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Taquiyah, Samstag, 26. April 2003, 23:28 (vor 8042 Tagen) @ Taqiya

Daylight falls on Iraq´s torture chambers

By MARK MAGNIER
Los Angeles Times


NASIRIYAH, Iraq - Sheik Lami Abbas Ajali looked
around at the small cell where he spent several
bleak weeks of his life and recounted the torture:
How he was hit, prodded, had his eyelids pulled
back, electric shocks applied to his temples and
genitals, how he was handcuffed with tight
manacles and then lifted into the air from behind.


He recalled yesterday how torturers stuffed 10
suspects into an eight-foot by six-foot room so
only two could sleep at any given time while the
other eight were forced to stand. And how he was
kept blindfolded, never quite sure where he was,
where they were taking him, what would hit him
next.

With the fall of Saddam Hussein´s regime, the
spotlight now illuminates such places as the
Nasiriyah Detention and Security Center, a lair of
the secret police on Habubi Street in the middle
of this midsized Iraqi city. Torture was so
widespread in Iraq under the Baath regime, and
performed with such impunity, that virtually every
community had its own house of horrors. And now
their doors have been thrown open.

A few weeks ago, coalition aircraft bombed the
detention center amid fighting in Nasiriyah. Now
daylight can be seen through the roof and walls as
twisted reinforcement rods reach for the sky at
jagged angles.

There were no neighbors to hear the screams,
residents said, because the area was off limits
and reserved for military use. Ordinary people
said they knew to avert their eyes and avoid
showing any interest in the building.

"We all knew about it, but no one would even walk
down this street," said Jamal Rashid, 35, a
trader. "Only the Baath party members could come
anywhere near here."

The sheik returned to the prison and torture
chamber Saturday for the first time since he was
detained in March 1996. His crime, he said, was
nothing more than being a Shiite Muslim, which was
viewed suspiciously by the Sunni-dominated regime.


The accounts by Ajali and others could not be
independently verified, but human rights groups
said they match a pattern seen in Saddam´s Iraq.

Stories like Ajali´s - widely known but never
aired in public before - are being told throughout
the country now. The revelations are cathartic for
some, but are giving rise to rumors and even some
false hopes.