HRW, Locked Up Alone (Abdulli Feghoul)
[Abdulli] Feghoul, an Algerian reportedly handed over to the US by Pakistani security forces and sent to Guantanamo in 2002, was informed over a year ago that he was cleared to leave Guantanamo. Yet he remains in Camp 6 [as of June 2008], having been moved there in December 2006.
In April 2007 he told his lawyers: “It seems that I am buried in my grave.” Five months later, in August, he was reportedly given the false impression that he was going home, having been taken to another camp, measured for clothes, and told he would be traveling within 24 hours. The next day, however, he was returned to Camp 6, where he has been held ever since.
As of February 2008, Feghoul had not been allowed a single phone call home in his more than six years of detention. Feghoul told his lawyers that the Red Cross brought him photos of his family in early 2008, but that the prison guards searched his cell and took two of the photos away. He told his lawyer he did not know why they were taken and that they had not been returned as of February 2008, when his lawyers last visited him.
Feghoul’s lawyers report that he is experiencing increasing difficulty coping with the psychological and physical effects of the profound isolation in Camp 6.75
Note
75. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Shawn Nolan, attorney for Abdulli Feghoul, May 14, 2008.
Source: Human Rights Watch, Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health in Guantanamo, June 2008, p.29.