your analysis of the news story and are basing your decision purely on a pre0concieved opinion of our millitary and it's mission.

I love this quote from Mubanga:

"If I hadn't become a Muslim and carried on doing bad things, maybe I'd have spent that three years in a regular prison.

"The authorities wanted to break me but they strengthened me. They've made me what I am - even if I'm not quite sure yet who that person is."

So, he HAD been doing bad things! Too bad we let him go.
We strengthened him too. Obviously he harbored mal intent for the US BEFORE, and we strengthened that belief. YEah, we should believe everything this guy has to say because it MUST be the truth. He was just visiting relatives and doesn't know how his passport ended up in a cave in Afganistan. He went to Pakistan and Afganistan to study Islam, right........

 

[alonzomourning23]

[quote name='bmulligan']

I hope they win

Of course you do. You hate all things relating to Bush and "this president's" war on terror. And you love anything that shades our efforts in a bad light. You are not the slightest bit objective in your analysis of the news story and are basing your decision purely on a pre0concieved opinion of our millitary and it's mission.

I love this quote from Mubanga:

The prisons that the u.s. runs have come under constant allegations of torture and abuse, some proven, some not, and the u.s. has publicly admitted to lessening the standard of treatment for prisoners. The u.s. no longer has credibility in its denials of abuse and torture, and the u.s. is at fault for the erosion of that credibility. This is not to say that the prisoner is credible, but we know abuse and torture does occur, it is simply figuring out which are credible and which aren't. And also, if I kill or torture a man and then get convicted for a murder that I did not commit, few would be concerned. That is not to say it's legally defensible, but morally, few would care.

You can't prevent these things by ignoring them, only by pointing them out and holding people and governments accountable for their actions can you begin to change them. For someone who is so against government intervention in his life, you are suprisingly trusting and confident in it's international behavior.

"If I hadn't become a Muslim and carried on doing bad things, maybe I'd have spent that three years in a regular prison.

"The authorities wanted to break me but they strengthened me. They've made me what I am - even if I'm not quite sure yet who that person is."

So, he HAD been doing bad things! Too bad we let him go.
We strengthened him too. Obviously he harbored mal intent for the US BEFORE, and we strengthened that belief. YEah, we should believe everything this guy has to say because it MUST be the truth. He was just visiting relatives and doesn't know how his passport ended up in a cave in Afganistan. He went to Pakistan and Afganistan to study Islam, right........[/quote]

Few things, first some people actually did go to afghanistan believing it was a shining example of an islamic state, and not for terrorist reasons (not my opinion, or the majority opinion, but people like that do exist). We have to look beyond our opinion of afghanistan and try to figure out what others saw in it. That is if we want to accurately judge the people who have been detained. You logic here is "he was in afghanistan, and a u.s. soldier produced his id", you don't even know if the ID produced was legitimate, or that the agent was telling the truth over where it was found. All you have done is provided circumstantial evident and, while naturally weak, it is extremely weak even as circumstantial evidence goes.

Second, what did he do? You said he was doing something, but neither you or the article said what. You jumped to conclusions over what it was. You don't know what the "bad things" were, and it could mean very different things. Was he a war criminal and then changed (if this is true, there is not sense in putting him in guantanamo when he has changed his ways and can aid your cause), or was he simply "immoral" and then started to observe islam? Or, he could mean that his ceasing of bad things led to him aiding the taliban and their cause. The meaning of that statement is not evident, and since we don't know anything about him we cannot really even guess.

Third, hatred for the u.s. is a horrible reason. Fighting the u.s. in afghanistan is also a horrible reason for abnormal prison treatment, there is a difference between terrorist resistance and simply resistance. The majority of those who have fought the u.s. when it invaded in afghanistan did not qualify as terrorists and did not keep up resistance. A person who fights the u.s. invasion of afghanistan, but did not harm civilians or participate in terrorism, should not be treated any worse than the majority of combatants that we released long ago (though, there treatment can be debated as well).

Look, I'm aware that ones personal opinion leads to a biased view of things. That's true for everyone. You're personal opinion led to jumping to conclusions, and treating your opinion as fact without evidence. Your trust in the government, something you repeatedly state cannot be trusted domestically, and its claim that it did not abuse him, though we know that these allegations, if true, would not be unique. Even if he wasn't abused, it's simply a case of being punished for a specific case of torture it did not commit, instead of one of the cases of torture it did commit. An individual is not being accused, so there is not a chance of imprisoning or punishing an innocent person. While biases do shape opinion, my original statement did not distort anything, your statements did. You seem to forget that your views are just as biased as mine, but yours seem much more inconsistent, particularly your trust in the behavior of our government. You also are extremely trusting of your biases and your perception, something which is always dangerous. You don't seem to even attempt to see the other side, I may not agree with it it, but at least I try to see it.

Also, why you think the government would be more responsible in an environment where it has even less acountability than abu ghraib is beyond me.