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View Full Version : Secret CIA torture chambers in Afghanistan



sonz
12-25-2005, 04:24 PM
Iraq’s notorious prison Abu Ghraib has become a byword for the U.S. disastrous war. The appalling photos that had been released by worldwide media depicting the torture, abuses, and humiliations of Iraqi detainees have shocked the world and sparked international criticism of the U.S. policies against prisoners of war whether in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Despite repetitive claims by the U.S. President George W. Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice that America does not employ torture as a method of obtaining information from detainees. Vice President **** Cheney went before Congress to try to exempt the CIA from proposed anti-torture legislation.

And recently, the Human Rights Watch stated that eight men held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, and five of whom were identified by name, have separately given their lawyers "consistent accounts" of being tortured at a secret prison, they called the "dark prison" or "prison of darkness," in Afghanistan at various periods from 2002 to 2004.

The detainees said they were arrested in various countries, mostly in Asia and the Middle East, and some of them were taken to Afghanistan and then driven just a few minutes from the landing strip to the prison, which means that they were near Kabul.

They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with heavy metal music blaring for weeks at a time.

Benyam Mohammad, an Ethiopian who grew up in the UK and one of the eight detainees who were subject to torture, told his lawyer that he was "hung up" in a lightless cell for days at a time, as his legs swelled and his hands and wrists became numb.

Benyam also complained of loud music and "horrible ghost laughter" that was blasted into his cell at the prison. Other prisoners could be heard "knocking their heads against the walls and doors, screaming their heads off," he said.

HRW says that "the prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency," as, according to the detainees’ accounts, Afghans and Americans in civilian clothes were responsible for the prison. Even American interrogators did not wear uniforms.

The U.S. military declined to comment on HRW report.

The New York Times said it was told by midlevel Afghan intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, that they were aware of several places where U.S. forces detain people, some named Camp Eggers, in Kabul, and the Ariana Hotel, which is close to the presidential palace that CIA officials have occupied in 2001.

Among reports that could be taken as evidence against the United States, was one linked to the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Arab descent who was arrested in 2003 at the Macedonian-Serbian border and turned over to the CIA, which he said mistook him for some terror suspect of the same name.

In 2004, Masri was flown to a prison where he stayed for four months. His captors told him that he was in Kabul.

The Rights groups reported that 26 people had been "disappeared" and were believed to be held in secret prisons operated by the U.S.

The report adds that the detainees were held incommunicado and that they were never denied visits by the Red Cross.

One of the detainees, whom the HRW identified him as M. Z., said he was arrested in 2002 outside Afghanistan and held in the "prison of darkness" for about four weeks.

M. Z. told his lawyer that he was kept in an "underground place, very dark," in solitary confinement.

"During interrogations, he says, an interrogator threatened him with rape," the report said.

Another detainee said that "People were screaming in pain and crying all the time." The report further stated that some of the detainees were taken from one secret location to another and that some of them eventually transferred to the main U.S.-run Bagram military detention facility.

"The U.S. government must shed some light on Kabul's 'dark prison,' " said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.”No one, no matter their alleged crime, should be held in secret prisons or subjected to torture."

The groups suggested that a hangar, covered in a huge tent and close to Kabul airport, is another suspected detention center.

According to Afghan airport personnel, Americans used the hangar, bringing aircraft close to it for off-loading until a year ago.

Also Brick Factory close to the U.S. air base at Bagram, is another suspected facility. A mechanic who worked in the factory in the early 1990's said it’s a huge Soviet-era transport mechanics yard with different workshops.

After the fall of the Taliban, the factory became a CIA training base, said an American military official who was based in Afghanistan in 2003.

HRW also accused Poland of being “the heart of the CIA's secret detention network in Europe”.

"Poland was the main base for CIA interrogations in Europe, while Romania played more of a role in the transfer of detained prisoners," HRW's Marc Garlasco told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza Dec. 9.

Garlasco assert that the information is based on CIA sources and other documents obtained by Human Rights Watch. "We have leads, circumstantial evidence to check but it's too early to reveal them," Garlasco said.

Campaigner Robert Lawrence organized a one-man demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament, protesting against the U.S. "torture flights" into Scottish airports.

Scottish Socialists assert there’s enough evidence into so-called CIA rendition flights for a police investigation. But Liberal Democrats said the UK government should immediately hold an independent inquiry.

However, Prime Minister Tony Blair refused giving orders for launching an inquiry into recent allegations that the CIA used British airports to transport prisoners to third countries where they face torture and other abusive interrogation methods.
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