Dutch-Iraqi terror suspect brutally tortured in US jail: report
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Berlin, Oct 15, IRNA -- A Dutch-Iraqi terror suspect who was released from prison on Wednesday said he was tortured while in detention in the United States, according to Dutch news reports.
Talking to the ANP press agency, Wesam al Delaema said he confessed to planning attacks on American troops in Iraq after he had been imprisoned for half a year in an unheated, windowless underground jail cell in Washington D.C..
Abu Ghraib prison guards subjected the hairdresser from Holland to 'horrible, humiliating treatment,' according to al Deleama.
'It was torture. Nearly all guards had served in the US army in Iraq. They made it clear that I had no rights at all and would not be granted any, either,' al Delaema said.
'It was Abu Ghraib in Washington, I could only get out by confessing something,' he added.
Describing the conditions under which he was held, the Iraqi-born Dutchman said, 'The lights were on around the clock. The fire alarm was sounded every few hours, so we could not sleep.'
'It was bitterly cold in winter and I frequently had to strip and sit naked in the cold. It was terrible. One day they took me to a cell where someone had hanged himself. The guards told me to go and hang myself, too. I'd never seen a thing like that. I was forced to witness rapes. They broke me,' he went on to say.
Al Delaema insisted he was not involved in any attacks or in their preparation.
Having settled in the Netherlands in 1991, he said he went back to his native city of Fallujah for a family visit, and was shocked by the war situation there.
'I filmed resistance in Fallujah and recorded what they did. I may have acted like I was one of them, but I wasn't. Sure, I was angry with what the Americans have brought about in Iraq,' he said.
Even though friends of his were killed by US bombs and family homes were destroyed, al Delaema stressed he never resorted to violence.
'I don't want to kill people, nor am I able to. That's why I fled from Iraq in the first place. I didn't want to be in the army,' he said.
OT**1420
Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30021166
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