Two Sudanese Released in Guantanamo Affirm “Intensive Violations” in Guantanamo

Al Hayat
by Alnor Ahmad Alnor
December 14, 2007                                                                                                            Get Arabic original here

The United States released two of nine detained Sudanese from the Guantanamo base. Yesterday morning, Adel Hasan Abd al-Mutallib, Salem Mahmoud Adam told a story of their imprisonments five years ago, just hours after they arrived in Khartoum on an American military plane. They affirmed their experience of “intensive and severe violations” in the prison, some of which went so far as to prevent one of them from sleeping for three successive days.

In a press meeting yesterday with his colleague Salem Mahmoud, Adel Hasan stated that the American administration released them after ascertaining that they did not present a threat to American national security. They spoke about the unfathomable conditions that Sudanese who remain at Guantanamo are still suffering under. They reported that Sami al-Haj experienced a severe treatment by prison authorities to deprive him of food, and that he has pain in his joints, back, neck, knees, and kidneys, with lesions on his face. They also reported that Amir Ya’qub Muhammad al-Amir has experienced severe intestinal disorders and suffers from Bilharzia and indigestion, that Mahmoud and Ibrahim Ahmad al-Qawsi both suffer infections in their feet, and that Muhammad Saleh complains of back pain.

The two men also stated that initially, along with their colleagues, they had suffered tremendous difficulties in conducting religious practices, and that some detainees had committed suicide as a result of such difficulties. They added that such obstructions were terminated after the Americans established a law forbidding meddling, insulting, or even offering food while detainees conducted such rites.

Adel Hasan explained that he had been imprisoned in Afghanistan on July 17, 2002, later being moved to Guantanamo where he encountered a most hideous treatment that involved dogs, strip searching by guards, a full body cavity search, and sleep deprivation over the course of three successive days. Becoming very emotional, he also stated that his daughter Rahmah did not recognize him when he returned yesterday, given the sheer length of his imprisonment, and that his family had suffered a drop in their standard of living after losing their primary breadwinner.

Salem Mahmoud Adam related a story similar to that of Adel. He was captured in Pakistan in May, 2002 in a despicable manner that greatly compromised his dignity and violated his sense of human decency. He asserted that he would never forget how he spent twelve days in a security compound in Peshawar before being transported to Baghram Air Base in Afghanistan, and afterward to Cuba. He stated that he was subjected to severe and repeated interrogations, and that he experienced a contempt “worse than that reserved for animals.”

Hasan Saeed al-Mujammir, the director of Civic Aid International, an organization that took up the case of the Sudanese detainees in Guantanamo, stated that the two lawyers for Adel and Salem insist that their release from captivity “is not the end of the affair.” They spoke of the need to pursue legal action against the American administration, especially against President George Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and of working to secure an official apology to the Sudanese citizens who were sequestered behind walls for more than five years without committing any offense.

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