The Telegraph
Alex Spillius
Alex Spillius
New claims of waterboarding by the CIA have emerged, contradicting claims by the US authorities that only three people were submitted to a practice widely regarded as torture.
The assertions were made by Libyan opposition figures arrested by the Americans and handed over to Col Muammar Gaddafi in the middle of the last decade when Washington was seeking rapprochement with the late Libyan dictator.
They are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 14 former prisoners after the fall of Col Gaddafi. Most belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that had worked to overthrow him for 20 years.
Two out of the men interviewed said they were submitted to interrogation tactics that match previous instances of waterboarding.
After his arrest in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya said he was flown for half an hour to a location he later came to believe was in Afghanistan.
He said he was placed on a board that could rotate through 360 degrees. After a hood was put over his face, he said, “They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.”
When asked how many times this was done to him, he said: “A lot …a lot … it happened many times …. They pour buckets of water all over you.”
Khalid al-Sharif, who was arrested along with al-Shoroeiya, said: They gave me a different type of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not.… Sometimes they stripped me naked and sometimes they left me clothed.”
Now head of the Libyan National Guard, Mr Sharif claimed he was held for two years in two different US-run detention centres believed to be operated by the CIA in Afghanistan.
Both men have always disavowed al-Qaeda and were never accused of sympathising with the global terror group by the Americans.
Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, said: “Not only did the US deliver Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first,” said “The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened.”
Human Rights Watch said the report demonstrated that Britain and numerous other countries were complicit in helping hand over Col Gaddafi’s opponents.
Intelligence documents discovered in Tripoli supported similar claims by Abdul Hakim Belhadj, leader of the LIFG who was a key figure in the overthrow of Col Gaddafi, and a deputy Sami Mostafa al-Saadi.
The US government has stated that only three senior al-Qaeda figures were submitted to waterboarding.
When he came into office in January 2009 President Barack Obama banned the practice and ordered an investigation into all so called harsh interrogation techniques. It recently concluded that CIA officials should be charged.
Last week Eric Holder, the US attorney general, announced that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003.
The assertions were made by Libyan opposition figures arrested by the Americans and handed over to Col Muammar Gaddafi in the middle of the last decade when Washington was seeking rapprochement with the late Libyan dictator.
They are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 14 former prisoners after the fall of Col Gaddafi. Most belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that had worked to overthrow him for 20 years.
Two out of the men interviewed said they were submitted to interrogation tactics that match previous instances of waterboarding.
After his arrest in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya said he was flown for half an hour to a location he later came to believe was in Afghanistan.
He said he was placed on a board that could rotate through 360 degrees. After a hood was put over his face, he said, “They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.”
When asked how many times this was done to him, he said: “A lot …a lot … it happened many times …. They pour buckets of water all over you.”
Khalid al-Sharif, who was arrested along with al-Shoroeiya, said: They gave me a different type of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not.… Sometimes they stripped me naked and sometimes they left me clothed.”
Now head of the Libyan National Guard, Mr Sharif claimed he was held for two years in two different US-run detention centres believed to be operated by the CIA in Afghanistan.
Both men have always disavowed al-Qaeda and were never accused of sympathising with the global terror group by the Americans.
Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, said: “Not only did the US deliver Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first,” said “The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened.”
Human Rights Watch said the report demonstrated that Britain and numerous other countries were complicit in helping hand over Col Gaddafi’s opponents.
Intelligence documents discovered in Tripoli supported similar claims by Abdul Hakim Belhadj, leader of the LIFG who was a key figure in the overthrow of Col Gaddafi, and a deputy Sami Mostafa al-Saadi.
The US government has stated that only three senior al-Qaeda figures were submitted to waterboarding.
When he came into office in January 2009 President Barack Obama banned the practice and ordered an investigation into all so called harsh interrogation techniques. It recently concluded that CIA officials should be charged.
Last week Eric Holder, the US attorney general, announced that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003.
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