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 Surviving a CIA ‘Black Site’Posted on Dec 18, 2007By Amy Goodman The kidnap and torture program of the Bush administration, with its secret CIA “black site” prisons and “torture taxi” flights on private jets, saw a little light of day this week. I spoke to Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in his first broadcast interview. Bashmilah was a victim of the CIA’s so-called extraordinary rendition program, in which people are grabbed from their homes, out of airports, off the streets, and are whisked away, far from the prying eyes of the U.S. Congress, the press, far from the reach of the courts, to countries where cruelty and torture are routine. Bashmilah is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and by the New York University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic in a lawsuit with four other victims of CIA rendition. They are suing not the U.S. government, not the CIA, but a company called Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Corp. A former Jeppesen employee, Sean Belcher, entered an affidavit in support of Bashmilah, reporting that Jeppesen executive Bob Overby bragged, “We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights,” further explaining to staff that he was speaking of “the torture flights,” and that they paid very well. Through a translator, over the phone from his home in Yemen, Bashmilah described how his ordeal began on Oct. 21, 2003, when he was arrested in Amman, Jordan: “It was approximately six days, but what I endured there is worth years. They wanted me to confess to having some connections to some individuals of al-Qaida. They tried several times to get me to confess, and every time I said no, I would get either a kick, a slap or a curse. Then they said that if I did not confess, they will bring my wife and rape her in front of me. And out of fear for what would happen to my family, I screamed and I fainted. After I came to, I told them that ‘please, don’t do anything to my family. I would cooperate with you in any way you want.’” After signing a false confession, he was told he was going to be released. In the process of being led through the Jordanian intelligence facility, he lifted his blindfold. “I saw another man who had a Western look. He was white and somewhat overweight and had dark glasses on. I realized then that they were probably handing me over to some other agency, because during the interrogations I had with the Jordanians, one of the threats was that if I did not confess, they will hand me over to American intelligence.” He was prepared for transit, stripped “completely naked. They started taking pictures from all directions. And they also started to beat me on my sides and also my feet. And then they put me in a position similar to the position of prostration in Muslim prayer, which is similar to the fetal position. And in that position, one of them inserted his finger in my anus very violently. I was in terrible pain, and I started to scream. When they started taking pictures, I could see that they were people who were masked. They were dressed in black from head to toe, and they were also wearing surgical gloves.” He says he was put in a diaper, had his eyes and ears covered, a bag was put over his head, and he had additional earphones put on his head to block noise. He was then flown to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was held in solitary confinement for close to six months. He believed he was being held by Americans. “Some of the interrogators would come to me and interrogate me in the interrogation room, and they would tell me, ‘You should calm down and be comforted, because we’ll send all this information to Washington.’ And they would say that in Washington, they will determine whether my answers are truthful or not.” Although kept isolated from other prisoners, he managed to overhear some of them speculating that they were being held at Bagram Air Base. He went on to say that he was kept awake with blaring music and was held in shackles that were removed only for periodic interrogations. While Bashmilah was being interrogated and tortured, he was also visited by “psychiatrists.” “[T]he therapy mainly consisted of trying to look at my thoughts and trying to interpret them for me, and in addition to some tranquilizers.” Bashmilah attempted suicide three times, staged a hunger strike that was painfully ended with a feeding tube forced down his nose, and was denied access to a lawyer, to any human-rights group, to the International Committee of the Red Cross. In effect, he was disappeared. On May 5, 2005, he was transferred to a prison in Yemen, where he eventually gained access to his family. Amnesty International got involved. He was released in March 2006 with no charges relating to terrorism. Mohamed Bashmilah said there were cameras in his cells and interrogation rooms. Perhaps tapes were made of his ordeal. Let’s hope that the CIA doesn’t destroy these, too. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. © 2007 Amy Goodman Distributed by King Features Syndicate Previous item: Gore Vidal on the Democratic Debate Debacle Next item: Eek! It's a Wrinkle! Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By pd, January 13 at 7:47 am # I have to take exceptionI have to take exception to the “put them back in office” remark - the 2000 and 2004 “elections” were not elections at all - as I believe has been sufficiently shown. 9/11 was staged by the same Right-wing cabal that overthrew the US Federal govt in 2000 by sabotaging the electoral process. This is the Fourth Reich. Wake up people, there’s only 11 months left. 2008 is not going to be an election either? Why would it be? Did someone go out and fix the vote fraud problem? Will they during the next 10 months? The question we should all be asking ourselves is very simple and very obvious: Will Dubya leave office without staging another major terror event? I betting not. Ymmv. Final thought about impeachment and why it hasn’t happened yet: “Impeachment is not on the able” [Pelosi] ??!!?? WtF? Is there some reason the “new democratic majority” who are covering for executive branch shouldn’t go up against the wall right alongside Cheney, the Bush Family, Rove, Rumsfeld, Gingrich, et al? The only one [reason[] I can think of is that Treason is/was a hanging offense, iirc…
By anthonybauwens, January 11 at 11:23 am # No wonder our soldiers areNo wonder our soldiers are treated the same way we must stop this humiliating toture.Top officials with their fingers in some ones Anus as if its a kick?No wonder the people living in Pakistan in the high regions have no tongs but every rifle sold is accurate.Mine failures we can also see in Kenia. This War is not getting better if we start mingling in Pakitan we are done.
By Kathleen Weber, January 7 at 7:09 am # The net behind the netCaveat Emptor. I don’t know how this was done, but I can’t change my password and have it stick. The site has a complete set of Chernobyl photographs taken by a RETIRED KJB [?] what we would call AEC, officer and his daughter who does love her motorcycle. Not really outraged by the maintinance of my site by people favoring free speech and sovereinty in the Ukraine. And the huffy assurances to the Russian People that the whole thing is a hoax are kind of funny. The father involved is his own buerocracy--there are hundreds of screensaver and high resolution shots of the devastation wreaked in a 100 mile radius of Cherobyl, plus some news analysis from former evil empire press. I was in the hospital with the consequences of years of HMO neglect of radiation linked health issues. I was previously [1997] interned in Oregon and put in the humiliating position of having to be rescued by the CIA--the Killerologists et. al. who flew me to friends here. I am living in an in law addition and writing as I can. The problem is obvious--who, how, why, and what else has been done to whom. Compared to my annoyance THE BIG PICTURE must be addressed--I was writing about the Falong Gong on the same site before my kidney burst. My word to prove I’m human shows a non randomization--a few nmbers inserted into the name of the newborn grandson of a euro-moroccan. I got a Foxfire update notice--so I saved this and rebooted it after the update. This may have allowed someone to interfere with the anti-spider device. The consequences on women Vets and their babies is a too much neglected subject--some of these women I was born 23 hours directly after the flashblindness p-aper-clippers’ NTS shot an am very sick. The insomniac kidney doctor who saved my life gave me a heavily mind altering The doctor who actually made the error The Hanoi Hilton with its horrors was a propoganda front. Some military counselors can get pre-releases of soon to be declassified documents if they are pertenant. If there were a way to I wrote a Clinton Era friend when heavily under the influence--writing syle is like fingerprints. I subsequently got the scoop. As journalists we should carefully lok at the cognitive functions of comrades i arms who are in the hospital. Kathleen
By davr, December 22, 2007 at 1:21 am # Bush, Cheney, et. al. areBush, Cheney, et. al. are responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of innocents. These people have to pay for their crimes against humanity and their crimes against the United States of America.
By karalla, January 4 at 5:56 pm # Re: #121455 by Expat•The election was stolen in 2000 and then again in 2004 with the e-voting machines. Unfortunately there is no Mr. Smith in Washinton?
By musings, December 20, 2007 at 5:00 pm # I'm kind of wondering aboutI’m kind of wondering about the education people have received which allows them to equivocate (speak “on the one hand, but also on the other hand") about 9/11. After physical evidence proves you cannot make cellphone calls from planes and you watch a host of controlled demolitions, along with the BBC blooper which says the WTC-7 has come down before it has (and then scrambling occurs, as well as the BBC’s temporary loss of this footage)—well, were you all taught that “A is not A” or something? What kind of chem labs have you taken in which you fully understand about the physical properties of water (polar) versus oil (nonpolar). I mean they have this society by the short hairs—because our service economy of couch potatoes fails to understand that once you have eliminated an alleged fact by impossibility, it is gone. The government’s case for 9/11 has sunk, long ago. But it doesn’t matter, because we are trying to get along with drunken daddy as he continues along that mountain road. We are praying and supplicating, when we should be taking away the keys. Do we deserve the founders of this nation, the rebels against British imperialism? Have we lost all sense of reality? These torture sessions are the fruit of an authoritarian system, one which will only get worse. How do we pull the plug on it, take away the keys? It will not be easy. We have been had. We were the appetizer course, and now they are on to the meat. But something may stop them before they get to the dessert. Others have our “daddy’s” number, if we do not.
By John Borowski, December 20, 2007 at 4:42 am # Expat #121455 in my opinion there is only about twenty five percent of intelligent, mature people of good character in this world. That group is led around by their noses by the ocean of ignorance that represent seventy five percent of the people in this world. This phenomenon has always cursed us and always will. The evils are aware of this ocean of ignorance and whether it is religion, politics, or any other evil they exploit it to fill their pockets with wealth and power. Their game plan is based on the concept that nothing matters except who dies with the most toys. One can see this ocean of ignorance’s muscle power on TV. Only the most puerile, inane programs, infantile commercials, or violent programs are successful. If we had seventy five percent of intelligent people in this country the Republicans (Aka Conservatives right wingers) would have been extinct a long time ago.
By Tree, December 20, 2007 at 1:19 am # My heart-felt apology to all the people my government has tortured since September 11, and to those tortured before. It is amazing that Perkins who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hitman is still alive, and good luck to Amy Goodman, and to all of us truthtellers. We need it!
By JC, December 20, 2007 at 12:02 am # ummm… does this count? Add Your Comment |
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