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Libyan Detainee, Fearing Torture, Fights Transfer Home
Khiria, with mother Rahima, shows a picture of her father, Abdul Ra'ouf Omar Mohammed Abu al-Qassim, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who has been cleared to be sent home to Libya. Qassim is concerned that he will be tortured in Libya and has fought the transfer in U.S. courts.
(Center For Constitutional Rights And Afghanistan Human Rights Organization)
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Markey, in a letter to the State Department this week, said it would be a "grave injustice" to send Qassim to Libya, because the State Department has reported that the country engages in torture, including electric shocks and suffocation. Markey said in an interview that Qassim -- by virtue of his alleged connection to a group that opposes the Libyan government -- is at particular risk for abuse.
"The State Department doesn't have a leg to stand on if they're going to contradict their own analysis," Markey said.
Qassim contends that he was never a terrorist or a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), as U.S. and Libyan officials allege. He wrote in a sworn statement that he was trained in weaponry while a conscript in the Libyan army, deserted in 1989 and went to Afghanistan in 1993. He and his pregnant wife fled Kabul for Pakistan when the U.S. bombing raids began in the fall of 2001.
"I did not participate in any hostilities against the Americans," Qassim said. "I especially did not endorse the September 11th attack."
"For all these years, I have been fleeing persecution, arrest and torture or death at the hands of the Libyan government," Qassim said. "I cannot go back to Libya because the risk is too great."
Human Rights Watch representatives believe there must be an open process that addresses detainees' fears of torture. So far, only five ethnic Chinese Uighurs have succeeded in avoiding transfer to China amid torture worries, but they were considered "no longer enemy combatants." The five went to Albania last year.
"While the vast majority of detainees want to go home and don't want there to be any more hurdles to slow down that process, there are a small number of individuals who have a credible fear of torture and who should not be sent home, based on no-torture promises from known torturers," said Jennifer Daskal, of Human Rights Watch.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
