Abdullah al Tayabi: Allegations of Abuse
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Tribunal President: You may now present any information or evidence you have to this Tribunal and you have the assistance of your Personal Representative in doing so. Do you want to present information to this Tribunal?
Detainee: Yes, my information is with the Personal Representative.
The Detainee chose to take an oath and was administered the Muslim oath.
Tribunal President: With the assistance of your Personal Representative you may begin.
Personal Representative: I am going to read each accusation against him and his response. He may decide to add more to that.
3.a. (The detainee is associated with forces engaged in hostilities with the United States or its coalition partners.)
This is not true. I am not associated with AI-Qaida. I have the evidence. If I were an enemy combatant, I would not have bought a round trip airline ticket.
Detainee: When you are done with this point I would like to add something.
Personal Representative: The only reason for my original statements is because I was tortured when I was captured. I was tortured in Kandahar, Kabul, and Bagram by interrogators.
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Detainee: I also did not carry any weapons. I did not go to any place that there was fighting and I did not participate in any fighting against the coalition.
Personal Representative: In Kabul, an Afghani interrogator beat me and told me that they would kill me if I didn't talk. They shot and killed someone in front of me and said they would do the same to me if I didn't cooperate. I was also beaten by Iraqi and Egyptian interrogators who were asking me questions and translating to the Afghani interrogator.
Before I was sent to Bagram, the interrogator told me that they would kill me if I didn't talk or send me back to the Afghanis if I changed my story. I was then transferred to Bagram where an America [sic] soldier put a gun in my face and threatened to kill me. This soldier threw me to the ground, dragged me by my legs, injured my foot and hit me. I have a scar on my foot to prove it. The interrogator was present at the time. Then they pulled a weapon on me and threatened me. They placed a thin hood covering my head and I was kneeling down at their mercy.
Whatever I said was because I was being tortured and threatened. I told this to the Red Cross in Afghanistan.
Detainee: When I was being beaten by the soldier the interrogator was saying the law was execution.
Personal Representative: I was then transferred to Kandahar. In Kandahar, they took all my clothes and the American soldiers hit me and kept me tied up in the rain for three hours. My hands and feet were tied so tight that I couldn't move my hands for a month and I couldn't move my feet for two weeks. One soldier kicked me in my knee and wounded me. I have a scar to prove it. I told this to the doctor and he was visiting me at night and gave me shots to sleep. I told the Red Cross what was happening to my body and mind. Before I was transferred to Cuba, the barber hit me in the scalp and made me bleed. I probably have a scar there but I can't see it because it is covered with hair. Also, before I went to the interrogator tent, a male and female soldier hit me. I was then transferred to Cuba. When I got off the airplane, the soldiers hit us. They had us shackled and had our eyes covered. They took off my clothes by the shower. The Red Cross asked them about my head wound. In the first month of detention in Cuba, the soldiers would hit me before bringing me to the interrogator.
Because of the torture I received when I was originally captured, I had to admit to things I didn't do. I said the same thing in Bagram so I would not be sent back to the Afghani who would have killed me.
There was a group of people from my country that visited me here. I told them some of the things and events then the soldiers hit me. This was about a month after I was brought here.
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At that time, I asked the interrogator for a psychologist and was refused. I told the interrogators that I tried to commit suicide twice. Fortunately, other detainees convinced me that I should not.
After that I met with four American interrogators and told them whatever I said in Kabul, Bagram, and Kandahar was false and that I only said those things because I was being tortured and threatened to be killed.
Some of the interrogators here put pressure on me such as withholding medication and by withholding letters from my family. The letters that I did receive were all marked out so I couldn't read them. Some interrogators were hard and some were soft. So the interrogators could keep their jobs, they tried to force me to admit things and not get to the real truth.
Detainee: There is something I would like to add. This is only a small part of the torture that we were subjected to. The whole time in Bagram, seven to nine days, my hands and feet were bound. They would also make us stay up and not get any sleep.
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[…] The new government was taking over Jalalabad. I was told that a lot of Arabs were being killed so my friends and I escaped to the mountains, so I wouldn't be killed. I was asking anyone how to get to Pakistan since I didn't have my passport any longer. I was told that all the passports were burned in the attacks. During this time that I was in the mountains, I lost my two friends. I joined up with other people trying to flee to Pakistan and we were attacked. We got to the village of Samer Kheer, when Afghanis kidnapped me and others and demanded money to be released. Some of the others were able to buy their freedom by having people send money, but I didn't have any money so I was kept in captivity.
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So that is how I ended up being captured by the Afghanis and then tortured to saying things that were untrue or be killed […]
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[…]
Q. Concerning the allegations of torture you made, do you believe you were tortured because you did not say what the interrogators wanted you to say or because you were not speaking at all?
A. The interrogators would tell me the accusations, I would start to answer, then they would beat me until I said yes.