'They
Abused Me And
Stole My Dignity'
By Rory McCarthy
13 May, 2004
The Guardian
An
Iraqi prisoner who was held for four months at the notorious US-run
Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad described yesterday how he spent 18 days
naked alone in a cell, often with his hands and feet bound together,
and was frequently beaten, urinated on and occasionally photographed
hooded and naked by American troops.
Saddam Salah al-Rawi, 29, said inmates were ordered not to reveal the
abuse to Red Cross officials.
For two hours yesterday
Mr al-Rawi, prisoner number 200144, gave a graphic and harrowing account
of his time in jail. Although he speaks no English, he named some of
the soldiers already identified in the investigation into prisoner abuse
at Abu Ghraib.
His account suggests
abuse at the prison was widespread and systematic and involved more
than the actions of a handful of junior soldiers. His testimony is one
of around a dozen being studied by the Iraqi Human Rights Organisation,
which eventually hopes to bring cases against the US military.
"I feel I lost
my dignity," Mr al-Rawi said. "I couldn't even raise my head
in my house when I went home."
Mr al-Rawi, a former
trainer in Saddam Hussein's feared special security organisation, was
arrested in Baghdad on November 29 last year. He claims he was detained
by Iraqi police after he went to warn them about a car he saw in central
Baghdad that he believed was packed with explosives.
He was moved to
a building in the Palestine Street district of Baghdad where he was
beaten and then transferred to a US military base where he was again
beaten. Four days later he was taken in an armoured personnel carrier
to Abu Ghraib.
According to his
"release form for detained civilians", Mr al-Rawi was held
at the prison from December 1 until he was freed on March 28 this year.
"Whatever crime they have committed has been reviewed and any time
required has been served," the document says. It is signed by the
camp commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Essick, but does not specify
the charges against Mr al-Rawi.
"When I got
to the cells the first American who came to me was called Sergeant Joiner,"
he said. Other prisoners have also spoken of a soldier named Joiner
and they appear to be referring to Specialist Charles Graner, one of
the soldiers who appears in the photographs and faces charges over the
abuse scandal.
"He locked
his arm under mine and holding the back of my head he beat my head against
the doors of the cells," Mr al-Rawi said. He was then hooded and
pushed into a cell which contained three or four other prisoners. He
asked one, who he named as Thamir Issawi, to turn around and to lift
up his hood with his bound hands to allow him to breathe more easily.
"When he opened my hood I could see his back. He was naked. All
of them around me were naked," he said.
When the evening
call to prayer sounded at dusk, Mr al-Rawi was taken out of the cell.
"They untied my hands and took off all my clothes, including my
underwear," he said.
He was then made
to stand on a box with his hands on his hooded head. "I stood like
this for an hour, or an hour and a quarter," he said. "Then
some American soldiers came and they were laughing and some were beating
me. They were beating me on my back and my legs. They were beating and
laughing," he said.
"I couldn't
bear it and then I fell from the box against the wall and then on to
the ground." At this point they removed his hood. "They were
talking and then one of them started to urinate on me. Then they started
to drop cold water on me."
Only when it was
morning was he returned to cell 42 in block 1-A, one of two main detention
blocks at Abu Ghraib. He slept on a metal bunk bed, without sheets or
a mattress.
He was kept in his
cell, frequently with his hands and feet bound. He described one position
he was forced to maintain in which his hands and feet were pushed through
the metal bars of the cell door and then tied together. "There
was a stereo inside the cell and it played music with a sound so loud
I couldn't sleep," he said. "I stayed like that for 23 hours."
Another position
he was forced to adopt was known as the "scorpion" position
and was initiated by a civilian American with a goatee beard who he
identified as "Steven". One of the civilians singled out for
criticism in the Taguba report [into abuse at Abu Ghraib, drawn up by
Major General Antonio Taguba] is Steven Stephanowicz, a contractor working
as an interrogator in the jail.
"They tied
my hands to my feet behind my back. My left hand to my right foot and
my right hand to my left foot. I was lying face down and they were beating
me like this," he said.
He identified another
soldier in the jail as "Schneider," which appeared to refer
to Sergeant Shannon Snider, of the 372nd MP Company, who was also criticised
in the Taguba report.
At times, he said,
the soldiers took photographs of him and other prisoners. "They
came to us and showed us the pictures they had taken of us and they
were teasing us," he said.
He said the soldiers
identified him in one of the photographs that has since been published.
The picture shows several naked and hooded detainees lined up next to
Private Lynndie England, of the 372nd MP Company, who is laughing with
a cigarette in her mouth and pointing at the men's genitals. He pointed
himself out as the man in line furthest from the cam era. "I remember
them taking pictures. I remember there were these prisoners standing
beside me. I was hooded but I remember a flash from the camera and the
sound of a click when they took the picture," he said.
Mr al-Rawi has a
tattoo of a large mermaid on his left thigh, although it was difficult
to make out the tattoo in the picture he showed.
On another occasion
he was threatened by a guard holding a dog on a leash. Another held
Mr al-Rawi, who was naked, from behind, pushing him towards the animal.
"What would you feel if you were in my shoes? I was terrified.
"In my cell
I was shouting: 'Please come and take me. Please kill me. I am Osama
bin Laden, I was in the plane that hit the World Trade Centre.' I wished
for death at that time," he said. "I wanted to be dead 1,000
times. I asked my God to take my soul."
After 18 days, the
beating stopped. His clothes were returned and the interrogation began.
Mr al-Rawi said he was so broken he gave the soldiers the answers they
wanted. "Whatever they asked me, I said yes. They told me I was
from Ansar al-Islam [a militant Iraqi group] and I said yes. I told
them the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad [another Iraqi militant group] was
my cousin. They asked me about Zarqawi [a Jordanian militant thought
to be in Iraq] and al-Qaida and I said yes even though I don't know
who they are."
Some time later
all the inmates were warned of an impending Red Cross visit and were
told by a soldier speaking through a translator not to reveal the punishments.
"The translator stood at the end of the corridor and shouted to
us: 'Look all of you. The Red Cross will come to you today and if you
say anything more than what is allowed then you will see a very, very
dark day today and tomorrow will be darker and so on and so on,'"
he said.
Several prisoners
who had been abused were moved from their cells before the Red Cross
arrived and replaced with other Iraqis, he said.
A Red Cross official,
who he named as "Eva," came to his cell to ask about conditions
there. "I couldn't say anything to her because there was a translator
and an American soldier standing behind her," he said. He said
after the visit some prisoners were tied to their cell doors by their
hands as a punishment.
At the end of March,
Mr al-Rawi was released. He was given clothes belonging to another prisoner
and $10 to catch a taxi home. There was also a warning: "One of
the soldiers told me: 'You were inside the prison and you saw some good
things and some bad things. Forget the bad things and remember only
the good.'"
When he returned
home he called off his planned marriage and now wants to testify at
the courts martial that will be held against the soldiers involved.
"I broke off the relationship with my fiancée because I
felt I couldn't get my dignity back," he said. "Just think
of all those prisoners in the jail. If Bush says sorry for them, will
it bring back their dignity?"