US officer's claim sparks new call for Hicks torture inquiry

[Joanne98]

DAVID Hicks' father, Terry, has called for an independent inquiry into claims his son was sexually tortured, after a witness report in the US described a similar assault by the US millitary at the same site in Afghanistan where Hicks was held.

The US report, released under freedom-of-information laws, was made by a senior military officer and describes an incident in February 2002 in which a prisoner was allegedly anally assaulted by military police at the US joint interrogation facility at Kandahar.

David Hicks told his family when they visited him at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 that he had been anally assaulted during interrogation by the US in Afghanistan while he was hooded and restrained.

"He said he was anally penetrated a number of times," Mr Hicks said yesterday. "They put a bag over his head, he wasn't expecting it and didn't know what it was. It was quite brutal."

Mr Hicks said his son could not see who assaulted him but could hear American voices.

"This report runs along very similar lines to what David has already told us," he said of the military officer's report. "Yet the Government has always said nothing happened to David."

Mr Hicks said his son reported the assault as part of torture allegations made to the Red Cross and the Australian consul, who referred it to the American military, but no evidence of abuse was found.

The Federal Government has said all allegations of physical abuse raised by David Hicks were dealt with, including in an investigation by the US Naval Criminal Investigation Service that found no evidence of abuse.

The sworn witness report by a US officer with "04" status, indicating the rank of major or above, said the incident it referred to happened while eight prisoners were being processed at the Kandahar site where Hicks was also processed.

The officer described seeing a military policeman preparing to undertake an anal probe of a shackled prisoner. "Without warning the (prisoner), and in a cruel way, he pushed both his fingers into the (prisoner's) anus," the officer said.

The prisoner reacted violently, screaming and falling to the ground, he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/us-officers-claim-sparks-new-call-for-hicks-torture-inquiry/2007/02/07/1170524164102.html

[babylonsister]

1. Did they pick these military cops for their level of sadism? Jeeze, and

NCIS claims there's no evidence of abuse?:eyes:

[Joanne98]

2. Democracy Now: From the book "Torture Taxi"....

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Afghanistan? Khaled El-Masri talks about being taken there and so many different people -- Moazzam Begg, before he was in Guantanamo, he was in Afghanistan.

A.C. THOMPSON: We wanted to go to Afghanistan, because that seems to be one of the hubs for extraordinary rendition, guys like Khaled El-Masri. And it's one of the places that the most information has leaked out about. Very little information has leaked out about Romania or Poland, for example, where we believe people also have been taken. So we went to Kabul looking to sort of find out what we could find out on the ground, to talk to people, human rights folks, the UN, average folks, and see what we could learn about these secret facilities.

And when we got there, we kind of learned to a certain extent that we were only looking a tiny piece of the story. We were interested in the CIA prisons and what was happening in them. And people in Afghanistan said, “You need to look at all of the military detention facilities in the country” -- and there's more than 20 -- because basically people are being held incommunicado. They're being tormented. They are not being -- they can't be visited by the UN or by human rights experts or even by the government of Afghanistan. And now it seems that some of these extraordinary rendition victims are getting mixed up with the military prisoners and getting moved over into military facilities from the CIA's secret facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the people you talk about is a commissioner of the Afghan Human Rights Commission, who was trying to get into these prisons and document what's happening.

A.C. THOMPSON: And Dr. Bidar down in Gardez, Afghanistan is completely frustrated because he's been trying to get in there for years, and he can't get in there. They won't let him in there, and this is a respected, prominent guy who is pro-American. So he's interviewed scores and scores of people who had been held in these prisons. And I tell you, the things that these men had to say when we interviewed them were really chilling. I mean, they were absolutely terrifying, and they sounded just like Abu Ghraib.

They loosed dogs on the men, snarling German Shepherds. They were held naked for days. They weren't fed for days. They were put in stress positions that were horribly painful and beaten if they broke from those positions. They were beaten over and over again. They weren't told why they were there. They were interrogated relentlessly for days for being supposed Taliban or al-Qaeda sympathizers. They weren't given the things they needed to properly practice their religion. I mean, all kinds of just horrendous stuff.

Dr. Bidar told us about one man who was forced to sit on a chair, he said, that penetrated his anus, that something was forced into his rectum torturously while he was tied to this chair. I mean, it was really revolting stuff. As we were talking to these gentlemen, I mean, some of them would start crying. Our driver, who was a tough Afghan former boxer left the room and started crying. I mean, it was really brutal.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/15/1342250

[Benhurst]

3. But , but ... aren't you thankful for all our troops are doing for us?

[cal04]

4. Ruddock takes fresh fire on Hicks

LABOR has accused Attorney-General Philip Ruddock of contradicting himself on whether the Federal Government could bring David Hicks home if they wanted to.

(snip)
On January 11, Mr Ruddock told a press conference that Hicks' American military lawyer Major Michael Mori was wrong to say that all the Government had to do was ask to bring Hicks home.

“I don't know whether or not the United States, in relation to a person about whom they believe they have sufficient evidence to put to trial, would be persuaded as a favour to convince those who have to review the evidence that they should take a different course,” Mr Ruddock said last month.

But yesterday, asked whether Mr Howard had told government MPs that the Government could have Hicks returned if it wanted, Mr Ruddock said the US could be convinced.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21191930-1702,00.html