Indians claim they were abused in Iraq’s US military camps
NEW DELHI - A group of 20 Indians who ran away from a United States military camp in Iraq, where they worked in the kitchen, claim they were abused for nine months, it was reported on Tuesday.
The men from southern Kerala state paid 75,000 rupees (1,700 US dollars) each for visas to Kuwait last August. They were cheated by employment agents and landed in Baghdad.
One man, Hameed, said they were taken to a US military camp in Mosul where they were told that they had been bought to work in the kitchen, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
“We were slaves in the American kitchens. We barely got two hours of sleep. Any slip-ups and we were tortured for days,” Hameed said.
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<http://www.uruknet.info/?p=2372>
Another Iraq Prison Cited in Army Lawsuit
Tuesday May 4, 2004 4:31 AM
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER
Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Canadian civilian who claims he was falsely imprisoned, tortured and injured by Army interrogators shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year is suing the Army for $350,000.
Attorney Thomas Nelson said he filed the suit with the U.S. Army Claims Office on April 30 on behalf of Hossam Shaltout, 57, of Los Angeles.
The charges coincide with a larger scandal involving alleged mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq. Photos made public last week showed U.S. soldiers humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners at the U.S. Army-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
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full at --
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4051030,00.html>
What about the other secret U.S. prisons?
Reed Brody IHT
We must all, like President George W. Bush, share a "deep disgust" at the pictures of U.S. military personnel subjecting Iraqi detainees to humiliating treatment. The problem, however, is that this does not appear to be an isolated incident.
Across the world, the United States is holding detainees in offshore and foreign prisons where allegations of mistreatment cannot be monitored. It has also been accused of sending terror suspects to countries where information has been beaten out of them.
The classic case, of course, has been Guantánamo, Cuba, which the Bush administration deliberately chose as a detention facility for more than 700 detainees from 44 countries in an attempt to put them beyond the reach of the U.S. courts - and of any courts, for that matter. The U.S. government has argued that U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction over these detainees even if it they were being tortured or summarily executed.
But Guantánamo may not be the worst problem; indeed, it may even be a diversion from more extreme situations. Perhaps out of concern that Guantánamo will eventually be monitored by the U.S. courts, the Bush administration does not hold its most sensitive and high-profile detainees there. Terrorism suspects like Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are detained instead in undisclosed locations outside the United States, with no access to Red Cross or other visits.
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<http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=518058.html>